Manchester City 3-1 Leicester City: 3 reasons why the Citizens won the crucial game| Premier League 2019-20
Manchester City secured three crucial points against the high-flying Leicester City in a Premier League fixture which ended 3-1 in the Citizens' favour.
Pep Guardiola's men played one of their best games of the season, as they claimed victory at the Etihad Stadium in their first home game since their crushing 2-1 defeat at the hands of bitter rivals Manchester United earlier in the month.
The Citizens looked dangerous going forward every time the trio of Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Riyad Mahrez had the ball at their feet. The Belgian midfielder, who scored two in his previous Premier League outing against Arsenal last weekend, had the first crack at the opposition goal when his shot found the outside of the right post in the 14th minute.
Although it was the visitors who drew first blood, via another impressive goal from the evergreen Jamie Vardy in the 22nd minute, Mahrez equalised for the home side with a good finish eight minutes later. Manchester City took the lead in the 43rd minute after Ilkay Gundogan converted a penalty, while Gabriel Jesus scored in the 69th minute to double their advantage.
Here are the three reasons which led to a comfortable victory for the reigning champions against the Foxes.
#3 Manchester City were unrelenting in attack
If the Citizens' performance against Arsenal was impressive last weekend, their display against a Leicester City side, who were four points above them in the standings and had the meanest defence in the league, was simply out of this world.
The players in the attacking third, especially Mahrez, Sterling and De Bruyne moved around the ball very comfortably in the first half and started finding spaces behind the Foxes' defence.
Although Sterling and De Bruyne have captured our imaginations through their scintillating performances this season, it was the former Leicester star Mahrez, who was the most outstanding player against his former employers.
Not only did the Algerian forward equalise for the hosts, but it was his quick feet and absolute dominance over Ben Chilwell in the right-flank that opened up the game for Manchester City. For all of City's goals, the moves started from the right flank.
The Citizens recorded 23 shots on goal, out of which 12 were on target. They also completed double the number of passes as compared to the visitors and enjoyed 64% of the possession as well.
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