Manchester City 3-1 Leicester City
Saturday teatime, four days before Christmas – the Premier League champions against the challengers.
Premier League 2019 highlights were expected and this meeting, between two sides whose form compared to this time 12 months ago is contrasting, didn’t disappoint.
Manchester City went into this match nine points down from this same stage a year ago, while Leicester were 17 up – a big swing.
Yet class is permanent.
Highlights of the game
City made two changes from their last Premier League game, a 3-0 win at Arsenal, with Bernardo Silva and Riyad Mahrez both starting and club-record signing Rodri and Phil Foden dropping to the bench.
Meanwhile, City’s record scorer Sergio Aguero was back in the squad after seven games out with a thigh injury.
Unsurprisingly, former Foxes star Mahrez was not granted a warm welcome by the visiting fans after unnecessary comments in the build-up to this fixture. Although, the booing was more half-hearted than anything concerted.
Harvey Barnes and Ayoze Perez replaced Dennis Praet and Kelechi Iheanacho for Leicester.
Kevin De Bruyne has been directly involved in 20 goals in the Premier League in 2019 (seven goals and 13 assists), the most of any midfielder this year.
He came closest to opening the scoring just before the quarter-hour mark as the contest began at a frenetic pace.
The Belgium international produced a rasping low drive from an angle, which struck the foot of the post. That shot started a period where the Foxes were put under real pressure.
First, Mahrez turned one way then the other before his deflected shot looped straight into the hands of goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.
Then, the winger showed smart footwork to escape his marker and laid the ball off to Gabriel Jesus, only for Schmeichel to prove equal to it again, brilliantly tipping the ball away.
So it was somewhat against the run of play when Leicester took the lead with the next attack.
Barnes set Jamie Vardy clear and, despite a poor first touch, he was too sharp for the home defence and delightfully dinked the ball over the advancing Ederson. It was Vardy’s 17th Premier League goal of the season.
It took a brilliant Schmeichel save – reminiscent of his father – to deny Raheem Sterling an almost immediate equaliser which, when did it arrive, owed to some good fortune.
The 2016 PFA Player of the Year Mahrez collected the ball on the right, drifted inside and rifled a low shot which deflected off centre-back Caglar Soyuncu and into the net.
After Schmeichel denied De Bruyne, Ricardo Pereira then clumsily tripped Sterling. Ilkay Gundogan fired home from the penalty spot, despite the excellent Danish shot-stopper getting a hand to it.
Had Ederson not shown sharp reflexes to deny Vardy, it would have been all square at the interval. City were understandably wary of the Foxes on the counter-attack after Manchester United’s showing a fortnight ago in the Manchester derby, City’s previous home game.
In the second half, Schmeichel produced another superb save to keep out Mahrez’s curling effort from the edge of the area before De Bruyne slipped past Soyuncu and rolled the ball across goal for Jesus to prod home the third.
More Schmeichel exploits kept the scoreline at 3-1 as City showed that, at their best, they remain a major force at home and abroad- — the SBOBET Premier League 2019 betting odds testify to that.
Key statistics
City have won 250 Premier League games in the 2010s; in English top-flight history, only Manchester United have won more league games in a single decade (255 in the 2000s).
Mahrez is the fifth player to have played for Leicester in the Premier League and then score against the Foxes in the competition, after Julian Joachim, Emile Heskey, Chris Wood and N’Golo Kante.
Sterling has won 17 penalties since his Premier League debut in March 2012, more than any other player in the competition.
Pep Guardiola has never lost back-to-back top-flight home fixtures as a manager.
De Bruyne has 10 assists in this season’s Premier League, more than any other player. He’s been involved in 15 goals, second only to Vardy.
Sergio Aguero has scored five goals in his five home Premier League games against Leicester, with four of those goals coming in one half when Manchester City won 5-1 in February 2018.
Leicester have kept an unrivalled seven clean sheets in this season’s Premier League.
This was the first time in 10 league games this season in which they have scored first and not won.
Vardy has 29 Premier League goals in 2019, six more than any other player.
What’s next?
Man City travel to Wolves next Friday (December 27) before hosting Sheffield United two days later. They then entertain Everton on New Year’s Day.
Leicester also have a hectic festive schedule. They are home to league leaders Liverpool on Boxing Day and then have to play West Ham less than 48 hours later – unfair when some clubs have much longer between matches.
They begin 2020 at Newcastle.
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