Manchester City vs Southampton match report: Kevin De Bruyne inspires victory but Sergio Aguero suffers injury

Manchester City 3 Southampton 1

Kevin De Bruyne celebrates with Raheem Sterling after scoring against Southampton (PA)

The pressure of managing in Manchester will never match that of Madrid, where he was hounded from the Bernabeu after finishing second with 96 points. However, Manuel Pellegrini knew this was a game Manchester City had to win.

Roy Keane used to remark sardonically that Manchester United were never more than one defeat from a crisis. City had been humiliated by Liverpool, become one of the very few teams to have failed to beat Aston Villa and had been surgically dissected by Juventus on Wednesday night.

After a fabulous beginning that was as much down to Southampton’s ineptitude as the brilliance of Kevin de Bruyne, this became a slog as hard as the November rain over Manchester.

Sergio Aguero was withdrawn with a twisted ankle, although Pellegrini thought the injury was not serious, Bacary Sagna and Virgil van Dijk finished the match with bandages around their heads and on the final whistle the two sets of players looked exhausted.

Kevin De Bruyne scores the opener for Manchester City (Getty Images)

Pellegrini had been driven to cold fury by the capitulation to Liverpool and even when dictating his programme notes the anger had not subsided. “Defending, attacking, losing possession too easily, not doing the simple things well – I have never seen this City team play as badly as we did in that game.”

He had demanded a reaction and he had it in 20 minutes. His side were two goals up against a Southampton team that had not lost away this season and who were fortunate not to have been reduced to 10 men.

Twenty minutes into the second half, with Southampton driving forward, it seemed City might not even win. That they did was down to a couple of touches relaxed enough for a training ground exercise. A little side-footed flick from Wilfried Bony found De Bruyne, who chipped the ball over three Southampton defenders like Jack Nicklaus picking out the 18th green at Augusta.

Aleksandar Kolarov had time to bring the ball down and pick his spot – which he did hard. Ryan Bertrand, who had been just unable to stop De Bruyne scoring Manchester City’s first, could not prevent the third. The electronic screens at the Etihad carry a plethora of statistics and one of them was that since the start of last season De Bruyne has more assists than anyone in Europe’s top five leagues, one ahead of Lionel Messi.

Fabian Delph scores the second for Manchester City (Getty Images)

Pellegrini said: “The game against Liverpool was not a normal performance. It was important to have a strong reaction to that. If you want to win the title, you cannot keep dropping points at home and we have already dropped six against West Ham and Liverpool.

“We did not have a good week but we are top of the league (at least until Leicester versus Manchester United kicked off), we are the only English team so far to have qualified from the Champions League and we have the Capital One Cup quarter-final on Tuesday. It is not a crisis.”

City’s opening goal was very similar to Liverpool’s last Saturday. Then Sagna losing the ball had been the catalyst for the dam-burst, now it was Maya Yoshida who found himself dispossessed by Raheem Sterling, who began a trademark run and pulled the ball back for De Bruyne to run on to.

Southampton were an absolute mess. They gave away possession and free-kicks around their own area with disarming regularity. When Steven Davis blocked Fernandinho’s goalbound header with his arm, the referee, Roger East, ought to have awarded a penalty and a red card. Instead, City got a corner and a few seconds later some rough justice as Fabian Delph, making his first Premier League start for the club, saw his shot deflected by Van Dijk past the horribly wrong-footed Maarten Stekelenburg.

Given the shambles of his last Premier League appearance – “like a cat chasing a ball of wool” was one comment on his performance in the 4-1 defeat at Tottenham – many wondered how Willy Cabellero would fare as Joe Hart’s replacement.

He had some luck when Van Dijk struck the intersection of bar and post. He could do nothing about Shane Long’s header for Southampton’s goal, mainly because the forward had his elbow on Martin Demichelis’s shoulder and he made a wonderful double save from Dusan Tadic and Long to stop Southampton from drawing level.

Manchester City players celebrate Aleksandar Kolarov's goal against Southampton (Getty Images)

Returning from Turin, Cabellero reflected that your last performance as a goalkeeper is never forgotten, even when it is two months ago. Now he has something else to remember.

Manchester City: (4-2-3-1) Caballero; Sagna, Demichelis, Otamendi; Kolarov; Fernandinho, Delph (Fernando, 71); De Bruyne, Touré, Sterling (Silva 75); Aguero (Bony 64).

Southampton: (4-3-2-1) Stekelenburg; Yoshida, Fonte, Van Dijk, Bertrand; Ward-Prowse (Juanmi 78), Wanyama, Davis; Mané, Romeu (Tadic, h-t); Long.

Referee: Roger East.

Man of the match: De Bruyne (Manchester City).

Match rating: 7/10.