Southampton 1, Manchester City 4
Erling Haaland came back from injury and scored a brace as Manchester City thrashed Southampton after a slow start at St Mary’s.
Embed from Getty ImagesJack Grealish and Julian Alvarez scored the other two goals while Sekou Mara scored a consolation as City closed the gap on league leaders Arsenal back to 5 points.
Haaland was City’s one and only change since their demolition of Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium last week – he came in for Julian Alvarez.
The big Norwegian got on the end of a curling cross into the box by none other than Kevin De Bruyne after Jack Grealish found him in space wide on the left and headed it home from 6 yards out past Gavin Bazunu to notch his 43rd goal of the season right before half time.
In providing the ammunition for Haaland’s 29th Premier League goal De Bruyne was registering his 100th Premier League assist in just 237 games – Cesc Fabregas was the next quickest player to achieve 100 assists, doing so in 293 games.
City had dominated the game but were restricted to a relatively low number of shots on the Saints goal in the first half – just 5 with 3 on target but one of those was Haaland’s crucial goal.
City continued to dominate after the break with Ilkay Gundogan curling the ball past the back post.
The first substitutions by Pep Guardiola saw Bernardo Silva and Kyle Walker come on for Riyad Mahrez and John Stones after 57 minutes.
And within a minute Grealish had doubled the lead finishing off the rebound from his initial shot after it had been blocked by Bazunu following a quick-thinking release of the ball by De Bruyne into the left channel for his 5th goal of the season.
Haaland had his second goal after 68 minutes when a precision pass by De Bruyne released Grealish down the left.
Grealish’s cross was despatched by the Norwegian with an acrobatic overhead kick inside the back post for his 30th Premier league goal of the season – and 44th overall.
And that was his last contribution as he was immediately replaced by Alvarez.
Southampton showed signs of life when Moussa Djenpo slalomed past 4 City players cutting in from the left and laid the ball into the path of Sekou Mara whose strike brought the Saints back into the game after 72 minutes.
But less than two minutes later Kyle Walker-Peters brought down De Bruyne in the penalty area and without Haaland and Mahrez on the pitch Alvarez stepped up and restored City’s three goal cushion from the penalty spot – straight down the middle with 15 minutes to go for his 10th goal of the season.
Bernardo Silva’s shot was blocked by Jan Bednarek as City looked to score a 5th goal.
And City made two final changes with 9 minutes to go with Sergio Gomez and Kalvin Phillips coming on for Nathan Ake and Rodri who were rested as the visitors saw out an 8th win in a row in all competitions – a sign that they have come into form at the right time.