Saturday, August 21, 2021

MIRROR IMAGE: CITY 5-0 NORWICH

MANCHESTER CITY 5-0 NORWICH CITY

(Saturday 26th July 2020 - Saturday 21st August 2021)


✅⚽ 5-0 - Two consecutive home games in the Premier League versus Daniel Farke's open and pliable Norwich City have returned identical results. Add to this the fact that City have hit a seven, a six, another five and a four in the last 11 Premier League fixtures between the two sides and you can easily see why Norwich are, both in Premier League terms and historically speaking, one of City's most welcome guests.

✅ 👀 Same scorers - Riyad Mahrez and Raheem Sterling scored in both games, while Gabriel Jesus, scoring one two seasons ago, assisted two this time around.

2-0: In both games City went in at the break two goals up.

✅🎤: "I am a bit disapppointed with the scoreline." - Daniel Farke, Norwich manager, 26/7/20

             "I am a bit disappointed with the way we conceded our goals" - Daniel Farke, Norwich                             manager, 21/8/21



✅✈ - On both occasions the match, despite being the scene of an avalanche of goals, was dominated by thoughts of departures and arrivals. In the 2020 match v Norwich David Silva played his last-ever game at the Etihad and would become a Real Sociedad player later in the summer. Fast forward 14 months and the talk was of new signing Jack Grealish, making his first-ever Etihad appearance and scoring the second goal, to become the first City home debut scorer since Frank Lampard in 2014. 

The departure of perhaps City's greatest play-maker ever and the arrival of one who could eventually match his output.



✅🔑 - "Once Norwich go a goal down, they seem unable to respond - in the 27 games where they have fallen behind in the league this season, they have ended up losing all of them, and are the only team in Premier League history to fail to recover a single point from a losing position in an entire campaign...." stated the BBC website in 2020. Farke's men will do well to put an end to this tradition, if they want to avoid a similar fate (relegation) to that which met them after this ffixture in 2020.


✅👏 - On both occasions, spectators were in the news. With the Covid pandemic taking a hold, City's game in July 2020 had to be played behind closed doors. This time, a home crowd reappeared into the (half-) light to clap their heroes back onto the turf for the first time since March 2020. The emotions of playing in front of a crowd once again representing a welcome return to normal for players and fans alike.


 

5-PLUS - Since Pep Guardiola's arrival in the Premier League there have been 49 games won by 5-0 or above, 23 of these by City themselves (47%), including the last two against Norwich City via OptaJoe


✅⚽ - Raheem Sterling's goal in July 2020 meant that he was the first English player to net 20 goals for City in a season since Brian Kidd in 1976-77.

            - Raheem Sterling's goal in August 2021 meant that he became the 41st player to score for City in 7 different seasons.  


The more things change, the more they stay the same.... 








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