Manchester City 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 0: match report

Departing De Bruyne goal enough to see off Wolves and continue Blues strong hopes of Champions League qualification

Manchester City welcomed Wolverhampton Wanderers to the Etihad for a Friday night match in the Premier League. Following booking their place in the FA cup final against Nottingham Forest, the Blues returned to the Premier League with the overall objective of seeing out a top 5 finish and securing Champions League football for next season. Ederson started in goal. Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol and O’Reilly were the back 4. Gundogan, Kovacic and Bernardo Silva were in midfield with De Bruyne in attacking midfield. Doku and Marmoush appeared to be both be on the wing in what was a false 9 formation again.

City didn’t make the best start to the game. Wolves had the best of the opportunities in the opening 30 minutes, with a close chance coming in the 22nd minute when Cunha passed it in to the box leaving Bellegarde to just poke it into a virtually empty net but he couldn’t quite get there and the ball dragged out for a goal kick. Four minutes later, another massive let off was provided for City when Cunha was right in front of goal but it hit the post and rebounded back out to him and shot again and the next chance was blocked by Gvardiol on the line and the ball was eventually cleared away by a block from O’Reilly. City survived again.

After the half hour mark, the Blues seemed to wake up a bit and began to attack with more fluidity. In the 35th minute, Doku ran round the wolves defence into the box and laid it off to De Bruyne who struck the ball first time and it was in the back of the net to give City the lead. The Blues found themselves ahead after a lucky escape earlier.

City ended the first half on top and could’ve had another but will have been happy at half time anyway given the circumstances.

The second half was not as intense as the first half however, Wolves continued to miss some close chances. In the 56th minute, Cunha found himself with another fantastic opportunity but once again, he was denied by the woodwork. City seem to have been bailed out by the post on multiple occasions just this week.  Marmoush had a chance to score after City were almost clean through, but he put the ball over the bar. It wasn’t too eventful for the remainder of the game regardless of substitutions for each side, including Kevin De Bruyne in what was now his penultimate home game for the Blues. A challenge by Ait Nouri on Bernardo Silva was checked for a red card but it was cleared away despite the malicious looking nature of the contact in slow motion. Wolves had one last corner at the end of the game but it was cleared away without much fuss and the full-time whistle was blown.

The result puts City third, 3 points behind Arsenal and 2 points ahead of Newcastle, both with a game in hand. It wasn’t the strongest performance for the Blues but the main thing is they got the job done, they otherwise might not have had it have been earlier in the season. Just three league games and the FA cup final remain for City, with hopes for a strong finish to the season still high