Jesus strike keeps City top of the Premier League
Gabriel Jesus scores Manchester City's first goal during today's game with Sheffield United at Etihad Stadium.
Gabriel Jesus struck his first league goal in 10 games as Manchester City held on to top place in the Premier League table and avoided the fate suffered by their closest rivals in midweek.
The goal was enough to secure Pep Guardiola’s 500th victory in management, a 12th straight win for City and a 19th game unbeaten.
It was hardly an emphatic win against a dogged opponent, fresh from beating Manchester United, but as Guardiola saw Jesus net a league goal for the first time since scoring against Liverpool at the start of November, he must have been pleased to see his side avoid a potential banana skin.
It took City just nine minutes to succeed where their neighbours, and closest challengers at the top of the table, had failed in midweek by taking the lead against Chris Wilder’s team.
So resilient against United during their stunning upset against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side, the Blades capitulated from City’s first meaningful attack in comic book fashion.
Ferran Torres chased a long pass from Ruben Dias to the by-line but, shepherded by Ethan Ampadu and Jayden Bogle, appeared to have nowhere to go.
He even fell on his backside at one point but, still, somehow managed to worm his way through the two defenders and square for Jesus who had, inexplicably, been left unmarked on the six-yard line by Chris Basham.
The Brazilian actually had time to take two terrible touches in attempting to control the ball before hammering it into the roof the visitors’ goal.
With City in such imperious form of late, it was hard to see the division’s bottom club finding a way back from even this most slender of leads.
And when Ampadu’s terrible backward header towards his own goalkeeper found only City’s Bernardo Silva, his side should have been two goals behind. City’s Portuguese playmaker could not get any power on his effort, however, and United lived to fight on.
And fight they did, with Rhian Brewster even having the audacity to have a shot on target, after 35 minutes, which was steered straight at Ederson from the edge of the area and easily saved.
But the second half continued in the same manner with City’s heavy advantage in possession keeping the pressure on the visitors’ defence.
Dias headed just wide from a difficult angle at Ilkay Gundogan’s corner then, twice, the lively Torres almost presented Jesus with simple tap-ins as he crossed from the right.
Still, it was not until the 72nd minute that Ramsdale was forced into meaningful action, first pushing away a thunderous Oleksandr Zinchenko shot then tipping over a header from Aymeric Laporte following Ilkay Gundogan’s resultant corner.
There would be some late anxiety for Guardiola, when John Fleck’s 20-yard shot bounced just wide, before Jesus could have wrapped it all up in injury-time with an effort which the diving Ramsdale saved well.
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