3 Manchester City
1 Southampton
by James Nalton
at Eastlands

MANCHESTER CITY returned to winning ways with a 3-1 victory at home to Southampton on Saturday and Manuel Pellegrini praised his side’s reaction after defeats to Liverpool and Juventus.

“It was a very important reaction. It was not an easy week,” said the Chilean. “We just won one point from six [in the league] so it was very important to win against a difficult team that was unbeaten away. If you want to be involved in the title, you can not drop more points at home.”

City opened the scoring when Raheem Sterling picked the pocket of Southampton right-back Maya Yoshida. The winger then ran to the byline before squaring to Kevin de Bruyne who tapped into the net. The goal was almost a carbon copy of the first goal Pellegrini’s men conceded against Liverpool last week.

The men in sky blue appeared to have learnt from their recent defeats, dominating the early stages against a Southampton side which struggled to string passes together in the wet conditions.

City duly doubled their lead when the ball fell to Fabian Delph on the edge of the area from a corner kick. The midfielder’s powerful left-footed shot took a deflection off Virgil Van Dijk, wrong-footing Saints keeper Maarten Stekelenburg on its way into the goal.

Southampton reorganised at half-time and pulled a goal back when Shane Long rose highest to head home Sadio Mane’s perfect cross from the right. Willy Caballero made a good double save as Southampton pressed for an equaliser, standing up well to stop an attempted lob from half-time substitute Dusan Tadic, then remaining alert to block the follow-up shot from Long.

Despite some promising signs from the visitors, City were able to restore their two-goal lead when De Bruyne found Aleksandar Kolarov in plenty of space in the opposition area, and the Serbian smashed the ball in with his trusty left boot.

The biggest cheer of the game came when the returning David Silva replaced Sterling, in what was more a declaration of love for the Spanish midfield maestro, than it was a slight on Sterling.

Saints manager Ronald Koeman rued his side’s sloppy first half display. “If you lose the ball to players like Sterling, you know they will punish you,” he said. “Maybe we were lucky to be only 2-0 after 20 minutes because we lost every ball.”