It’s “Boxing Day” time! This Saturday afternoon, the Skyblues traveled to Aston Villa to open the 17th day of the Premier League. For the occasion, Pep Guardiola decided to make several important changes, seven in total, to the team which lost to rival Manchester United (1-2). The Spaniard decided to drop the three-man defense in favor of a four-man defense and to do without the Belgians: Kevin de Bruyne and Jeremy Doku. On the Villans side, Unai Emery decided to go with a classic composition with, this time, the Kamara-Onana-Tielemans trio in the middle and Matty Cash repositioned a notch lower on the right flank. Colombian serial scorer Jhon Duran is also once again preferred to Ollie Watkins at the forefront of the attack.
In a match where everything almost started very badly for the Citizens with an opening goal avoided by a few centimeters thanks to a superb save from Stefan Ortega on his line (2nd), Pep Guardiola’s men were unable to get their heads out water, and they quickly cracked because of the untenable Jhon Duran, well served by Morgan Rogers after a marvel of rapid transition (1-0, 16th). With this new achievement, the Colombian scored his 4th goal in 4 matches. We had to wait until the half hour mark to see the first real situation for City with a nice wrapped shot from Phil Foden repelled by Emiliano Martinez (34th).
Jack Grealish, the most agitated Citizen of the first half, also tried to hurt his former team, but his overly crushed shot ended up in the arms of the Argentine goalkeeper. Active as he had not been for a long time, the Englishman continued to try and the biggest chance of the first half for the Citizens came from him. Author of a good cross for Josko Gvardiol, left alone at the near post, the Croatian was unable to get his head into the Aston Villa goals (43rd) and saw his attempt slip into the bays of Villa Park.
Rogers sinks City
Returning from the locker room, Jhon Duran thought he could score the double, but he was caught by the patrol for being offside at the start of the action (50th). Morgan Rogers, very strong this afternoon, was also very close to doubling the lead after another action with a Citizen defense struggling, but his shot found the post (59th). It was only a postponement for the Englishman who scored five minutes later with a cross shot from the left (2-0, 65th) and rewarded himself for his excellent match, in which he martyred a Mancunian defense already in difficulty.
Manchester City finally saved the honor at the end of the match. After a lucky action in which Lucas Digne slipped on the ball and left Foden face-to-face with Martinez, the Englishman did not need to be asked and adjusted the Villans goalkeeper to score his first goal of the season in Premier League (2-1, 90+3rd). Faced with Manchester City in great difficulty, who have only won one of their last twelve matches, the Villans did not miss their chance to grab 5th place in the ranking to the detriment of their opponent of the day . With this victory (2-1), Unai Emery’s men are launching this Boxing Day in the best possible way.
