Today Matheus Cunha would be a starter at Atlético de Madrid, a club that sold him to Wolverhampton in 2022. Today Matheus Cunha is a starter at Wolves. The situation of the fast Brazilian striker gives a dimension of the level of the English league. In Spain, Wolves would compete with very powerful weapons to win the League. On the other hand, they are 11th in the Premier. Nothing was at stake when he visited the Manchester City field this Saturday. Guardiola’s team was in charge of reminding him with a steamroller start. Erling Haaland went into the break with a hat tricksuperb expression of a collective performance impossible to see in Europe in any team other than City.
5
Ederson Moraes, Gvardiol, Aké (John Stones, min. 68), Manuel Akanji, Walker, Kovacic, Bernardo Silva (Jeremy Doku, min. 79), Foden (Grealish, min. 79), Rodrigo, De Bruyne (Matheus, min. . 79) and Erling Braut Haaland (Julián Álvarez, min. 82)
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José Sá, Tote Gomes, Nelson Semedo, Max Kilman, Gomes Da Silva, Rayan Ait Nouri, Boubacar Traore, Hugo Bueno (Santi Bueno, min. 70), Mario Lemina (Jeanricner Bellegarde, min. 45), Matheus Cunha (Sarabia, min. 76) and Hwang Hee-Chan (Tawanda Chirewa, min. 87)
Goals 1-0 min. 12: Erling Braut Haaland. 2-0 min. 35: Erling Braut Haaland. 3-0 min. 47: Erling Braut Haaland. 3-1 min. 52: Hwang Hee-Chan. 4-1 min. 53: Erling Braut Haaland. 5-1 min. 85: Julián Álvarez.
Referee Craig Pawson
Yellow cards Mario Lemina (min. 40), Nelson Semedo (min. 46), Boubacar Traore (min. 63) and Gomes Da Silva (min. 65)
The most disputed fight for the Premier League in history began with an Arsenal-Bournemouth match just after midday. Arsenal won 3-0 in the San Sebastian duel between Arteta and Iraola. The gunners They covered the file with solvency, only after the referee annulled Bournemouth’s 0-1 score due to a foul that was difficult to recognize outside of the VAR video. With pressure from the pursuers, City took to the field at dusk against a Wolves loaded with good footballers in search of encouragement. Cunha, Hwang, Semedo, Nouri, Lemina, Gomes, make up a group of professionals with excellent conditions on the threshold of the holidays. At the Etihad only City itself could revive them: the idea of the glory of hurting the team that most of Europe’s sporting directorates consider to be the hardest worked, the one that handles the most resources, the most dangerous, the most difficult. to control. There was no case. City’s entry into the game was a deterrent gale that invited the visiting players to think that the next day they would have time to make up for it.
Rodrigo, Bernardo Silva, De Bruyne and Walker were close to their best expression of the course. They are the spiritual marrow of City. They are the teachers. With them connected, Guardiola’s team is invincible. Especially if what they intend is to pressure the man in the opposite field. The plunger overwhelmed the Wolves men when they tried to come out playing, in a scenario in which their defenses feel especially vulnerable. Kilman, Gomes and Nouri began to make mistakes early on. They combusted. The more failures, the more insecurity, and even more failures. Normal when the degree of precision and cognitive activity of the attackers who faced them produced plays like the one that preceded the 1-0.
Foden, who nominally started as a left winger, offered himself as the apex of the advance in the central lane. Placed between the Wolves pivots and centre-backs, the Englishman played successively with Akanji and De Bruyne until he turned and found Bernardo Silva in the alley of the eight. The Portuguese entered from behind and assisted the teammate who was advancing towards the far post, along the left lane. ten. The Croatian full-back could not finish because they gave him a penalty, so tense was the defense due to the endless exchange of positions of the opponents in the area they were most trying to protect. Haaland took the shot. It was the first of his four goals on the afternoon in a bid for his second successive English Golden Boot. He has 25 goals this season, in the league alone. His contribution becomes indispensable for a City that is trying to overcome Arsenal’s best goal difference. In the event of a tie on points on the last day, the Premier will stay at the home of the strongest. At the moment, with 36 games played, Arsenal has 83 points with a goal difference of +60; while City, with one game less, has 82 points and +54 goals.
Guardiola, critic
Haaland’s goals were the most folkloric note of a splendid afternoon for City. “We lost too many balls in simple passes,” Guardiola said critically after the end. The Catalan coach usually sees more defects than virtues. It is true that Wolves managed to control the ball and get into City’s field for some episodes, and even scored a goal just after half-time, but they ended up open, exposed to the blows of Haaland, launched at maximum speed by Ederson and Foden in 4-1. A dazzling counterattack of two passes, a control, a cut, a shot.
Guardiola always asks for more. But unlike last weekend’s gloomy Nottingham performance, the match offered a hopeful outlook for fans in north Manchester. De Bruyne’s dynamism reached unknown heights in recent years; Foden acted with judgment as well as courage; Bernardo recovered the energy that he lost against Forest the previous day; and Rodri completed a true exhibition in all areas. As the axis of the play in the midfield, as the leader of the pressure, where he caused the robbery and ended up giving the pass at 2-0, and as an assistant in multiple arrivals, the most striking, that of Julián Álvarez’s goal, the 5-1, the Spaniard took the reins of the team and the horses did not stop galloping. City displayed their best strengths on the way to facing Fulham next Saturday and Tottenham on Tuesday, May 14.
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