Manchester City Show Fighting Spirit in Rough-and-Tumble Win at Burnley

It’s often a said that a team that likes to play attractive and free-flowing football shouldn’t be judged on their performances when they’ve been allowed to break through opposition lines willy-nilly and score three, four, five goals in a dominating win. It’s when they come up against the blood-and-thunder style—that in-your-face attitude that involves a lot of hard challenges, yellow cards and players left in a heap—that they show what they’re made of.

Title-challengers find a way to win, even if it’s not pretty. On Saturday lunchtime, without particularly playing well, Manchester City left Burnley’s Turf Moor stadium with all three points. They’d had to fight for them in what was a cauldron atmosphere, but Pep Guardiola’s side deal with that sort of thing much better these days.

Fernandinho: “If you want to be a champion, you have to play a game like this.”

— Rob Pollard (@RobPollardMCFC) November 26, 2016

It was a match, in many regards, that was similar to City’s last visit—a 1-0 defeat in March 2015, during a slump in form under former boss Manuel Pellegrini. The visitors weren’t able to carve out a lot of chances, despite having the majority of possession, and the home side took the lead by finishing off from a loose ball on the edge of the box.

Crucially, though, the difference in City’s performance was their willingness to fight. In the three years under Pellegrini, having often been able to cope with the rough-and-tumble during his predecessor Roberto Mancini’s reign, City developed a soft underbelly. When the going got tough, they went hiding and lost.

While the performances haven’t been brilliant in recent weeks for Guardiola, the City fans can take solace in the knowledge that their team is slowly regaining their ability to win difficult matches—Saturday’s 2-1 victory at Turf Moor is another classic example this season.

Guardiola on Aguero’s goals today… pic.twitter.com/TrTzV8ONyf

— Jonathan Smith (@jonnysmiffy) November 26, 2016

Burnley started the better. City’s defence, still yet to look solid this campaign, was under intense pressure, and it had the feel of “one of those days.” The visitors couldn’t move the ball more than two or three passes without giving up possession, while the hosts were causing all sorts of problems by putting it in the air and into the box.

When Dean Marney opened the scoring inside 14 minutes, the phrase running through most City fans’ heads was “here we go again”. The defence could have done better—a long punt from Paul Robinson was only half dealt with by Nicolas Otamedni, and Marney was loitering on the edge of the box to finish past Claudio Bravo.

This is where previously City would have buckled. On an afternoon where they needed to show some fight to get back into the game—against a team that was kicking everything that moved and being roared on by a crowd like one you’d expect in a Roman …

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