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MOTD: Watford 1-2 Manchester City

By on January 2, 2016

It’s only January, but the prospects of a Premier League title are already looming over Manchester City’s season for all the wrong reasons. Only a late turnaround via two brilliant goals from Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero salvaged three points after an relatively abject performance against a vibrant Watford side.  Only eight minutes stood in the way of yet another loss for City, which would have seen them drop six points below Arsenal, in third place.

City’s performance posed more questions than it answered during their visit to Vicarage Road, yet a glimmer of hope still emanated from those precious eight minutes. It was their first win on the road since a late comeback victory over Crystal Palace on September 12th, but it does City little good unless they solve their deepest woe: inconsistency. The Blues clearly have the talent to win the title but they’ve scattered it sparingly throughout their patchy holiday season.

Despite the poor start, City’s comeback lends this fixture the distinct feel of one that might spark life into City’s title charge.  Pellegrini is doing his due diligence to keep his side focused and take it game by game.  “We need to play eighteen games more and not be thinking about the title,” said City boss Manuel Pellegrini.

Watford, facing less weight of expectation this season, again performed impressively, dominating large portions of the match against the title favorites.  Unfortunately, the side couldn’t make the visitors pay and eventually suffered a fate similar to their 2-1 defeat to Tottenham over the weekend. “It’s very hard,” manager Quique Sanchez Flores conceded. “Twice in one week, the same feeling. It’s difficult to dominate Manchester City like this. It’s difficult to control the ball, the tempo. We did it. I’m so sorry for the fans, because it’s not enough to be competitive. We need to win.”

The newly-promoted side are sitting pretty in the top half of the table on twenty-nine points, with all of their losses this season having come against the current top seven teams in the league.

Flores’ side came bursting out of the blocks and Troy Deeney attempted to whittle a penalty call out of what was indeed good defending from Aleksandar Kolarov ten minutes in. Watford’s first chance of note came soon afterwards as Odion Ighalo turned around Nicolas Otamendi on the edge of the penalty area.  Joe Hart spread himself wide to block Ighalo’s low effort from the right with his trailing leg and Bacary Sagna was on hand to boot the ball away.

City rebounded as David Silva slipped Fernandinho in down the right side of the box, but Heurelho Gomes came out quick to block the danger.  The Brazilian-born midfielder blazed a free header over from a corner on the other side of the break, but City went down when Kolarov tipped a whipping, near-post corner over his own goalkeeper into the back of the net.

Fresh air was breathed into City’s lungs quite suddenly from a set piece, when Toure wrapped his foot around De Bruyne’s near-post corner and arrowed the ball into the top left corner of the net in the eighty-second minute.

City completed the comeback with two minutes to go as Aguero rose up between Watford’s centerbacks to guide a splendid, looping header back across the goal and into the bottom right corner of the net from Sagna’s far-post cross.

City have a break of sixteen days to recover before their next league fixture, but a League Cup meeting with Everton on Wednesday and an FA Cup tie with Norwich next weekend will keep them occupied in the meantime.

Homepage photo credit: Alejandro Razuri, via Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.