A man of the match performance from Tijjani Reijnders helped Manchester City to an emphatic win against Wolverhampton Wanderers on the opening day of the Premier League season.
Reijnders, who joined City for an initial £46 million from AC Milan, was instrumental in City’s opening goal, beating two players in midfield and chipping a through ball for Rico Lewis to square for Erling Haaland, who opened his account for the season from close range.
The Dutchman scored City’s second goal a few minutes later,
collecting Oscar Bobb’s pass and finishing emphatically in the bottom corner.
Haaland bagged his second goal after a fine move down the right hand side involving Bobb and Reijnders ended up at the 25-year-old’s feet, and he made no mistake with a thumping finish.
Substitute and debutant Rayan Cherki finished the scoring with his first City goal, a remarkable driven effort from the edge of the box with his right foot.
A four goal margin win for City was enough to move them to the top of the Premier League table on Saturday night ahead of Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland, with Wolves meanwhile at the bottom.
The Blues face Spurs at the Etihad Stadium next week, whilst Vitor Pereira’s side are away to Bournemouth.
Here are three things we learned as City smashed Wolves:
The supporting cast deserve credit
Much has been made of Reijnders’ unbelievable debut, and Haaland’s goals, as well as Cherki’s bright cameo. But there were a few other players who had magnificent games without receiving anything like the credit.
Nico Gonzalez was magnificent in the centre of the park, breaking up the play and helping to dictate the game along with the brilliant Reijnders and a fresh, rejuvenated looking Bernardo Silva.
Lewis was also very good, and admitted after the game that he is very happy at the club and wants to improve. It’s amazing news that it now seems likely that he’ll stay, rather than move to Nottingham Forest.
John Stones was also a revelation at centre back, proving that when fully fit he’s one of the best in the world. Rayan Ait-Nouri had a steady debut, James Trafford was solid in goal and Bobb was mesmerising again.
Quietly, City have built a squad full of real quality, and I can see them exceeding the expectations of the general population this year.
Guardiola has had a mentality shift
Pep Guardiola has been criticised for overly relying on the “uncs” (i.e. Ilkay Gundogan, Mateo Kovacic, Manuel Akanji, Ederson and Bernardo) but the Wolves game showed a completely different attitude from the City boss.
Not just in his starting XI, where the likes of Nico, Lewis, Bobb and Jeremy Doku appeared in a youthful side, but we saw substitutions focused more towards the future than we did last year.
For example, instead of opting for Gundogan and Akanji to come off the bench, who are likely to not be here this time next year, he went for Nico O’Reilly and Abdukodir Khusanov in their place, who are ten years younger and certainly have more of a long term future at the club.
Omar Marmoush, Matheus Nunes and Cherki also came on, once again showing Guardiola’s intentions to think more towards the future, rather than to rely on the experienced but ageing legends.
It’s only one game, but if it becomes a more regular thing going forwards, I think it’ll only benefit City.
Goal sources have returned
Last year, it should have been obvious for all to see that City didn’t have enough goal scorers in the team.
Julian Alvarez had just left and Ilkay Gundogan left the season before. Kevin de Bruyne had shown signs of regression in his previous season and there was always the possibility that Bobb would break through, but injury put that on ice.
No one anticipated Phil Foden’s off year, but he, Kovacic, Bernardo, Doku and Savinho didn’t contribute nearly enough goals between them, leaving the burden on Haaland.
City’s number nine did as much as he could, but suffered with the poorness of the rest of the team and came away with “just” 22 league goals.
But now in Cherki, Reijnders, Bobb, a firing Foden, a hopefully improved Doku and potentially Real Madrid star Rodrygo if he signs, City have a number of players who can contribute a significant amount of goals and assists in a season.
