An underwhelming Manchester City form continued despite Kevin De Bruyne’s strong performance as they drew 2-2 with Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium last Tuesday, January 14 in a Premier League match.
The draw left the Cityzens in sixth position in the league table with 35 points from 21 matches, which is 12 less than Liverpool’s tally.
Phil Foden scored a brace for Manchester City, but Brentford bounced back from a 0-2 deficit to score twice in the space of 10 minutes to steal a point. The Cityzens thus were pushed further back in the race for the Premier League title.
Kevin de Bruyne’s Exceptional Performance Not Enough
De Bruyne rolled back the years to come up with a brilliant performance for the English champions. The 33-year-old Belgian midfielder played a brilliant through pass to Mattheus Nunes in the first half, which the latter could not make good use of.
De Bruyne’s wonderfully measured cross then paved the way for Foden’s first goal in the second half.
De Bruyne remained the primary creative outlet for the Cityzens, as Foden also seems to have regained his scoring touch. The 24-year-old winger has now scored seven goals in 24 matches this season.
Manchester City have missed de Bruyne’s services for the majority of the ongoing season, which has affected their attacking prowess adversely. As the Belgian midfielder has been starting regularly for them for the last few weeks, Manchester City have started looking like a different team as far as their attack is concerned.
However, some sloppy defending by the Cityzens prevented them from securing a win.
Brentford scored a couple of goals from the edge of the six-yard penalty box. The amount of time Yoane Wissa, who scored Brentford’s first goal, had to take a half-turn and score Brentford’s first goal from the edge of the six-yard box, was not a good advertisement of Manchester City’s defence.
Savinho should have scored another goal for the Cityzens, but one of his attempts hit the woodwork quite unfortunately.
Thus, Pep Guardiola’s men had to be satisfied with a draw despite two of their key attacking players, de Bruyne and Foden, playing really well in the match.
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The League Title Is All but Gone for Manchester City
The Cityzens will take on Ipswich Town next Sunday, January 19, before they square off against Chelsea in a crucial match the following weekend.
Guardiola’s men cannot afford to keep losing points if they are to aim for a top-four finish by the end of the season.
The league title is all but gone for them, with Liverpool highly unlikely to surrender such a big advantage at this stage of the season.
However, not being able to ensure UEFA Champions League football next season will be quite catastrophic for City, who have been the epitome of consistency in European football in the recent past.
De Bruyne’s comeback has definitely strengthened the side, but the Manchester City supporters must have hoped that the Belgian had intervened a lot earlier. However, the season is still not totally lost for them and it is up to them to make the most of it.