Man City

Erling Haaland scored his 20th Premier League goal of the season as Manchester City recorded a 3-1 victory over Leeds at Elland Road.

LEEDS 1-3 MAN CITY (PASCAL STRUIJK): Struijk may have just dragged Leeds back into this contest with his second goal of the season! LEEDS 0-2 MAN CITY (ERLING HAALAND): Grealish is alert to steal in and intercept a loose pass from Cooper in the Leeds defence. Grealish crosses and Haaland is at the near post to tuck a first-time shot past Meslier. LEEDS 0-1 MAN CITY (RODRI): City finally have the breakthrough! Lewis rolls a pass across the face of goal but from point blank range Grealish lifts it over the bar! Yes, he is getting into those dangerous positions but for a £100m player you would expect him to have the composure and knack to make the most of such opportunities.

Manchester City produced another fine display to beat Leeds United 3-1 at Elland Road.

Rodri, who opened the scoring here, is an expert defensive-midfielder, a player who sits just in front of the back four and offers protection. "It’s a really special moment in my career. The first half was exceptional. And City soon had a third when Grealish and Haaland linked up to devastating effect once again. After hosting Everton, we play six games next month, starting with two against Chelsea, in both the Premier League and FA Cup, and a trip to Southampton in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup. There'll be few easier finishes for the Norwegian this season. Then it's three Premier League games in nine days – the Manchester derby at Old Trafford (14 January), before home matches against Tottenham (19 January) and Wolves (22 January). That game is the first of seven in 23 days for City – a remarkable run of fixtures that will go a long way in determining the level of success we have this season. He is unfussy, plays simple passes and is almost always in the right place at the right time thanks to his ability to read the game. 150 - Ederson has won 150 of his 197 games in the Premier League, becoming the quickest player to reach 150 victories in the competition:— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) A City goal felt certain, and it arrived seconds before the break in the form of a swift counter-attack. In fact, his 20 goals would have been enough to secure a share of the Golden Boot in five Premier League campaigns.

In the 3-1 victory over Leeds last night, he used a three-man defence stretched across the width of the pitch, a central midfielder in Rodri who often dropped ...

But on this evidence, he symbolises Guardiola’s novel approach we’ve come to take for granted, and might soon be considered a new breed of player entirely. Lewis isn’t in a natural position to cope with an opposition left-winger, but because Leeds were playing so narrow, Lewis’ job was fairly simple — just tracking But they controlled possession well, dragged Leeds around, exploited space out wide and guarded against counter-attacks. The particularly bold thing here, of course, is leaving Lewis entirely on his own in midfield. And some of the shapes City took up in possession were extraordinary. Rodri, the holding midfielder, is briefly the most obvious defender, while left-back Ake is tucked in alongside the central midfielder, Gundogan. Leeds were sloppy at turnovers and didn’t exploit any space between City’s defenders. Stones pushed out to right-back and Lewis drifted inside — you can see him near the centre spot in the screengrab below. Stones, who spent most of the game near the right touchline, is over towards the left corner flag. But that was City’s shape without the ball, which isn’t particularly relevant when they had 69 per cent of possession. The key thing, of course, is that it all worked perfectly. Leeds played an extremely narrow 4-3-3, attempting to dominate the centre of the pitch and prevent City from passing through the middle.

To commemorate 30 years of the Premier League, we today continue our new video series celebrating 30 key City moments during that historic timeline.

[De Bruyne](https://www.mancity.com/players/kevin-de-bruyne) sealed the points with eight minutes to play, jinking inside before wrong-footing goalkeeper Dean Henderson with a low finish. [FIND OUT MORE ABOUT RECAST](https://recast.tv/ManCity) [FIND OUT MORE ABOUT CITY +](https://www.mancity.com/city-plus)