This is not one of Pep Guardiola’s great Manchester City teams. Not yet anyway. They lack that mechanical and unyielding certainty of some of those that have passed before.
But this team – a team still in the making and nurturing – does possess some match winners and a certain stickability and cussedness. They are the kind of traits that will make sure Arsenal will have to win this Premier League title themselves.
On this evidence – and on the back of what we saw as they rescued a point at Everton last Monday – City will not help Mikel Arteta’s team over the line.
So now the baton – the burden of responsibility – passes to north London again. Now it’s Arsenal’s turn to answer questions at West Ham on Sunday. As City showed here at a tense and nervy Etihad Stadium, victories do not come easy when the stakes are this high.
City deserved to win here in the end but not as comfortably as the scoreline suggested. They had the better chances and the game’s best attacking players, namely the two wingers Jeremy Doku and Antoine Semenyo.
In the end the game was decided by two second-half goals in relatively quick succession, another curling cracker from Doku and a close range bundle from Erling Haaland. The 90th minute goal by substitute Omar Marmoush was a decoration and a handy filip to his team’s goal difference.
Manchester City will have Jeremy Doku to thank if they are to win the Premier League title
There had been really big moments before that, though. Moments where the game could have changed. A big save from Gianluigi Donnarumma with the score at 0-0 and Brentford in control just after half-time, for example. A VAR check for a Brentford penalty with the score at only 1-0.
These are the moments that would have got Arteta and his players agitated and interested in their hotel ahead of Sunday’s game. Those were moments when City had to dig in and ride things out on an afternoon that did not see them at their best.
Doku was influential in making sure his team came through. Two spectacular goals at Everton and one more here. If City were to turn everything around and win this title then they may wish to build a statue of the quiet Belgian outside the stadium.
Without him, City’s race would be run by now and the way he has lifted his levels since Semenyo arrived on the opposite flank in January has been uplifting to see. That’s what good players do when they sense a threat. They respond.
Doku at least seemed aware of his team’s need throughout this game. Some of his team-mates took rather longer to properly grasp the concept.
City’s need was great but for the first hour it didn’t always feel like it. Guardiola’s team were nowhere near their levels at times. Not until they scored and then, 15 minutes later, scored again did they exert any kind of real control.
They were the better team in the first-half and created chances that on another day may have been taken. Haaland missed two. But there was a puzzling lack of intensity at times and at half-time the home crowd let loose some frustration at referee Michael Salisbury that may have been better directed at their own players.
Salisbury certainly hadn’t done anything hugely wrong. In fact two big decisions actually went City’s way. When Kevin Schade ran through in the 23rd minute and fell under a challenge from Matheus Nunes, no free-kick was given. It was the right call but a close one nevertheless.
Pep Guardiola’s side are making sure Arsenal will have to become champions themselves
Then, a little while later, Bernardo Silva tangled with Nathan Collins and lashed out with his hand while on the floor. It was a punch to the defender’s leg, basically. He got a yellow card when Brentford may have wanted more.
So there was no external forces at play here. For the first hour, City just weren’t good enough. Doku and Semenyo were their two most progressive players. Both know how to beat a man. Through the middle, meanwhile, City created almost nothing.
Doku actually worked Brentford goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher in the third minute with a low cross-shot that was pushed away. There was also a Silva curled shot that drifted wide.
But Brentford had not come to sit in and hope. It’s not really their style. So they put some aerial pressure on the City backline when they could and two unconvincing contributions from home goalkeeper Donnarumma – a dropped catch and a two-handed paw away to a low one – only encouraged them to keep at it.
City’s main threat came from old fashioned wing play. Semenyo reached the byline in the 26th minute and when his lovely dinked cross reached Haaland, he should have done better than head tamely at the goalkeeper. Two minutes later, Doku was similarly direct and his low pull back again reached City’s top scorer. This effort was poked low and blocked by Kristoffer Ajer with Kelleher smothering a follow up by Nathan Ake.
With City not moving through the gears as we may have expected them to, a certain tension hung in the air. Towards the break, it did all get a little tetchy. But there was nothing to it. City just needed to play with more cohesion and quickness and in his dugout seat Guardiola looked like a man who didn’t hugely like what he was watching.
Brentford had been excellent. Defending deep and narrow when they needed to and asking questions of their opponents when they managed to break out. We have grown used to saying this about Keith Andrews’ team.
Early in the second-half, they were the better side and this transpired to be the key period.
Keith Andrews’ side did not come to sit back, however, and put pressure on City throughout
Ajer eased in to space in the 47th minute and his pass was only a foot overhit as he tried to play Mathias Jensen clear. Soon after Donnarumma had to save low from Igor Thiago after the Brentford striker had been sent away by Michael Kayode. That was a really good chance and Thiago probably should have scored.
City were all at sea at this stage. They looked disjointed and, frankly, low on juice. They were hanging on.
But good players can change games quickly and that’s what happened here.
Guardiola sent on Phil Foden and Marmoush as his team prepared to take a corner on the hour. Doku needed neither, though, as he took possession from a kick taken short, picked up the loose ball after Mikkel Damsgaard tried to intervene and curled a right foot shot across Kelleher and in to the far corner.
The goal acted like a release valve. In an instant the Etihad seemed like a different place. City lifted their standards too and only seven minutes later Foden eased past a defender only to be denied by Kelleher’s right foot when a second goal seemed likely. Later on Kelleher was to deny Foden with an even better save, low and left-handed.
With twenty minutes to go, this was an end to end game. Brentford were not cowed and a VAR check was required to make sure Matheus Nunes hadn’t bundled over Schade in the penalty area. He hadn’t.
That proved a decisive moment as within two minutes Semenyo reached the dead ball line again and Haaland had bundled in his low pull back with his heel after his first shunted shot had come back to him.
With the game done, City threatened to cut loose. Kelleher’s save from Foden was one of the best of the season but he could do nothing when substitute Marmoush drove a low shot past him in the 90th minute.
A win and a boost to City’s goal difference was a more than palatable outcome from a difficult afternoon.
