If Manchester City’s task in the title race is to emulate Liverpool’s serial winners, this was a way to go about it. Jurgen Klopp’s team have made a habit of staging comebacks and City trailed for almost an hour before emerging victorious.
Their problem was not Southampton’s defiance, admirable as that was, but that Liverpool left it even later to conjure victory from the jaws of defeat at Aston Villa. This threatened to be a wonderful day for City. Instead, it merely preserved the gap.
But they could take solace from their powers of recovery. Kyle Walker was the improbable catalyst. If there was something predictable about the sight of Sergio Aguero on the scoresheet, the defender’s first two seasons at City brought two goals.
The former Tottenham man added an assist and another goal in the space of 16 minutes. Omitted from the last two England squads, this was a way of displaying he, like Trent Alexander-Arnold and Kieran Trippier, can be an attacking right-back.
Until then, it could have been a wonderfully unexpected redemption story for Southampton. After the embarrassment of the record 9-0 defeat to Leicester, they threatened to secure the shock result of the season. Aguero promptly restored a sense of normality to a previously illogical occasion, however.
“It was a crazy game to play,” reflected Walker. It is not unusual for City to score from their first shot on target. It is altogether rarer that effort comes in the 70th minute. Aguero provided the clinical finish to Walker’s drilled cross. It was the Argentinian’s ninth goal from 10 shots on target in the top flight, a sign of how precise he can be.
Walker displayed similar accuracy, sliding in to half-volley in Angelino’s cross. It rendered it a first Premier League start to remember for the Spanish left-back, normally the third choice, but a moment to forget for Alex McCarthy, who had failed to claim his deep centre. In his defence, McCarthy, under-occupied for so long, had denied Bernardo Silva and Aguero in a frantic, fraught finale.
Kevin de Bruyne had shot just wide but the second goal felt inevitable and, but for McCarthy’s fine save, Raheem Sterling would have added a third. Yet before the breakthrough, while John Stones and Aguero had headed over the bar, crosses had been over-hit, shots misdirected and wrong options taken.
But City showed the persistence to keep on going. Guardiola intervened, bringing on Gabriel Jesus at half-time to get someone closer to Aguero, switching Bernardo Silva to the left and instructing his team to cross.
“We did everything we could and in the end our intensity and our players paid off,” said the City manager. “We made a good comeback. The rhythm was high from the first minute. Big compliment for the team. Was not easy but we did it.”
Southampton made life difficult for City. Ralph Hasenhuttl has generated a response from players scarred by a historic humiliation. “It is a pity we didn’t get more than a few warm words but after last week it was absolutely necessary to show this reaction,” said the manager. “The squad was unbelievably committed, unbelievable defending and investing so much in defending our net.
“Football players have pride,” said Guardiola. “They are not going to accept again under any circumstances what happened against Leicester.”
Southampton were organised and compact, funnelling players back to cut off passing angles and congest the penalty area. “They defend with 11 players in the penalty box,” added Guardiola. “Like a tree. They allow you to go outside, they do not allow you to go inside. There are not spaces. [Forwards Danny] Ings and [Nathan] Redmond defend in the 18-yard box.”
Hasenhuttl had reprised his damage-limitation tactics from Tuesday’s League Cup tie. If it made for an extended attack-versus-defence exercise, Southampton sprang two of their central midfielders forward in one attack and were rewarded for that show of ambition.
Ederson’s excellence has been a constant in City’s start so it constituted a rare mistake when the Brazilian erred. He should have held Stuart Armstrong’s 20-yard shot but it escaped his grasp. James Ward-Prowse was swiftest to react, converting the rebound. “We’ve scored a goal,” chorused the Southampton fans. They have been more accustomed to conceding them in the last nine days.
But they also have memories of conceding cruelly late at the Etihad. In 2017, Sterling pounced in injury time. It was a decisive moment in City’s title-winning campaign. “Two seasons ago, the goal was later,” Guardiola reflected. “But [this was] quite similar.”
