Man City return to winning ways against Brighton to close gap at top

Manchester City 3-1 Brighton: Erling Haaland has now scored 17 goals in the Premier League this season

Erling Haaland scores from the penalty spot (AFP)

Perhaps Brighton and Hove Albion were always cruising for a bruising. Just as it appeared as though Roberto de Zerbi’s side were threatening to stage an unlikely comeback from two goals down at the home of the Premier League champions, they were put away by a black-eyed Kevin De Bruyne. Despite sporting a shiner picked up in training earlier this week, De Bruyne’s vision was 20-20 on the magnificent long-range strike which got Manchester City back to winning ways.

Normal service was resumed in that sense and in another. After drawing a blank in the defeat at Anfield last Sunday, this was also a return to the weekly ritual of Erling Haaland putting Premier League defences through a meat grinder. The Norwegian is back in the goals, if, after a one-game-long barren spell, it can be said that he ever really went away. He is certainly not leaving the top of the scoring charts anytime soon. Another brace made it 22 in 14 competitive games for City, 17 in the league alone.

Brighton can be proud of their display, particularly in the second half when, between Leandro Trossard’s strike and the De Bruyne goal that settled this game, they were the better side. De Zerbi is still waiting for his first win in the job but, stylistically, has picked up where Graham Potter left off. Given his side’s performances, he can be frustrated to have only taken one point from a possible six from trips to Anfield and the Etihad.

The visitors initially did an effective job of setting themselves up to disrupt City’s build-up play and block off Ederson’s passing lanes but the champions have a thousand ways to hurt an opponent, from the complex to the rudimentary. Robert Sanchez thought he could reach Ederson’s long punt upfield before Haaland. He thought wrong. Haaland got there ahead of him and, with the Brighton goalkeeper out of the picture, all that stood between him and an empty net was Adam Webster. A shoulder barge dealt with that, flattening the centre-half, to leave the simplest of finishes.

That was Haaland’s sixteenth league goal before the clocks go back, only one of them being a penalty. It is scary to think how high that number might go before May if City begin to convert more of their spins and feints in the opposition’s box into spot kicks. Haaland thought he had won one himself when the game was still goalless, apparently tripped by Sanchez. Referee Craig Pawson disagreed, as did VAR, but a more blatant trip of Bernardo Silva later in the half by Lewis Dunk was bound to be punished. Eventually.

Play carried on for almost two minutes before Pawson blew up to halt proceedings and review Dunk’s trip on the pitchside monitor. Quite how he had missed it in open play, only he knows. Haaland took hold of the ball before the decision was officially overturned. Nobody was taking it off him. The penalty itself was hit hard, drilled into Sanchez’s bottom left-hand corner. If the Brighton goalkeeper had got anywhere near it, the power may have carried him into the back of his own net. It was City’s 600th league goal of the Guardiola era.

Brighton had barely threatened, but as arguably the Premier League’s best of the rest outside a predictable top seven, an opportunity would come. When it did, City did not defend it well. Ayermic Laporte’s attempt at a headed clearance of Sanchez’s long kick downfield was weak, and Manuel Akanji then lost his battle with Solly March, but Trossard still would not have managed to pull one back with a speculative attempt from the edge of the box if Ederson had better protected his near post.

In the previous passage of play, Riyad Mahrez had spurned a one-on-one when put through in behind down the right. Guardiola’s response to Brighton’s goal was to replace Mahrez with Phil Foden and attempt to restore City’s two-goal cushion, but De Zerbi’s visitors were now playing with plenty more confidence and containing everything that came their way. Trossard might have even equalised, breaking free down the right and forcing Ederson into a save at a tight angle.

Yet that momentum building behind an unlikely Brighton comeback was swept away with one swing of De Bruyne’s right boot. Such is his accuracy when unmarked and around 25 yards out, you expect him to hit the target even when his vision is impaired. A perfectly struck right-footed shot beat Sanchez all ends up and ended Brighton’s resistance. City are back to one point off the top, still with ground to make up on leaders Arsenal, but after the upset of Anfield last week, this was a return to the routine.