Croatian stars as Blues fight back but experience yet another tight finish in win over Fulham
Manchester City returned to action in the Premier League on Saturday afternoon against 6th placed Fulham, looking to win their first league game since the win over Brentford three weeks ago. Before the match, it was already confirmed that Kevin De Bruyne was still sidelined and would continue to be ruled out until after the upcoming international break. The City side was still very strong, with Rico Lewis earning another start after his impressive performance in the week. Grealish, Haaland and Bernardo started as the attacking front three with Gundogan, Kovacic and Foden in the midfield and the defence consisted of Akanji, Dias, and Gvardiol.
The match started with numerous chances for City, two opportunities opened up for Haaland and Gundogan but neither converted – giving a promising yet frustrating start to the game for City. This early flourish of chances was followed by a Fulham response who were able to counter and catch City on the break well. One such chance was when Adama Traore was clean through and looked bound to score but the shot was saved by Ederson, who performed very well in the game. City’s defence and midfield continued to struggle coping with the Fulham pressure however, as they are after all still getting used to not having Rodri in the XI and the breakthrough soon came for Fulham when a very skilled backheel pass from Raul Jimenez fell to Andreas Pereira who slotted the ball in to give the visitors the 1-0 lead. City found themselves behind on home soil once again and this season, have yet to have a home game completed where they weren’t on the back foot at any point.
Another near scare soon followed for the blues with the defence wide open yet again, the ball went from Alex Iwobi to Traore who looked certain to make it 2-0 to Fulham, but he blazed the shot over the bar, sparing further City blushes and leaving the visitors wondering what could have been.
Sharpening up and looking for a quick response, City now piled on the pressure at the other end, eventually forcing a corner. Initially defended, the ball fell right into the path of Mateo Kovacic, who struck the ball right into the net to make the scores level once more, continuing an impressive start to the season for himself in a City shirt. City pushed on to try and lead the game before half time, but the Fulham defence remained firm, with shots from Haaland and Lewis being blocked on the stroke of half time.
Fulham had clearly shown up to the game with the intention of getting something and City knew that the second half would be a hard-fought battle. Luckily for the blues, they had the perfect start to the second half with Kovacic stepping up once again to give City the lead, with a strike from distance following a pass from Bernardo Silva. Kovacic was making sure Rodri’s shoes were being filled with a goal like that.
Substitutions were made for City, with Jeremy Doku coming on for Grealish and captain Kyle Walker replacing Akanji. Shortly after the changes were made Fulham were in for an equaliser once more. In a rare moment, Traore outpaced Walker and looked certain to score once more but was denied by Ederson once again. From what surely could’ve been a hat trick for Traore – it now looked as though he was to leave the game with no goals scored despite the abundance of chances he had during the match. Fulham continued to pile on the pressure, in hunt for an equaliser and perhaps their desire was too great as they were eventually caught on the counter by City. Doku received the ball high up the pitch and dribbled in just outside the box and struck the ball straight into the top corner to give City a two goal cushion and surely wrapping the game up.
However, in what some may call “typical city” fashion, the blues once again had to grind themselves through a difficult situation to win, as shortly before the 90 minute mark the ball fell to Fulham forward Muniz, whose shot took a deflection and in to provide a tense finish.
With 5 minutes of stoppage time, Fulham gave everything they had but it wasn’t to be, with a corner being their greatest chance which was eventually diffused by a foul on Stones. City survived the final onslaught and the full time whistle blew, the final score ending 3-2 to City.
The blues won the match and took all three points, which is all that ultimately matters, but there will be slight dissatisfaction over how they were made to work for it and how they almost let a comfortable lead slip away late on. Fulham made a valiant effort and will be left frustrated that they didn’t do more with the chances they had, such as Traore’s hat trick of misses.
City remain 2nd in the table, 1 point behind Liverpool, who beat Crystal Palace 1-0, and level on points with Arsenal, who beat Southampton 3-1.