Man City’s forgotten man makes his case – but even Rodri’s injury might not restore Matheus Nunes

If a midfielder has dominated the discourse surrounding Manchester City, it is not Matheus Nunes. While they await bulletins on the state of Rodri’s knee, the Portuguese’s first City goal ranks as a subplot of their week. Rodri has an ubiquity but Nunes has become the £53m forgotten man, the sort of figure who may only be glimpsed in the starting 11 on Carabao Cup nights.

As he belatedly opened his City account, however, his goal proved decisive when a second-string side were given a late fright by Watford.

His reward may be a return to the relative obscurity of the bench. Nunes has only played 20 minutes in the Premier and Champions League so far this season. Ilkay Gundogan’s return has relegated him further down the pecking order, making him more of an afterthought.

If Kalvin Phillips is the most high-profile failure of City’s largely successful recruitment in recent years, Nunes is the quietly bad signing. Even Rodri’s probable long-term absence is unlikely to benefit him directly; the defensive-midfield berth scarcely suits him with Mateo Kovacic likelier to stand in for the Spaniard and the rookie Nico O’Reilly playing as the anchorman against Watford.

But Nunes will always have Watford. Because, at the 34th time of asking, he scored for City, driving in a low shot from 20 yards. It means his last three goals have come for as many clubs: his year at Wolves, which ended with him going on strike to force a move to City, only produced one, spectacular as it was. Rewind further and Nunes was at Sporting CP when Pep Guardiola, increasingly infamously, described him as one of the best players in the world. Since then, there are times when he has seemed about City’s 10th-best midfielder.

Yet a game that kicked off 49 hours after the exhausting epic against Arsenal ended called for the reserves. Guardiola made nine changes, with just Jeremy Doku and Kyle Walker keeping their places. In what seemed a pre-planned switch, Doku then came off at half-time, with Savinho sharing the workload. One winger scored, the other almost did, with Doku’s early strike setting up victory and the terrific Savinho denied a first City goal first when Tom Ince headed off the line and then when a scintillating run culminated in a shot against the foot of the post.

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Ince was to excel at either end, curling in his fourth goal of the season from the edge of the box. It made the last few minutes more fraught than City expected; after home draws with Internazionale and Arsenal, there was briefly the prospect of a third and a penalty shootout.

City at least had a senior defence to see the game out, with Josko Gvardiol brought on to join Walker, John Stones and Rico Lewis. But they had begun with the third-youngest starter in their history at left-back, with Kaden Braithwaite a mere 16 years and 183 days. On City’s books since Under-9 level, he trained with the senior team for the first time on Monday and debuted on Tuesday.

His youth may have counted in his favour when Kwadwo Baah thought he had drilled Watford level, only to be penalised for a shove that sent the teenager sprawling; perhaps referee David Webb showed sympathy for a slight figure. Guardiola had picked a team of two halves: besides the free transfer Stefan Ortega, there were five graduates of City’s youth system but five others who cost a combined £300m.

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Watford have no such luxury, even if theirs was a typically quixotic assortment of players. This was their 16th successive defeat against City, but one of the most respectable. There was no repeat of the 6-0 shellacking in the 2019 FA Cup final. Instead, there was some defiance in defence, a couple of chances on the break and a moment to regret.

Perhaps it was a sign of Guardiola’s all-pervasive influence as Watford tried to play out from the back, failed with Ryan Porteous under-hitting a pass back, James McAtee pinched the ball from goalkeeper Jonathan Bond and Doku put City ahead.

For a couple of others, it may have represented a missed opportunity to get their first City goals of the season. Jack Grealish, who scores too rarely, was thwarted by Bond. Meanwhile, Phil Foden made his first start since Euro 2024 final as a centre-forward. If City have lost their resident Plan B, with Julian Alvarez’s move to Atletico Madrid removing the usual deputy to Erling Haaland, it was the first indication that Foden may be primed to stand in during the Norwegian’s rare rests. He stung Bond’s palms with a long-range thunderbolt and had two shots blocked by Watford defenders but is yet to recapture the sharpness he displayed last year. Instead, Nunes upstaged Foden; and yet rather more thoughts remained with Rodri.