Brentford 0-1 Manchester City 

Report by Layth Yousif 

at Brentford Community Stadium

MANCHESTER CITY eased past Brentford through an early goal by Erling Haaland to move into fifth place.

The comfortable victory for Pep Guardiola’s visitors — the Basque’s 250th Premier League win — was marred by the loss of influential midfielder Rodri, after the 29-year-old sustained an injury that forced the Spanish international to depart on 22 minutes.

“It’s muscular,” admitted Guardiola after the match. “Of course I don’t want to lose him [at all] because he is such an important player.

“We tried to take care of him, but it is what it is.”

As for Keith Andrews’s Bees, with seven points from seven matches, the international break comes at a good time for the west London club, still coming to terms with the rupture of losing their manager (Thomas Frank), their two main strikers (Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa), their goalkeeper (Mark Flekken) and last season’s captain (Christian Norgaard) during the summer.

“[Man City] are an outstanding team that can control proceedings,” reflected Andrews. “Would we have liked to have gotten a little bit more pressure on the ball?

“Of course we would have. But it’s not always on our terms.

“They created very few opportunities — I’m not sure how many centre-forwards in world football score the goal he [Haaland] scored.”

It was the brute force of Haaland which ensured the striker scored on nine minutes when powering through the Bees’ defence, outmuscling Sepp van den Berg, after latching onto Josko Gvardiol’s long ball.

It was the 25-year-old’s third goal this week, and his 18th in 11 games for club and country this term.

City’s impish Phil Foden was a constant threat for the Bees backline, as the 25-year-old tested home keeper Caoimhin Kelleher on 20 minutes, and again 10 minutes later with an angled shot that flew narrowly wide, as City dominated the early stages.

Sandwiched in between was blow for City as a crestfallen Rodri limped off and headed down the tunnel after appearing to have injured his hamstring on 22 minutes.

Such was the sympathy for last year’s Ballon d’Or winner — who had worked so hard to be fit once again, after what could have been a potentially career-threatening ACL 13 months ago — even Brentford fans applauded the stricken midfielder.

Kelleher showed his quality with a superb reaction save from Tijjani Reijnders’s sweetly struck left-footed cushioned volley seven minutes before half time.

The Bees’ big, bustling former bricklayer Igor Tiago raced through moments after the restart only for hesitant touches saw his tame shot blocked by Gianluigi Donnarumma.

While Bees boss Andrews had steeled his side during the interval with the belief that Guardiola’s storied side were there to be attacked, not least when the impressive Michael Kayode headed over on 57 minutes following good play from Aaron Hickey along the left flank, ultimately the home side simply couldn’t find a way through City’s obdurate defence, as the visitors picked up a vital victory on the road.

Speaking after the match, a relaxed Guardiola said of his 250th game in charge of City: “It’s an honour to be alongside Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, I will invite them to a good dinner,” said the Basque-born boss, who is in his 10th campaign with City.

“It’s a pleasure to be part of that in Premier League history, really pleased. Now let’s go for 250 more,” he added.