Trailing 1-0 against Everton at halftime on Wednesday, Manchester City did not much look like the newly crowned FIFA Club World Cup champions, despite the new golden FIFA badge on the front of the players’ shirts.
However, Pep Guardiola had a simple message to his players at the break.
“The manager [told us] at halftime to just keep believing, we haven’t got this badge for no reason,” Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden said. “In the second half, yeah, wow, I think we blew them away with the way we played.”
Photo: Reuters
Foden started the comeback by equalizing in the 53rd minute before Julian Alvarez’s penalty and a late goal by Bernardo Silva secured a 3-1 win to put the defending champions back into the Premier League’s top four.
“That’s why we’re the world champions. The best team in the world,” Guardiola said with a smile in a post-game interview on Amazon Prime. “Now I’m going to remind them every day. We have a standard to keep.”
The trip to Saudi Arabia for the Club World Cup was perhaps a bit of a distraction and allowed rivals Liverpool and Arsenal to widen the gap at the top.
Photo: Reuters
However, Manchester City now can now fully refocus on the task of winning an unprecedented fourth straight Premier League title and this was a vital first step in showing that they cannot be counted out despite a recent poor run of form.
They are five points behind leaders Liverpool with a game in hand, while Arsenal had a chance to go six points ahead of Guardiola’s team in their game against West Ham United, which was to start after press time last night.
“We know after six games with just one win, the people were asking, which is normal because it is all about results,” Guardiola said about his team’s recent run. “I have a feeling this team, we’re going to be there.”
Even with Erling Haaland still out with a foot injury, Manchester City showed that they have more than enough attacking threat to turn things around against a team who had beaten Newcastle United and Chelsea in their past two league home games.
However, it came as a cost as centerback John Stones went off with an ankle injury before halftime.
“It doesn’t look good, but we will see,” Guardiola said about the injury.
League victories at Stamford Bridge have been hard to come by for Chelsea this year, but their final home game of the year ended in a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace after substitute Noni Madueke converted a late penalty for the hosts.
It was just Chelsea’s sixth home league win of the calendar year.
The Blues took the lead through Mykhailo Mudryk in the 13th minute, but they missed several chances to double their advantage before Michael Olise equalized just before the break.
Just as it looked like Chelsea’s inefficiency up front would cost it again, Madueke was tripped by Eberechi Eze inside the area and stepped up to the spot himself to send goalkeeper Dean Henderson the wrong way in the 89th minute.
Meanwhile, Brentford might need to start worrying about a relegation scrap after Thomas Frank’s team fell to a sixth loss in seven games after making a couple of defensive howlers in a 4-1 home defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
South Korea forward Hwang Hee-chan scored twice as Wolves took full advantage of Brentford’s mistakes, including one that came straight after the kickoff following the visitors’ opening goal.
Nathan Collins’ back-pass to goalkeeper Mark Flekken was underhit, allowing Hwang to round him and tap into an empty net barely 10 seconds after the restart.
Brentford are in 14th place, just four points outside the relegation zone, while Wolves climbed to 11th.
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