Balotelli steals headlines, Richards steals the show

Man City 3 Sunderland 0

Italian forward Balotelli stormed down the tunnel after being substituted after 55 minutes of City’s mostimpressive display to date this season, another minor drama in the attention-seeking prima donna’s body of work.

City coach David Platt tersely declined to answer questions the latest antics, an indication the club have long since run out of patience with answering justifiable questions about the player.

However, Platt’s frustration was understandable, given that, for the first time this season, City had strung together a dominant 90-minute performance that not only featured a comfortable winning margin but also a clean sheet.

The latter element was due in no small part to the performance of Richards, playing a club game for the first time in five months after an injury-hit start to the season.

In the month John Terry retired from international football and Roy Hodgson announced to the world — well, a London tube — that Rio Ferdinand had no future with his national team, here was Richards playing in the centre-half position that many feel is his best.

“Well, I think Micah is a fantastic player and he deserves to be in the national team,” said team-mate Pablo Zabaleta. “Micah came back to the team, he was very solid at the back.

“He is young, he is strong and he can give to England what he gives to Manchester City. He can play either centre back or right back. Terry’s not in the international team any more so maybe that is a good chance for him to get into the England team again.”

Question marks have long since hovered over Richards’ suitability at international level but, given the defensive problems for England at present, Richards’ display means he must come under Hodgson’s scrutiny once more before the World Cup campaign is much older.

“He can play both positions, centre-back and right-back,” continued Zabaleta. “He’s played before in this position and looking at this season, we have Macion, me and Micah [at right-back] so it’s good to see Micah as a centre-back.”

Richards will not discuss his attitude towards Hodgson and England but, given the impressive nature of his pairing with Joleon Lescott on Saturday and the fact City make up the backbone of the team, the prospect of a recall must have been on the defender’s mind.

“I was excited to be back out there after being out for so long, me and Joleon haven’t played together too many times,” said Richards.

“People always say the foreigners make City’s team but we have a good six or seven English lads in the squad.’’

The good news for City was that the impressive Richards was not even their best defensive performer against Sunderland — that title belonging to full-back Aleksandar Kolarov who started the rout with a superb free-kick.

There should have been a catalogue of goals before Sergio Aguero, Balotelli’s replacement, turned in a Kolarov cross five minutes after his introduction and another England squad man, James Milner, completed the scoring, again direct from a free-kick.

It was a tough afternoon for Sunderland who made a mockery of their status as an unbeaten Premier League side with a dismal performance.

“You always know that when you play against Manchester City you are going to be busy,” said goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.

“In games like this you want to keep it goalless as long as you can, but by conceding early it meant a tough game got even tougher.”

MAN CITY (4-2-3-1): Hart 7; Zabaleta 7, Richards 8, Lescott 7, Kolarov 9; Milner 8, Barry 6; Silva 7 (Rodwell 89), Y Toure 6, Balotelli 5 (Aguero 55, 8); Tevez 7 (Clichy 85).

SUNDERLAND (4-4-2): Mignolet 7; Gardner 6, O’Shea 5, Cuellar 5, Rose 5 (Vaughan 61, 5); Johnson 4 (Saha 67, 5), Larsson 7, Colback 6, McClean 5; Sessegnon 6 (Campbell 82), Fletcher 6.

Referee: L Probert.