Manchester City 1-0 Atletico Madrid
by James Nalton
at City of Manchester Stadium
 

MANCHESTER CITY claimed a hard-earned 1-0 victory against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night thanks to a moment of brilliance from Phil Foden.

An hour or so dominated by the Atletico defence, during which the visitors threatened only occasionally but ineffectively on the counter-attack, gave way to 20 minutes of fairly entertaining football once Foden combined with Kevin De Bruyne to break the deadlock.

Pep Guardiola wouldn’t agree, but many Manchester City games at Eastlands feel like a formality. If a team manages to get so much as a draw there, it will go down as a shock result.

But there was a different kind of feeling ahead of the game against Atletico, just as there will be against Liverpool on Sunday.

In that sense, it was perhaps a good warm-up for the Premier League’s biggest games of the season, but in other ways, it wasn’t, as Atletico are a completely different proposition to Liverpool.

“I don't give an opinion on the way my opponents play,” said City manager Guardiola in his post-match press conference.

And though he didn’t give an opinion, he regularly referred to how difficult Diego Simeone’s side can be to break down.

“It was a difficult game against a tough opponent,” said Guardiola. “For 25 to 30 minutes they played 5-5 [two banks of five in defence] so it was difficult to find spaces.”

One player who did manage to find space was Foden. The England international replaced Riyad Mahrez down City’s right side in the 68th minute, and two minutes later he was setting up De Bruyne for the game’s only goal.

Foden found a pocket of space between the banks of five Guardiola spoke of, playing a through ball into De Bruyne’s path to unlock this most secure of defences.

Guardiola went on to discuss Foden’s role in breaking down the defence. The 21-year-old played from the right but has operated centrally in recent Premier League games.

“In these games, we need a striker because they are so deep, sometimes dropping a striker is good but there literally aren’t the spaces as they defend so well, so compact and so deep.

“It’s difficult to find space, so we need the talent as Phil has shown in the two actions, and more spaces with the guys we had there.”

On the other side of the pitch, Jack Grealish was making an impact of his own, drawing a foul just seconds after coming on in the same minute as Foden which resulted in a yellow card for Rodrigo de Paul.

Atletico’s aim is often to rattle and unsettled their opponents through stubborn defending, gamesmanship, and by taking the sting out of the game. 

Grealish ended up giving them a taste of their own medicine in a different way, proving evasive on the ball and attracting frustrated challenges from Atleti’s many defenders. For the most part, he didn’t rise to their taunting.

In one particular moment, Angel Correa was lucky to stay on the pitch after booting the ball at Grealish from point-blank range while he lay on the floor.

Sime Vrsalkjo and Stefan Savic both tried to get a rise from the 26-year-old but failed, much to their annoyance.

If Grealish plays the 90 minutes in the second leg you could easily imagine a player getting sent off. If he holds his nerve as he did here, it would likely be a Madrid player.

Simeone hinted his side might attack more in the second leg, but the Argentine will probably concentrate his game plan on being more effective on the counter-attack rather than opening up and gifting City the tie.

But before then Guardiola will have to contend with an entirely different challenge in the shape of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.