Luton Town 1-2 Manchester City (Adebayo 45+2′ | Silva 62′, Grealish 65′)
KENILWORTH ROAD — Manchester City went to Luton Town to stare their own hell square in the face and lived to tell the tale.
Never before in his managerial career had Pep Guardiola gone five league games without victory. His team trailed at half-time, bullied and a little bruised by a physical onslaught they should have known was coming and their own incompetence in turning control into goals.
Plot twist: this team is really very good when the component parts of its attack connect.
If the theory that Erling Haaland’s absence might remove the focal point of Luton Town’s defending to create a different, multi-headed beast, the theory looked bunk in the first half.
City had total control across two-third of the pitch, but were largely restricted to shots from distance that made Guardiola scowl like a teenager told to tidy his room twice.
Julian Alvarez was the potential salvation and the problem. There are things he does superbly well – winning lots of trophies at a young age, most notably – but he is in a funk and the liberty of a Haaland-less frontline did not cause its end. Four times in the first 25 minutes, Alvarez committed the cardinal Manchester City sin, losing the ball through a slack first touch.
But it’s not just him. City can be the best side in Europe to watch when they’re in full flow, a blur of fizzes and crackles and one-touch passes and finishes. Some of those present in Luton always live by that remit.
Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden were honourable exceptions to the general theme, magnificent throughout and diminutive leaders through example. Bernardo’s finish was worthy of getting any team back into any game.
The rest? Meh. Jack Grealish is unsurpassed at winning free-kicks and winding up the type of supporters who lets their eyes go googly when they use the worst curse words around children, but he was also guilty of stunting City’s rhythm.
The general pattern of play: Grealish gets the ball, beats a man, rolls his foot over the ball, dips back in the opposite direction and ends up where he started. In the meantime, seven players in orange shirts have rushed back like a team of well-meaning stewards.
A RAPID TURNAROUND FROM MANCHESTER CITY!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) December 10, 2023pic.twitter.com/mCcDicUuu3
The defending can be filed under “weird” too. The scenario is this: City look completely comfortable until the point that they don’t, at which point everybody wets themselves, the opposition score and then City defenders look at each other as if they had all blacked out for the previous six seconds.
We should at least commend City on their resilience, even against a club not created via vast state wealth. In the midst of a heady, spiky atmosphere, they passed quicker and more effectively after the break.
Grealish, playing close enough to those of a Bedfordshire persuasion that he could hear each of the taunts, offered a wink and a wave after the equaliser and then scored the winner. They escape with a win and wins are all that matter right now.
Luton are a different opponent in the winter than the autumn, an evolving Premier League side that should be relishing the prospect of proving everyone wrong. At home, there is a fairly simple formula against stronger teams: defend deep, look to cross into the box when they can and get the crowd to complain with such ferocity about every free kick that it piles pressure on the officials.
By the end they were chanting “2-1 to the referee” – that referee got no decision wrong all game.
It is fascinating – and alluring – to watch these players grow used to the intricacies of this challenge. Elijah Adebayo scored Luton’s goal and his becoming a particularly useful Premier League centre forward, a one-man band of ball protection and aerial duels.
Ross Barkley is loving his professional life again, conducting the tempo amid the storm. The wing-backs, Alfie Doughty and Ryan Giles, are raw but hardworking and as adventurous as possible.
Luton have earned nothing from their assignments against Arsenal and Manchester City this week, but points are not everything in December. The task is to maintain this underdog intensity outside of the fixtures the eyes turned to in the summer. A crisis-ridden Chelsea and half-knackered Newcastle come here before the turn of the years. They can win one of those. They can survive.
As the final whistle sounded, the ball in Ederson’s hands from yet another cross into the penalty area, Manchester City’s goalkeeper launched it over the one-tier stand, presumably to smash the window of a terraced house and go viral.
Guardiola marched onto the pitch and had a blazing row with at least three of his players, Grealish included. Angry relief is better than angry resentment.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/zTP7HBZ
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