Frank Lampard sees off Sunderland to spare Manchester City’s blushes
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Version 0 of 1. For a second successive game, Manchester City somehow contrived to lose a two-goal lead at home against a team they would normally expect to ease out of their way. This time, however, they spared themselves another ordeal and it was another moment to demonstrate why the Premier League champions have leant on their sister club, New York City FC, to keep Frank Lampard in Manchester rather than Manhattan. They may not like it in New York but when Lampard is making such a rich contribution for Manuel Pellegrini’s team the decision-makers in Abu Dhabi can hardly be blamed for deciding to extend his stay and abandon the initial plan of making him Major League Soccer’s new poster boy. Lampard had been on the pitch only four minutes when he announced his presence with the fifth, decisive goal of a wild 15-minute spell that had felt utterly incongruous to everything that preceded it. It was his seventh goal for the club, despite largely being restricted to substitute appearances, and it is clear why City have been willing to risk a transatlantic PR disaster, which could conceivably get worse over the coming months. The awkwardness of what has happened – leaving one supporters’ group in New York proclaiming themselves to be outraged – will hardly be eased by Pellegrini letting slip that he could not guarantee Lampard would even move to the United States at the end of the season, and the revelation that the former Chelsea player does not actually have a proper contract in place with the club that announced him as their signing last summer. Yet what cannot be disputed is the wisdom of the decision for City, the Mancunian version. Lampard, even at 36, has made himself almost indispensable when he is capable of getting his team out of a hole in this way. After 66 minutes, City had looked as though they would coast through the final exchanges, courtesy of a majestic shot from Yaya Touré and a delightful finish nine minutes later from Stevan Jovetic. Instead that was the cue for Sunderland to ditch their ploys of conservatism and, lo and behold, discover that City are vulnerable when they are put under pressure and missing their captain and chief organiser, Vincent Kompany. Gus Poyet later apologised for “boring” the crowd in the first 45 minutes and maybe in hindsight the Sunderland manager will regret not setting up his team to be more adventurous from the start, especially when Willy Caballero was in the opposition goal and had looked so erratic earlier in the season. Joe Hart had been given a day off, perhaps owing to a couple of mistakes in his past two games, and a more ambitious side might have done more to test Caballero. Pellegrini will certainly be startled by the way Jack Rodwell and Adam Johnson scored within three minutes of one another and the fact these are both former City players merely added to the feeling, following on from the 2-2 draw against Burnley, that the home side were in danger of suffering what used to be known here as the dreaded “Cityitis”. As it turned out, we were reminded that the modern-day side found the cure a long time ago but that was an alarming period for City as Rodwell headed in from a corner and Johnson scored a penalty after Pablo Zabaleta had scythed down Billy Jones. Sunderland had barely ventured into the opposition’s half until that period, with Johnson and Will Buckley dropping back as extra full-backs and Rodwell playing just in front of defence. This was not the first time City have encountered these kind of smothering tactics but the game dramatically changed after the 57th minute when Touré let fly, 25 yards out, to score a beauty, still rising as it soared into the top corner. Jovetic’s goal was clever in its own way, the forward playing the ball out to Gaël Clichy on the left and then continuing his run into the penalty area to meet the cross and flick the ball past Costel Pantilimon. At other times, City missed the attacking edge Sergio Agüero would usually provide. Touré was hugely influential, showing why he will be such a loss when he goes to the Africa Cup of Nations, with the prospect of missing matches against Chelsea and Arsenal. David Silva was also prominently involved, though not quite able to emulate his form of recent matches and perhaps showing a few signs of fatigue. City do, however, have a great habit of holding their nerve when the heat of the battle is suddenly turned up. They responded to Johnson’s equaliser as if affronted by Sunderland’s temerity and missed more chances than they will care to remember in the final quarter of an hour. Lampard fits in seamlessly and his precise header, from another of Clichy’s left-wing deliveries, was the compelling evidence why one City’s gain is another’s loss. Man of the match Yaya Touré (Manchester City) |