Manchester City show clear signs of progress to increase Sunderland’s relegation fears

Richard Jolly reports from the Stadium of Light where Manchester City defeated Sunderland.

Sergio Aguero, left, scored Manchester City's first goal, and Leroy Sane the second in a 2-0 win over Sunderland on Sunday. Nigel Roddis / EPA

Sunderland 0 Manchester City 2

Man City: Aguero (42'), Sané (59')

Man of the Match: David Silva (Manchester City)

STADIUM OF LIGHT // Pep Guardiola’s first Premier League game came against Sunderland. Manchester City needed an 87th-minute own goal from Paddy McNair to clinch victory. A reunion seven months later and on enemy territory was altogether more comfortable.

That is one sign of progress. Others abounded. There is an obvious focus on Sergio Aguero, who scored in both beatings of Sunderland, but City’s 2017 resurgence owes much to the ways others have added extra dimensions. It was significant that Leroy Sane scored the second goal — the summer signing has come of age in winter — and pertinent that Yaya Toure, the exile reinvented as a mainstay, turned in another hugely influential display.

Guardiola’s teams are built around the midfield and City have had both balance and incision since the reversion to 4-3-3. Even with Kevin de Bruyne benched for 77 minutes, they dominated possession at the Stadium of Light, making 716 passes to 288, bringing both control and a cutting edge as they kept a fifth consecutive away clean sheet and recorded a seventh win in eight games.

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Sunderland began industriously, preventing City from recording a shot on target in the opening half-hour. Then Aguero intervened in a goal that showed how a passing ethos and a predatory finisher can be natural bedfellows.

Guardiola’s belief in footballing goalkeepers was endorsed as Caballero began the move. Toure and David Silva gave it impetus and incision. Raheem Sterling supplied the low centre that Aguero touched in.

His cross took a slight deflection, but it was a sign of Sterling’s greater productivity. This was a 14th assist of the season to accompany his nine goals. Young wingers have a natural tendency to frustrate, but there are signs of maturity in Sterling’s decision-making.

Aguero’s goal was his fifth in three games. Cruel as Gabriel Jesus’ metatarsal injury was, City have not missed the young Brazilian and, as long as Aguero is in this form, will not.

There is a temptation to say Aguero is intent on proving Guardiola wrong after being demoted for the teenager, although the Catalan said: “We have an exceptional relationship.”

Another view is that the Argentine is improving because of his coaching and, after 81 sprints in a game, working hard. The simplest explanation that he is just a great goalscorer.

Yet he is not City’s only finisher now. Sane’s swift improvement has resolved the dilemma of who to play on the left wing. His sixth goal in 10 games was the product of his pace, enabling to drive a shot in off the far post, and was set up by Silva. The Spaniard spends more time in the inside-left channel this season, looking for runners overlapping, and too few opponents are managing to track him.

He combined terrifically, as he has done for years, with Toure, reinvented as the midfield controller. Sterling and Sane have referred to him as “uncle Yaya” and Guardiola joked he is the grandfather of the squad; in reality, the Ivorian is only in his 34th year, but while his rampaging runs are rarer now, his technical talents seem timeless.

Sunderland’s chances rest with another ageing figure. Jermain Defoe is lone striker and, perhaps, lone hope. He almost illustrated his potency with a shot that beat Willy Caballero and rebounded off the woodwork.

The margins can be narrow. Defoe hit the bar at Everton when Sunderland trailed 1-0, the post against City at 0-0 on Sunday. By the time he did find the net, the score was 2-0 and he was offside. His teammates’ industry was in vain. But for goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, who denied Silva, Aguero and De Bruyne, they would have suffered a heavier defeat.

In between serenading Guardiola, the City fans taunted former Manchester United manager David Moyes, sarcastically branding him a “football genius”. Last week, the Scot said he thought Sunderland needed five wins in 12 games to stay up. Now the equation is reduced to five from 11 and the task that bit tougher.

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