Manchester City sweep aside Southampton to keep up Liverpool chase

Football can turn on the smallest details, and this afternoon Manchester City’s whole season might have been kept alive by the instant decision of referee Paul Tierney not to award a penalty against Oleksandr Zinchenko.

City were staggering, pinned back to 1-1, and looked like a team resigned to their fate of a third straight loss from a 1-0 lead. Because 2-1 down here would surely have meant defeat, a 10-point deficit to Liverpool and an irreparable confidence blow ahead of Thursday night. Lose that, 13 points back, City might as well start focusing on the cups instead.

But Tierney said no and 10 minutes later City were going into half-time 3-1 up. They finished the game looking more confident and accomplished than they have done in weeks. And now they go into Thursday night not with confidence, but at least with stability. Win that, reduce the gap to four points, and the title race is back on.

Of course, Liverpool are playing so much better than City right now that the odds are still against them. But this could have been the game that killed City even before the turn of the year. And it was not. City can return to Manchester with a sense of a job completed, not something they have felt too often in the last few weeks.

Southampton will rue that one referee’s decision too, because a 2-1 half-time lead against City might have helped them to a home win even more inspiring than their defeat of Arsenal. Instead they were beaten here for the second time in four days. And while they put City under some pressure late in the first half, it felt more like City were putting pressure on themselves. And when City poured forward to attack, Saints could do little to stop them. With better finishing City would have won this by a distance.

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City began the game playing just as they would want. With controlling, creative football, pinning Southampton back and opening them up. With Fernandinho fit, City had their midfield keystone back and suddenly the whole structure made sense again. The opening goal, 10 minutes in, was a classical Manchester City goal, the type of goal that comes from years of work on the training ground. Riyad Mahrez and Bernardo Silva combined on the right, Bernardo darted in behind Matt Targett, and pulled the ball back to David Silva, arriving in space to finish.

But taking the lead has never been the problem. City went 1-0 up against Crystal Palace and Leicester City, and then collapsed and lost twice. The challenge was to score a second and put the game away. And City could not do it. David Silva had a shot saved. Mahrez broke down the pitch and curled wide. Aguero swept a low cross straight at Alex McCarthy. With every missed chance, City’s destiny to repeat their mistakes felt more compelling. And they looked so transfixed by this that they could not avoid making those same mistakes again.

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Southampton sensed this – so did everyone in the stadium – and began to push. Ederson had to dive down low to keep out Charlie Austin’s header from a corner. But he could do nothing to keep out the equaliser. City’s sloppiness combined with Saints’ aggression, as Pierre Emile Hojbjerg robbed Oleksandr Zinchenko, ran into the box and thumped the ball into the top corner. It felt like Jeffrey Schlupp last Saturday or Marc Albrighton on Boxing Day all over again.

This City team has never reacted well to things going wrong. They are so geared towards perfection that they collapse like a house of cards when one is removed. Just remember the two defeats at Anfield last season, or the second half of the derby coronation that never was. And so after Hojbjerg’s equaliser today, City had that same look, like a boxer who has been hit unexpectedly and has not yet remembered he has to keep his hands up.

When James Ward-Prowse ran in behind Zinchenko, City’s makeshift left-back was out of position. They collided, Ward-Prowse went down and the whole world looked to referee Paul Tierney. If he gave it, then Charlie Austin would have the chance to be the Andros Townsend or the Ricardo Pereira, the man to put City 2-1 down. Not many would have backed City to dig themselves out of that hole. The evidence of this week alone would suggest against it.

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But Tierney waved play on, Southampton were furious, and that second Saints goal never happened. And two minutes later it was City who were 2-1 up. Sterling raced down the outside of Ward-Prowse, cut back, shot, and the ball took a big deflection and flew in.

With that goal, City were free from the spell that they put on themselves. They had avoided a third version of the same story. And they could go back to being Manchester City again. With Saints livid at how quickly the game had turned back against them, City took advantage to score a third with the final kick of the first half. Zinchenko had just enough space to get in a cross, one good enough to remind why exactly Guardiola picks him at left-back. Aguero got between two defenders to head in.

The second half was a different country. City had a two-goal lead and there are no better teams at managing a game from a position of such strength than them. They regained control of midfield, kept the ball and created enough chances to win the game by a distance. Sterling hit a one-on-one at McCarthy, Aguero hit the bar, had another saved, and then Mahrez missed the best chance of the lot, running straight at McCarthy and just hitting the ball at him.

The only City misstep in the second half came when Shane Long was allowed to head a late free-kick over the bar. The only real incident when Hojbjerg was sent off for cutting down Fernandinho. Guardiola was incensed. This afternoon showed how important the 33-year-old is to this City team. With him back they are still just about alive.