Aguero and Torres spark City’s charge SERGING TO TITLE
IF Liverpool have got any room on the team bus when they travel to Manchester, today it might be an idea to take the Premier League trophy with them.
The title is heading back to the Etihad Stadium.
And the only thing to be decided is whether Jurgen Klopp’s soonto-be-deposed champions deliver the coup de grace for City by beating United at Old Trafford.
Second-half goals by Sergio Aguero and Ferran Torres at Selhurst Park took Pep Guardiola’s side to the brink of glory.
City won the Carabao Cup last week. On Tuesday, they meet Paris Saint-Germain as favourites to reach the final of the Champions League.
The suggestion last year that there has been a shift of power from Manchester to Merseyside now looks a tad premature.
Two goals in the space of 83 blistering seconds settled the contest yesterday.
It was fitting that Aguero broke the resistance of Palace with a strike as pure as any of the 258 he has now why I love him as a man and scored in Sky Blue. player.
The Argentine strode majestically “When one guy is loved like onto Benjamin Mendy’s pass in the by all our fans it’s not just be 57th minute, took a sublime first of the thousand million goals h touch then sent a sizzling halfvolley scored, it’s because he is some into the top corner. the people recognise.
It was only Aguero’s second “Nothing will ever compa league goal of a season which will that moment in 2012 whe be his last in Manchester after a scored the goal to win the Le decade of glory. “Even if we win the Cham
Boss Guardiola (right) said: League nothing will compa “Sergio is an absolutely top legend.
‘‘
“He is an extraordinary player, but such a humble, nice human being as well, and that’s not easy to find.
“The top quality ones sometimes pretend to be something special. That’s
Sergio showed again what a player and what a man he is – yet he is just so humble
d as a
e he is cause he has ething
are to en he ague. pions are to that moment. Today at 0-0, the pass from Mendy was exceptional.
“But Sergio’s control and then the action to score was superb.
“He showed again what a player and what a man he is.”
Torres, the 21-year-old Spaniard who is part of the new City generation, then provided the knockout blow with a brilliant curled finish from 20 yards.
It was the 700th goal City have scored in the five seasons of Guardiola’s reign – 157 more than any other top-flight team in that spell.
Guardiola has already won 31 trophies during a managerial career that began with Barcelona’s B team in 2007.
If he is still prowling a technical area at the age of 73 like Palace boss Roy Hodgson then it is a fair assumption the Catalan will have rewritten the record books.
City’s 19th successive away win was rarely in doubt despite Guardiola making eight changes to the team that won 2-1 in Paris.
Christian Benteke did force Ederson into a smart first-half save.
But Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Torres all squandered chances before Aguero found the top corner.
And Sterling should have done better than hit the post once Palace had retreated into damage limitation mode.
Hodgson said: “When I see City play like they did against PSG on Wednesday, you think that this is a team with very, very few weaknesses – if any – and so unbelievably many strengths.
“If we are talking about today’s football, then I don’t think I will see a better team than them. If you really twisted my arm about one that gave me the hardest time, I’d say Ajax of 1987, of Johan Cruyff, that team of Marco van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp and those guys, which I faced with Malmo.
“In the future I might have to change my mind and put Manchester City up there instead.”