Manchester City gave Swansea City a harsh welcome to the Premier League, scoring 4 second half goals to give them a 4-0 home win tonight in front of 46,000 fans at the Etihad Stadium.
In a nutshell, it was match of 2 very different halves. Swansea City looked promising early on, having 70% possession after 15 minutes but Man City finally took control and they troubled Rodgers’ side, forcing Michel Vorm into a number of quality saves as they ended the half with a dominant 15-minute spell.
Swansea City, a team with a record-signing costing £3.5m – Danny Graham, were up against a Manchester City outfit full of multi-million pound stars, including tonight’s star man, Aguero, scoring 2 and creating another goal, and he didn’t even start the match. He cost £38million, and his quality shone through, rounding off the 4-0 win with a superb strike that not even Michel Vorm could stop, and lets face it he made 11 saves in the game, more than any in last season’s Premiership matches.
The Swans pretty much started the game where they left off at Wembley’s Play-Off Final. Comfortable and confident in possession whilst the opposition chased for the majority of the opening 10-15 minutes.
It wasn’t the start that was expected, and the Sky Sports commentator even said that it was difficult to guess which team were worth hundreds of millions of pounds. But having said that, Manchester City slowly began to see more of the ball and when Vorm flew through the air at full stretch to punch out a save, more shots came the Dutchman’s way and from here on in, he had his work cut out.
Toure was also causing problems and he used his strength to go on a good run to fend out off a challenge from a Swansea defender before at goal. Vorm’s fingers were stung again as the hosts had another chance to open the scoring from a corner.
Silva was the main creator for Mancini’s million-pound men, but he still couldn’t get a shot past Holland’s number 2 choice goalkeeper Michel Vorm, as he continued to prove what a bargain he is at just £1.5million.
It was quite a surprise to see Stephen Dobbie start in an attacking midfield role. Usually Brendan Rodgers would field a more defensive setup when away from home, but without Pratley, and Mark Gower not considered, he kept faith with the Scot who performed so brilliantly last season – especially in the play-off matches. Kemy Agustien also started to give us some much needed strength to cope with the likes of Toure and De Jong, with Britton alongside.
Danny Graham was an unfortunate spectator for the vast majority of the play, as the visitors struggled to get him involved. Dobbie was the same, and he was later subbed for Joe Allen.
Brendan Rodgers would have been delighted to see his players walk past him and into the dressing room with the scoreboards remained at 0-0. Roberto Mancini meanwhile wouldn’t have been too pleased, and he showed emotions of concern during the first half, as he saw more Swans players in possession than his own.
Having said that, Man City ended the half in total dominance, and the woodwork kept the scores at 0-0 on more than one occasion. Silva must have wondered what it took to score in the Premier League while the Swansea defence constantly blew sighs of relief as they were caught out on numerous occasions.
Mancini’s side carried off in the second half as they ended the first, controlling the game and creating more chances as they looked for an opening goal, which looked like a matter of time before it came.
Swansea City fans were simply enjoying the occasion, and witnessing the first welsh club playing Premier League football, their vocal support was impressive but surely they knew deep down a goal was coming, and when the first came, more were going to follow, and unfortunately they did.
It took the hosts almost an hour to break the deadlock. Vorm was called into action again, getting a palm to Johnson’s fierce strike, but it fell kindly to Dzeko, it came straight back off him and into the net to make it 1-0.
Aguero then came on to demonstrate his awesomeness. His first goal was on a plate for him, the second of his though was a touch of sheer class. Richards sent in a low cross across the face of goal, it was too far out for Vorm to cut out, and Rangel decided not to follow Aguero’s run, and he was free at the back post to net with ease. The goal was a bit like Sinclair’s at Wembley, but without the keeper getting a touch to the cross.
Within three minutes of the restart it was 3-0, and Silva finally got the goal his performance deserved.
Aguero did brilliantly to get past man of the match contender Vorm, and whilst it looked like he took the ball too far and it was a lost cause – it wasn’t. He managed to hook the ball bar goalwards on the by-line and Silva was there to find the net.
With still 19 minutes to go, you had to fancy Manchester City to get a fourth against a tiring Swansea City side. We were hopeful of keeping it at 3-0, still a respectable scoreline against an impressive team that quality contenders for the title. Brendan Rodgers’ almost did until Aguero stepped up, and launched an unstoppable strike from 25 yards that not even super keeper Michel Vorm could keep out.
The Swans were dealt a harsh lesson to how much quality there is in just one team in the Premiership, not to mention the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool that we have left to play. We did ourselves proud this evening despite a 4-0 scoreline. We kept things tight at 0-0 until 57 minutes and their bundles of quality was far too much for us.
There were still plenty of positives to take. Our superb goalkeeper Michel Vorm, a good battling performance and plenty of determination and spirit from the players who all gave 100%. There was plenty of potential on show tonight that we can cause a lot of teams in this division some problems, and we’ll have confidence on Saturday when we host Wigan Athletic at the Liberty Stadium.
Manchester City: Joe Hart, Micah Richards, Vincent Kompany (capt), Joleon Lescott, Gael Clichy, Nigel De Jong (Sergio Aguero, 58), Gareth Barry, Adam Johnson (Stefan Savic, 74), Yaya Toure, David Silva (James Milner, 82), Edin Dzeko.
Unused subs: Stuart Taylor, Pablo Zabaleta, Aleksandar Kolarov, Mario Balotelli.
Swansea: Michel Vorm, Angel Rangel, Steven Caulker, Ashley Williams, Alan Tate (capt), Kemy Agustien, Leon Britton (Joe Allen, 65), Stephen Dobbie (Wayne Routledge, 65), Nathan Dyer (Leroy Lita, 81), Scott Sinclair, Danny Graham.
Unused subs: Jose Moreira, Mark Gower, Andrea Orlandi, Luke Moore.
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