Manchester City’s treble chase received a massive boost on Tuesday evening as Pep Guardiola’s men beat Sheffield United by a lone goal to move into second position on the Premier League log just behind Liverpool.

The match is a rescheduled match day 18 fixture as Manchester City played in the FIFA Club World Cup in December. They played their outstanding game at Etihad Stadium against a team whom they defeated 3-1 weeks ago, with Phil Foden scoring a hat-trick.

However, unlike the game at the Gtech Stadium in London, this fixture was harder than Manchester City could have thought, perhaps still trying to recover from their disappointing 1-1 draw with Chelsea at the weekend. Manchester City tried to get things going early on with Phil Foden and Erling Haaland combining to disrupt Brentford’s defensive formation in the early minutes.

Brentford is the last team to have won at Etihad Stadium in the Premier League as far back as November 2022, and they almost opened the scoring on Tuesday night when Frank Onyeka was denied by Ederson.

The Brazilian goalkeeper will once again deny the returning Nigerian midfielder from the African Cup of Nations, where the Super Eagles came second behind Ivory Coast when he thwarted his goal-bound header just a moment after Ben Mee cleared off the line for Brentford.

After the first 45 minutes, it was looking increasingly like Manchester City needed a bit of luck to score as Kristoffer Ajer slipped to allow Haaland through on goal to score the only goal of the game.

Erling Haaland has now scored against all 21 teams he’s faced in the Premier League. He is just the second player to have met more than one side and scored against all of them in the competition after Harry Kane.

Manchester City defender admitted that it is hard to play against Brentford with their back five and that after the weekend, they had to show a reaction and improve game by game.

Daniel Ademiju Idowu