At full-time there was a short rebuke for the fourth official and then some sarcastic waves and blown kisses for the home fans with the colourful language behind the dugout. Suffice to say that in Pep Guardiola’s mind the Premier League title race has begun.
This is what a night at Elland Road can do to you. It can fray your nerves and scramble your mind. In a sporting sense, it can leave you gasping for air.
That Guardiola and his Manchester City teams managed to surface with three points at the end of this night of punch and counter punch says much about them. This may not be a City team of the classic Guardiola genre. It still feels like a work in progress and – if the great Catalan sticks around – we may not see the best of it for another year or so.
But the one thing this team shares with those that have passed before it is guts and they were there for all to see in west Yorkshire on Saturday night. A seam of courage and cussedness and experience runs through this City team. It’s carried in the blood of players like Gianluigi Donnarumma, Bernardo Silva, Ruben Dias and Rodri. Erling Haaland was not here for this one. He is injured. But a warrior spirit endures and it may yet be enough to give title favourites Arsenal a touch of the heebie-jeebies between now and the finishing line.
Daniel Farke’s Leeds team don’t give anything away here in front of their own crowd. The minority of the home support that booed when play was stopped after 15 minutes so three City players could break their Ramadan fast may wish to do better next time but apart from that, the Leeds fans played a fundamental part in what was an incredibly tight game.
Leeds were better for the first 25 minutes and the final fifteen. City rode their luck at both ends of the contest. In between, they managed to exert a modicum of control. Their centre half pairing of Dias and Marc Guehi was terrific for the most part while their new playmaker Rayan Cherki possesses the kind of vision and instinct that cannot be taught. How he doesn’t start every week is a mystery to which Guardiola doubtlessly has a smart answer.
Pep Guardiola will think that the Premier League title race is underway after closing the gap to Arsenal against Leeds
New signing Antoine Semenyo’s first-half goal was the only difference-maker in the tie
Leeds, for their part, play with a wonderful energy and vibrancy when their blood is up. They can be lovely to watch. Here, they sprang from the traps and should really have been ahead in the third minute.
Brenden Aaronson got away down the right and it was not to be for the first time. His low cross found Dominic Calvert-Lewin arriving unmarked but the striker’s first time shot was stabbed the wrong side of the far post by about a foot. The ball did arrive at pace but even so Calvert-Lewin should have done better.
He was lively early on and City struggled to contain him. Calvert-Lewin is mobile and nimble when fully fit and here he worried City again as he ran on to a pass down the left in the 18th minute, turned Guehi surprisingly easily and pulled a low shot across goal and wide.
This pretty much summed up the flow of the game for half an hour. Leeds were on the front foot and dangerous while City were unable to slow the game down and impose their own rather more sedate rhythm. That period of the game was to arrive eventually but City had to survive some difficult moments first.
City goalkeeper Donnarumma dropped to his right to save a low 20-yard shot from James Justin while Jayden Bogle stole the ball from Rayan Ait-Nouri in the 22nd minute before crossing to the near post for Aaronson to poke it wide under pressure.
Calvert-Lewin won a header from a corner soon after and Justin was close to nudging the ball in. On the touchline, with 25 minutes gone, Guardiola was looking agitated and it was with good reason.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin was a live wire in the thick of his good run of form but Man City were able to keep him under wraps
Over time, the pattern of the game did change. Leeds couldn’t maintain the energy that fuelled their fast start and slowly dropped back in to a 5-4-1 shape. It doubtless wasn’t deliberate but it happened anyway.
City duly accepted the invitation to play a little higher up the field and it was from a spell of control if not incessant pressure that their goal eventually came. Before that there were some scares for Leeds. Omar Marmoush had a cross shot saved while Leeds goalkeeper Karl Darlow palmed away a Nico O’Reilly header when the young England star should have scored.
Leeds still worried City when they broke but they no longer had a grip on the game. And when Cherki played Ait-Nouri clear with a lovely pass in the third minute of first half injury time, he crossed low for Semenyo to score from six yards.
City didn’t particularly deserve their lead but at half-time Leeds perhaps may have asked themselves how many saves Donnarumma had been asked to make. Not many. Four minutes in to the second half, the big Italian had cause to be concerned again as Calvert-Lewin took aim from an angle. This time, City full-back Matheus Nunes got across to make a fabulous block.
That proved to be a rather isolated second half threat as once again City largely controlled the game. Marmoush may have turned in Rodri’s cross shot at the far post in the 62nd minute but his legs couldn’t quite get him there. Then another Cherki pass released Nunes and his pull-back travelled all the way to the top of the penalty area on the other side where Ait-Nouri collected and drove a shot over.
Darlow’s save from a Guehi header with just less than 20 minutes left was the best of the game and served to indicate that Leeds were now hanging on. Farke, to his credit, tried to alter the flow of the game with two attacking substitutions, Daniel James and Wilfried Gnonto coming on soon after.
Gnonto in particular had been influential as Leeds grabbed a late draw here against Liverpool before Christmas and he was soon troubling City with his darting runs and ability to spring off either foot. But it was another substitute who almost levelled the game with his first touch as Dutch forward met a corner from the right after being thrown on in the 86th minute only to head the ball down and wide when half of Elland Road thought it was in. Leeds were re-energised by their substitutes and came strong at the end. Liverpool buckled here back in early winter but City did not.
