Man City vs Aston Villa

City were in dreamland, but it so nearly became a nightmare as Steven Gerrard was just a quarter of an hour away from helping Liverpool to their twentieth ...

Gerrard will be gutted to have lost the game in the manner that he did, but his Villa were superb for the majority of the game. It wasn’t quite as memorable as Sergio Aguero’s last-ditch title clincher back in 2012 to wrap up City’s first-ever league triumph but it will certainly stick in the mind of the supporters for years to come. This is evident from the direction of City’s positional attacks from the game. It was pretty obvious within the first half that Watkins was repositioning himself over towards City’s club captain every time Villa were looking to play to his head. Followers of Gerrard from his time with Rangers will know that the ex-England captain is no stranger to a deep defensive block. They would then use the touchline as an extra defender, limiting the space their opponents had to play into. Villa had very little on the line but had the chance to write history. Two strong lineups took to the field, full of quality, coached by two of the best midfielders in European history. Rafael Benitez would be proud of his former protégé’s tactical set-up against City. Some teams like Liverpool can take the game to Guardiola’s, and press them high. The grief of waving goodbye to the club captain Fernandinho was superseded by the joy of overcoming the colossal hill of being two down with twenty minutes to go to win the Premier League. Like his counterpart, Gerrard also made two changes to Aston Villa’s starting eleven from the side that struggled against the now-relegated Burnley at Turf Moor in midweek. However, Phil Foden came in for the £100 million Jack Grealish to complete the forward line.