It turns out that City are not invincible when Erling Haaland scores. Manchester City can only manage a scrappy 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, even though Erling Haaland scored yet again.
Haaland is a machine. There are no other words I can describe this man with.
He now has 10 Premier League goals in his first 6 Premier League games, matching the all-time record of Coventry City’s Mick Quinn.
I can’t see how Haaland doesn’t win the Golden Boot this season considering two of his main rivals, Mo Salah and Cristiano Ronaldo, are really struggling right now. In truth, I can only see Harry Kane putting up a significant challenge to Haaland, though his role in Antonio Conte’s system will probably be his downfall.
Spurs simply won’t be able to provide Kane with enough chances to score at the pace Haaland will.
Anyway, onto the game, there really wasn’t that much to talk about in the first half. Villa knew they couldn’t play with Manchester City, even though they were at home, so they put ten men behind the ball and defended. Relentlessly.
Of course, City got their usually chances, with Gundogan and Haaland just missing on a few crosses, but Aston Villa held firm for the rest of the half.
But then Erling Haaland decided to show up.
Only four minutes into the second half, Kevin De Bruyne whipped in a great cross that looped over Aston Villa keeper’s, Emi Martinez, head and landed directly onto Haaland’s outstretched foot, which tapped the ball into the goal.
Like I said earlier, Haaland is just a goal-scoring machine at this point. Villa did everything they could to throw him off his game, such as fouling him and roughing him up, but it just didn’t work. Haaland was too strong and too smart to fall for Villa’s tricks.
Nevertheless, after Haaland’s goal, I though Villa was done for. Man City really started to up their pressure as De Bruyne (who hit the crossbar) and Haaland had a combined 5-6 ‘A+’ chances between them. If this game was played another 10 ten times, City would have scored one at least one of those chances and won this game.
But, fortunately for Villa, they didn’t score, which gave the East Midlands side a chance.
A chance they converted in the 73′. Jacob Ramsey, who’s instantly becoming one of my favorite players to watch (he’s super underrated), took the ball from midfield, dribbled past Rodri (which isn’t easy) to the edge of City’s box and then slide across a pass to Leon Bailey’s, who curled an outstanding strike into the top corner. It was a fantastic goal, even if Villa didn’t deserve it, that broke City’s resolve as they failed to register another “A+” chance.
The only other ‘great chance’ of the game was an offside, Phillipe Coutinho-classic top-corner strike in the 78′ minute. Sure, City dominated the game (as they had 73% of possession), but they really were missing their finishing boots today.
Thus, this game finished 1-1 as City failed to leap above Arsenal for 1st place in the Premier League.
This was a great point for Aston Villa (and Steven Gerrard, especially) as now they can go into their all-important clash against Leicester City, who is really struggling this season, next week with some momentum. If Steven Gerrard hopes to keep his job, this game against Leicester is a must win. If they fail to win against Leicester, I don’t see how Gerrard survives for much longer.
As for City, this is just “one of those games”. They should have won by 3 or 4, but their strikers and midfielders just couldn’t get on the end of any of their ‘A+’ chances. With them securing 14 points from a possible 18 in the first six games, sitting in 2nd place, and only 1 point behind Arsenal for 1st, they really don’t have to worry too much. Yet, they are playing Tottenham next, so maybe they do.
Images Source: Featured Image:
