John Stones had the final say as Manchester City clinched a dramatic last-gasp victory at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
City had huffed and puffed at Molineux and, until the fifth minute of stoppage time, they had struggled to blow away Wolves — but then Stones powered home a header from a corner at the death.
Pep Guardiola’s side had endured a frustrating afternoon in the West Midlands and looked certain to drop two points. They fell behind to an early goal from Jorgen Strand Larsen and had a moment of brilliance from Josko Gvardiol to thank for drawing them level, but they largely struggled to turn their ball domination into three points.
When all looked lost, City won a succession of late corners and Stones found the net, with City’s celebrations enduring after a VAR review.
Sam Lee breaks down the main talking points from City’s 2-1 win.
Stones saves the day — but why was his goal initially disallowed?
The ‘problem’ with City’s performance up until that last-gasp goal was that they controlled the match but looked weak at times on the break, and had no real threat from the wings until some second-half changes. The set pieces were not much better either.
That changed with their 18th corner of the match, after a flurry of four in the final seconds, when Stones headed in and celebrated wildly. Those celebrations were cut short — temporarily — when the goal was disallowed on-field, with Bernardo Silva alleged to have impeded Jose Sa from an offside position. Cue the VAR’s intervention, with Bernardo adjudged not to be in Sa’s line of vision.
#WOLMCI – 95’ VAR OVERTURN
Stones’ goal was disallowed on-field due to Bernardo Silva being in an offside position and in the goalkeeper’s line of vision. The VAR deemed Bernardo Silva wasn’t in the line of vision and had no impact on the goalkeeper and recommended an on-field… pic.twitter.com/4o1AHBWyzb
— Premier League Match Centre (@PLMatchCentre) October 20, 2024
Clearly, Bernardo had got out of Sa’s way just at the right time (the point where Stones headed the ball, really) and the goal was allowed to stand.
Given how Wolves fans have been singing about the league’s ‘corruption’ for over a year now, including a few times on Sunday, it is no surprise that many left Molineux feeling cheated. Most people would admit, though, that it was the right decision.
Kudos also to Jack Grealish, who brightened up City’s wing play after he came on. What City needed here was more from their wingers — although Savinho did a lot defensively — and more from their set pieces. Right at the end, they got that.
John Stones heads home Manchester City’s winning goal (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Slow starts are a worrying trend
City have now conceded the first goal in four of their last seven league matches, and there are surely some underlying reasons.
For starters, opposition teams might be more likely to try their luck early on and then, if successful and they actually score, less likely to chance their arm again and instead try to sit on their lead a little more (even if still trying to break again, of course).
But maybe the biggest reason is simply that City are a bit vulnerable at the moment.
The problem can be summed up like this: Mateo Kovacic, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva and Rico Lewis, when in possession, can dictate the entire game — but when the ball is lost, which is going to happen, they are hardly physical and athletic enough to make up the ground, meaning that if the ball is played in behind them, or around them, teams can open up the game and counter-attack.
That has been a theme this season and Wolves highlighted it again, although of course City dominated the ball thanks largely to the positive traits of those players mentioned.
Jorgen Strand Larsen put Wolves ahead at Molineux (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
A moment of praise for Gvardiol
It is a good job that City can count on Gvardiol’s goalscoring exploits.
The Croatian defender got four during the title race run-in last season, as well as a screamer against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu, and after notching a tidy goal at Newcastle United in September, he recreated that screamer against Wolves at a time when everything else that City were doing was hitting the buffers.
You can see exactly why City wanted to sign the 22-year-old from RB Leipzig, who was described in the Red Bull setup as “the Haaland of centre-backs“.
He is composed in possession and solid defensively (with a bit of room for improvement) and his presence in the final third, in terms of passing, runs and goal threat, has come to the fore at crucial times.
What did Pep Guardiola say?
We will bring you this after he has spoken at the post-match press conference.
What next for Manchester City?
Wednesday, October 23: Sparta Prague (H), Champions League, 8pm UK, 3pm ET
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(Top photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
