{"id":47930,"date":"2025-11-29T21:36:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T21:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=47930"},"modified":"2025-11-29T21:36:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T21:36:32","slug":"premier-league-man-city-3-2-leeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2025\/11\/29\/premier-league-man-city-3-2-leeds\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier League: Man City 3-2 Leeds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Phil Foden struck the winner in the second minute of added time Pep Guardiola\u2019s leap was laced with relief at Manchester City\u2019s pursuit of Arsenal still being live. They are back up to second, four points behind the Gunners, who travel to Chelsea on Sunday. This was Leeds\u2019s fourth straight league reverse but the fight shown augurs well for Daniel Farke\u2019s job security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City had spurned a two-goal interval advantage after Dominic Calvert-Lewin, a half-time substitute, terrorised the hosts. The 28-year-old scored in the 49th minute, then claimed the penalty that led to Lukas Nmecha\u2019s 68th-minute equaliser, rattling Josko Gvardiol enough for him to scythe the striker down.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

City\u2019s response was admirable. The substitute Rayan Cherki fed Foden who ran left across Leeds\u2019s area before beating Lucas Perri. Yet Leeds\u2019s second-half display again illuminated City\u2019s defensive frailties \u2013 they are too easily raided along the flanks, in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guardiola said: \u201cWe are not a team to win these types of games a lot. When we knew it was 10 minutes extra time we said: \u2018Let\u2019s go.\u2019 We had two or three chances to score, we were able to close and it was massively important for our mood. Tomorrow we see Arsenal and Chelsea, but it\u2019s important to be as close as possible to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 59 seconds, a diagram of City at their best was offered. Nico Gonz\u00e1lez swivelled and tapped the ball to Gvardiol, whose 45-yard diagonal hit Matheus Nunes. The right-back leaped to control, relayed the ball infield to Bernardo Silva, darted forward, received possession again and found Foden, whose finish pinballed off the bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lukas<\/a>
Lukas Nmecha\u2019s penalty was saved by Gianluigi Donnarumma but he could smile after equalising from the follow-up.Photograph: Jason Cairnduff\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An apt riposte to\u00a0Tuesday\u2019s 2-0 loss to Bayer Leverkusen, as Foden and Nunes were two of the 10 changes that backfired on Guardiola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City were rampant and a second goal soon lit up the scoreboard. When Foden\u2019s corner from the right came back to him he rammed the ball at goal and a flying Perri palmed away for a corner on the other side. This came in from Tijjani Reijnders, Nico O\u2019Reilly beat a flailing Perri to head down and Gvardiol finished. The video assistant referee\u2019s check for offside proved negative and City cruised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The charge regarding Farke is that he is out of his depth at this level. His team were being cast the same, so a rare foray that featured Wilfried Gnonto passing to Nmecha had to be converted instead of being blasted over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the interval, Farke hooked Gnonto and Daniel James for Calvert-Lewin and Jaka Bijol, switching to 3-5-2, and there was an instant dividend. Nunes, twice, was City\u2019s culprit. First, a loose pass ceded possession. Then, when Calvert-Lewin got the better of a covering Gvardiol, Nunes could have hacked clear. But the auxiliary defender dawdled and Calvert-Lewin poked home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gianluigi Donnarumma was jeered by the travelling support for requiring attention \u2013 perhaps as this allowed Guardiola to have a pitchside pow-wow. Farke, too, was dubious. \u201cIt\u2019s in the rules, it\u2019s smart,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I like it, if it is fair play, I keep it to myself and leave it to the authorities to find solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I\u2019m honest, I would have blown the whistle 2-2 at 90 minutes, not play the extra 10 minutes. I don\u2019t criticise Pep for this \u2013 he did not go down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guardiola said: \u201cI didn\u2019t speak with Gigio. When it happened I looked back to the dugout and said: \u2018James [Trafford], warm up\u2019. I don\u2019t know. Next press conference you can ask me and I will ask Gigio.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Manchester<\/a>
Phil Foden shows his delight after putting Manchester City ahead after one minute. Photograph: Phil Noble\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The chat did zero good, because after Jayden Bogle\u2019s header into City\u2019s area a hapless Gvardiol was spooked by Calvert-Lewin, who was upended. This was the clearest penalty Peter Bankes will give yet still R\u00faben Dias moaned to the referee in comical manner. Up stepped Nmecha, whose initial effort was saved by Donnarumma before the forward rolled the rebound in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guardiola\u2019s order to up the tempo resulted in goalmouth scrambles involving Bernardo Silva, O\u2019Reilly and the anonymous Erling Haaland but Leeds escaped. Sadly for them, they could not avert City\u2019s box-office finale but on this evidence Farke is still being heeded by his players. \u201cMy players should take pride,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Phil Foden struck the winner in the second minute of added time Pep Guardiola\u2019s leap was laced with relief at Manchester City\u2019s pursuit of Arsenal still being live. They are back up to second, four points behind the Gunners, who travel to Chelsea on Sunday. This was Leeds\u2019s fourth straight league reverse but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":47931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3295],"tags":[5722,285,3757,7034,2115,169,9331,10739,2200,6310,9883,7090,1966,8137,9385,5712,8382,1968,11252,501,4082,9605,13256,8829,267,8708,5655,9881,6584,8033,594],"class_list":["post-47930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-sport","tag-anonymous","tag-arsenal","tag-bayer-leverkusen","tag-bernardo-silva","tag-calvert-lewin","tag-chelsea","tag-city","tag-display","tag-donnarumma","tag-erling-haaland","tag-fed","tag-games","tag-guardiola","tag-haaland","tag-hacked","tag-leap","tag-leeds","tag-man-city","tag-manchester","tag-manchester-city","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-phil-foden","tag-players","tag-pow","tag-premier-league","tag-ruben-dias","tag-security","tag-smart","tag-travel","tag-video","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47932,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47930\/revisions\/47932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}