Manchester City had no answer to Southampton on Sunday as Sadio Mane scored a hat-trick in a convincing 4-2 win at St Mary’s.
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City’s game against the Saints had originally been moved to a 16:30 kick-off for television purposes, but the club were hopeful of getting it rescheduled again in light of their Champions League semi-final second leg against Real Madrid on Wednesday.
Arsenal took a huge step towards automatic qualification for the Champions League group stages as Manchester City fell to a 4-2 defeat at Southampton on Sunday courtesy of a Sadio Mane hat-trick.
One bright spark for City, however, was the performance of Iheanacho, who netted a stunning late consolation to make it four goals in two games for him on an otherwise terrible day for the away side.
“I don’t think Real are favourites”, said the City coach. We’ll analyse after the game [if anyone earned the right to play Wednesday]. Maybe if we had played on Saturday we could put more in.
“Our mind is the same, to continue trying to win all our games and have a spot in the Champions League for next year, and be as near the top of the table as we can”. If we lose to Arsenal then we are in real trouble.
“I think it’s important not to give any advantage to the other team, but also you need to have three days to recover”.
The Manchester City manager has done a fine job of juggling the twin aims in the last month, both strengthening the Blues’ league position and keeping them in the European hunt.
At the other end, Kelechi Iheanacho bagged a brace.
Shane Long opened the scoring in the 25th minute before Mane took over, slotting in his first three minutes later.
And the Sky Sports pundit believes the display on the south coast was a microcosm of City’s season, a season where the best-equipped team in the league have fallen way short of the pace.
However, there were few signs City could build on that goal after the break and Southampton asserted their dominance 12 minutes after the restart when Mane hooked the ball home after Virgil van Dijk had met Steve Davis’s corner and headed against the bar. I’m very happy for him. “I also had to select a team based on who would play on Wednesday”.
“That was a poor performance today by City, in every shape and every form”.
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Shearer added: ‘I’m absolutely certain Southampton would have targeted the weakness of Manchester City’s back four and that they constantly try and keep a high line. “We are ready. It is a big game next week”.
