SWANSEA CITY 2, MANCHESTER CITY 3
Manuel Pellegrini expected City to be level at the top of the Premier League or at least just three points off on New Year’s Day but after a thrilling 3-2 win at the Liberty Stadium they looked down on the rest of the Barclays Premier League at least until Arsenal played at the Emirates against Cardiff City.
City manager Manuel Pellegrini was disappointed by Swansea’s first half equaliser which was scored from an offside position but was delighted by the result.
“Their goal at the end of the first-half was offside and they grew with that goal. My team kept trying to score the second goal and the third goal which is really good.
“They scored right at the end which made the scoreline a little bit closer than it should have been.
“The second half was close until we scored the second goal and from that moment we had more possession and more confidence.”
“It’s a very good result. Swansea are a good team at home. Winning the way we won is very important for us. We played very well.
“It’s very important to be at the top of the table but there are more games to play and, as I’ve always said, at the end of the league I think there will be four or five teams fighting for the title.” he said.
Fernandinho opened the scoring for City in the 14th minute after firing home through a crowd of players to give the visitors a good start but Wilfried Bony levelled the scores in added time just before the break when he nipped in between Pablo Zabaleta and Vincent Kompany and scored. The Swans had just about deserved the goal on balance of play but it should have been disallowed for offside.
Levelling the scores gave Swansea some confidence to play in the second half and they caused City some problems before their visitors upped a gear and effectively put the game beyond their hosts with a two goal burst in the space of eight second half minutes.
Yaya Toure restored the lead in the 58th minute with a deflected shot for his 10th Premier League goal of the season and Aleksandar Kolarov gave them breathing space with a superb goal thumped in with his weaker right foot in the 66th minute.
Bony hit another unexpected goal to close the gap to one goal once again in injury time but the Swans had left it too late to stage the comeback.