Manchester Metropolis’s depressing run of kind continued on Tuesday with a surprising 3-3 draw at house to Feyenoord.
Pep Guardiola’s facet have been 3-0 up and cruising early within the second half as an Erling Haaland double was accompanied by a strike from Ilkay Gundogan, just for a spectacular late collapse at hand Feyenoord a share of the spoils.
How the sport unfolded
Metropolis started brightly and Ilkay Gundogan noticed the sport’s first actual probability deflected broad within the early levels. The hosts managed the tempo, drawing loads of scrappy fouls as Feyenoord battled to match the tempo.
Feyenoord stopper Timon Wellenreuther mixed along with his far submit to maintain an Haaland header out within the tenth minute, however the goalkeeper almost grew to become the villain when his poor move discovered Bernardo Silva. Some penalty-box pinball finally spared his blushes.
Phil Foden’s fizzing strike from vary wanted turning spherical Wellenreuther’s submit whereas, down the opposite finish, Ederson was introduced into motion to disclaim Igor Paixao, who maybe ought to have given the guests an unlikely lead towards the run of play.
With 5 minutes to go within the first half, David Hancko made a superb block to disclaim Haaland, however the ensuing nook noticed Metropolis awarded a penalty when Quentin Timber despatched the Norwegian tumbling to the bottom. Haaland stepped up and made no mistake from 12 yards, smashing the ball into the again of the online twice in a show of each frustration and reduction to see issues truly go his method for the primary time shortly.
Metropolis doubled their benefit shortly after the restart. Gundogan bagged his second aim of the competitors with a low strike which took a depraved deflection off Hancko en path to the again of the online.
Simply three minutes later, Haaland was celebrating as soon as once more. He slid in to transform a low cross from Matheus Nunes, seemingly ending the sport as a contest.
Nevertheless, the sport was solely simply getting began.
With Metropolis starting to chill out, some sloppy defending opened the door for Feyenoord to grab a aim of their very own. Josko Gvardiol’s poor move again to Ederson was pounced upon by Anis Hadj Moussa, who rounded the Metropolis goalkeeper and transformed from a slim angle.
One other show of lacklustre defending allowed Santiago Gimenez to faucet house from shut vary with eight minutes to go and, because the clock ticked in the direction of 90, Hancko headed house on a counter to pile much more distress on Metropolis, who at the moment are with no win in six video games.
Take a look at the participant scores for Man Metropolis vs Feyenoord right here.
There was merely no want for Metropolis to concede one aim right here, not to mention three, and Pep Guardiola knew it. The sight of the Metropolis boss along with his head in his fingers on the bench after Anis Hadj Moussa slotted house spoke 1,000 phrases.
Whether or not it was complacency or a sheer lack of ability to deal with stress which wasn’t even there, Metropolis by some means managed to shoot themselves within the foot and hand Feyenoord three late targets, undoing all of the optimistic work from the opposite finish of the pitch.
Defend like that towards Liverpool on the weekend and Metropolis may simply be kissing their dignity goodbye.
Guardiola has overtly insisted that his facet might be again to their greatest as soon as their injured gamers have returned. If Rodri is that vital to this staff, then critical questions should be requested.
It was £35m goalkeeper Ederson who flapped on the second and third after £77.6m centre-back Josko Gvardiol had performed his facet into bother for the primary aim. They’re each near-permanent fixtures in Metropolis’s beginning lineup, not stand-ins overlaying for his or her costly teammates.
There is a mentality drawback on the Etihad lately, and Guardiola wants to repair it urgently.
On a extra optimistic be aware, Erling Haaland seemed good in entrance of aim.
In current weeks, Haaland has been responsible of permitting video games to move him by, however he made essentially the most of his restricted spells on the ball with a return of two targets, and he may have simply had extra. Most of his touches both led to targets or precipitated chaos for the Feyenoord defenders.
Haaland’s frustration in the direction of how issues have been going was evident when he declined to rejoice his penalty and as a substitute thumped the ball again into the online.
