Pep Guardiola can be proud of his players’ fight for transforming what appeared certain defeat when Manchester City trailed 2-0 at half-time into a late victory.
In introducing Julián Álvarez and Jérémy Doku a little into the second half, Guardiola engineered a masterstroke. Each transformed City’s fortunes, the former finding the winner from a move that was decorated by Doku’s mastery of the ball before Phil Foden set Álvarez up.
The last time City were two behind at the interval on home turf was in January, versus Tottenham in the Premier League. Then, Guardiola’s side scored four unanswered goals after the break and the manager, afterwards, branded his players and everyone at the club “happy flowers”. The response he received was a treble-triumphant season. Tonight the more modest spoils of sealing Group G was City’s aim and this win ensures that. Yet despite now going 29 games unbeaten in Europe here, the manager will not be happy with an oddly dislocated display.
Guardiola detests sloppiness so seeing Manuel Akanji allow Janis Blaswich’s long punt out of the goalkeeper’s hands bounce past the centre-back and Loïs Openda running in to roll past Stefan Ortega for the opener will have displeased. The Swiss defender hung his head and Guardiola, in a long winter overcoat, turned away. The Leipzig manager, Marco Rose, punched the air.
This was 13 minutes in and Leipzig had done precisely what City love to do: score early and pin the opponent back. It came after a warning from the German side that featured David Raum feeding Xavi Simons along the left: the No 20 skipped into the area before Kyle Walker’s speed moved him into position to thwart the forward.
City’s riposte was fitful. A free-kick was won, Bernardo Silva dropped this on to Rúben Dias’s head and the defender steered the ball over in a moment as out-of-sync as the home team’s performance. There was close to zero pattern of play and during a stoppage in play for treatment to Jack Grealish, Guardiola had a touchline discussion with his other 10 players in a bid to reset his team.
Did it work? Not really was the answer, as Josko Gvardiol slipped Rico Lewis in and the youngster lost his marker but, with the goal begging, blazed over. Now the second portion of calamitous defending occurred.
Simons hit a ball along the left touchline towards Openda who this time made a mug of Dias by spinning him, the Portuguese’s sluggish pace meaning he had zero chance of recovery. The striker zigzagged in at goal, left Gvardiol on the turf and beat Ortega for a second time.
It meant that City’s goal difference advantage was cut to two in the battle to be group winners. But first up and more pressing for Guardiola was a half-time team talk to try to rescue this game.
after newsletter promotion
The move he made was to take off the hapless Dias and hope his replacement, Nathan Aké, could cope better. Surely City could not be as poor in this period, the 45 minutes before the interval having been probably the worst under Guardiola in recent memory. Urgently needed was faster passing, slicker touches and more thrust to get Erling Haaland into the contest; a previous weak header easy for Blaswich to collect emblematic of all that was wrong for City.
Leipzig crowded them out in a stylistic copy of the Champions League holders when out of possession. Usually City’s craftiness pierces the tactic but not tonight, thus far. So Guardiola, eight minutes into the second half, took off Grealish and Walker for Doku and Álvarez.
An instant dividend followed: Álvarez touched the ball to Foden, who tapped to Haaland, whose cold-eyed strike removed Blaswich as a factor. Suddenly the home crowd was alive, and City scented a comeback win as, in a sign of the changing momentum, Rose took off his two-goal man Openda.
The shift continued via the equaliser. Aké stroked the ball to Gvardiol whose crossfield pass found Foden. Now came a moment of class from the No 47 whose dart left Mohamed Simakan a spectator, the finish going through Lukas Klostermann’s legs and in; and that was 2-2.