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Manchester City won a free-kick about 45 yards from goal and what happened next can’t have sat well with Sam Allardyce.
The new Leeds United boss, and presumably still host of the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, could only watch from his technical area as Pep Guardiola’s side spurned the opportunity to get it up top for the big man. Instead, Julian Alvarez and Aymeric Laporte passed it between each other like they were in the park as Leeds forward Patrick Bamford stood yards away looking unclear about what they were doing so casually.
Suddenly, the ball was shuffled forward to Kevin De Bruyne and a host of runners were charging into the box ready for the delivery. Instead, the Belgian went out to Riyad Mahrez and yet again Haaland was snubbed as the Algerian ignored everyone in the box and laid it square for Ilkay Gundogan.
Guardiola wary of Leeds threat under new interim boss Allardyce
As a man of Allardyce’s knowledge will know, you don’t win football matches by not going for the goal. Except that tippy-tappy nonsense had splintered any form of shape Leeds had and Gundogan swept home the ball to give City the lead after just 19 minutes.
Eight minutes later, Gundogan could even afford the luxury of a touch after being found by Mahrez again in a similar position before firing past Joel Robles to double the City lead. Leeds had been passed to death and their footballing Messiah will have to wait for another chance to prove he is among the best managers in the game.
If that feels unnecessarily harsh on the manager of a relegation-threatened team low on form and confidence up against the best version of City, it was Allardyce who deliberately chose to talk himself up this week when there was no need to. On this evidence, chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak won’t be rushing to test the veteran’s claim that he could challenge for a Treble with this team.
The Treble is a game closer for City and this 2-1 win has helped them in two competitions. Not only are they now four points clear of Arsenal having played the same number of games, but Guardiola was able to rest several key first-team players ahead of the trip to Madrid.
It was a real gamble from the manager, considering what had happened against Leicester City recently. A few weeks ago, City swept into a commanding lead against the relegation-threatened Foxes before Guardiola made what he later admitted to be too many changes and nearly threw away the three points.
