He may have come underfire for dodgy performances last season but John Stones showed last night that he could handle the pressure on the big stage after netting a sublime brace in their UCL clash against Feyenoord.
The Dutch champions were making their first appearance in the
Champions League for 14 years and, let’s face it, looked very much like a
Europa League outfit, but City would still have bullied better teams
playing like this.
It says a lot about how Guardiola wants to play and the number of
players he commits to attack that centre-half John Stones should open
and finish the scoring with two headers, with goals from Sergio Aguero
and Gabriel Jesus sandwiched in between. There was elegance to City’s
play, yes, but it was striking just how physically strong they looked.
As relentless as they were ruthless, they refused to give their
opponents time to catch their breath. “We weren’t ready for that,”
Giovanni van Bronckhurst, the Feyenoord coach, admitted.
Stones actually made two blocks from Feyenoord’s only two ventures
forward of note that, in their own way, will have satisfied Guardiola as
much as the goals given the criticism that continues to be aimed at the
England man defensively. But Kevin De Bruyne was City’s
orchestrator-in-chief, popping up all over the place to drive his team
forward with that languid, understated brilliance of his.
“Kevin is one of the best players I’ve ever seen in my life in that
he can make absolutely everything [happen]”, Guardiola said. “As for
John, there is no doubt about his quality. His two goals were so
important but John knows what is the gap where he has to improve –
defending the duels. He’s so young, he is able to achieve and when he
does he will become an exceptional central defender. It’s a perfect
start for us. Last season we were not able to win one game away. That’s
why if you want to make a step forward you have to do this.”
The
biggest compliment you could pay City is that they had barely got out of
third gear in the 25 minutes it took to run up a three-goal lead and
end this as a contest. You got an idea of what it must have been like to
be a Feyenoord player in the space of a few seconds late in the first
half when Michiel Kramer made no attempt to play the ball as he kicked
out at Kyle Walker and then Tonny Vilhena hacked down De Bruyne.
Feyenoord were pegged so far back that they rarely got out of their
defensive 5-4-1 shape, with Walker and Benjamin Mendy looking to get in
behind the full-backs, and the constant rotation and movement of the
omnipresent De Bruyne and the two Silvas, David and Bernardo, made them
so hard to pin down.
It was
like trying to trap a pesky mouse. And that is before we get to Aguero
and Jesus up front. Guardiola’s obsession with signing Arsenal’s Alexis
Sanchez is hard to fathom when he has a pair like that to pick from and
Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling cannot even get in the side. Is Sanchez
honestly an upgrade on Aguero or Jesus? And how much value is there in
bringing a 28-year-old to the club when it could make it even harder to
accommodate Bernardo (23), afforded only his second start since a
£44 million move from Monaco, and Sane (21), a substitute again despite a
swashbuckling two-goal cameo against Liverpool.
It took 97 seconds for City to get on the scoresheet and the only
shock was the identity of the goalscorer. David Silva crossed from the
left and Stones powered down a header that hit Vilhena before worming
through his legs.
Credit - The Telegraph
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