Revitalised City finally look up for a title battle

Southampton 0 Manchester City 3

Prior to yesterday’s trip to St Mary’s Stadium, Manuel Pellegrini’s side have seemed destined to repeat the mistakes of two seasons ago when the mantle of champions appeared to weigh too heavy on too many City players.

With Chelsea rampant, the prospect of delivering back-to-back titles to Etihad Stadium has been receding by the week.

But with Jose Mourinho’s side finally faltering at Sunderland on Saturday, Pellegrini’s team responded by making their most emphatic statement yet.

Facing a Southampton side who began the day in second place having surpassed all expectations, City made things even harder for themselves when Eliaquim Mangala was dismissed after collecting a second yellow card, leaving the visitors undermanned for the final 16 minutes as they battled to defend the slender advantage afforded them by Yaya Toure’s 51st minute opening goal.

Impressively, they did much more than hang on. Inspired by the introduction of Frank Lampard from the bench midway through the second period, City simply grew stronger with Lampard providing breathing space with an excellent 80th minute strike and Gael Clichy confirming a convincing victory two minutes from time.

Now, having moved above Southampton into second, City trail Chelsea by six points. The gap remains formidable, but not insurmountable, and having beaten Bayern Munich in the Champions League last week, Pellegrini’s side are growing in confidence.

“I repeat today exactly the same words as last week against Swansea,” said the City manager. “We have to play 25 games more. It’s a lot of points. No one knows what happens in the future. In one week, you can change things. Chelsea are playing very well. Let’s see what happens in the future. We just have to work on us.”

And while Pellegrini acknowledges there are plenty of areas for improvement, he believes there can be no questioning of his players’ desire to repeat last season’s success.

“I think we can complain about a lot of things in this team during this year, conceding too many goals and not scoring as many as last season,” he added.

“But the only thing we cannot complain about is the spirit, the personality and the ambition of this squad.”

Pellegrini certainly had no complaints about the red card issued after Mangala brought down Shane Long as the Southampton striker headed goalwards. The manager’s assessment of the decision by referee Mike Jones to book Sergio Aguero for diving in the 10th minute was less generous.

Television replays showed the forward had been tripped by Jose Fonte inside the Southampton penalty area and had the match ended all square, Pellegrini’s reaction would have been less forgiving of the match official’s error. “I thought it was a penalty but I’m not the referee,” said the manager. “One thing I was sure was Sergio never dived. He doesn’t try to cheat the referee. He tries to support the mark, so he wouldn’t have done it that way. It’s not frustrating (that the referee thought he had dived). It’s not important what happened. The referee made the mistake.”

This was Southampton’s third league loss of the season with all three defeats inflicted by sides who finished in the top six last season. This performance will inevitably be scrutinised for signs that Ronald Koeman’s side are starting to fade but the score was harsh on the home side who should have gone ahead when Graziano Pelle failed to beat Joe Hart from close range in the 21st minute.

“They will write off today because we didn’t show something different,” said Koeman. “But if we are the fifth in the league, still we are very happy. But on Wednesday (at Arsenal) we will get a new opportunity to show our qualities. There’s no time to be disappointed. We made too many mistakes and we were punished for that, because they have a very strong team and very good players. We knew that before. We saw it today.”

Toure put City ahead with a powerful low shot after good interplay between Aguero and Fernandinho. Lampard mirrored Toure’s effort after being picked out by James Milner. Clichy’s goal came after another City break led by Aguero who excelled despite failing to get a goal.

SOUTHAMPTON (4-2-3-1): Forster 7; Clyne 7, Fonte 6, Alderweireld 8, Bertrand 5; Wanyama 7, Schneiderlin 6 (Yoshida 46,6); Tadic 5, S Davis 7 (Mayuka, 82,6), Mane 5 (Long 68,6); Pelle 5.

MANCHESTER CITY (4-4-2): Hart 7; Zabaleta 6, Kompany 8, Mangala 5, Clichy 7; Jesus Navas 5 (Demichelis 76,6), Toure 7, Fernandinho 8, Nasri 6 (Lampard 66, 7); Jovetic 6 (Milner 55,6), Aguero 9.

Referee: Mike Jones