Cherki and Haaland Shine as City defeat Bournemouth

 Amar Zukancic

    Another match, another win, and it feels like City may just be back to our very best. Despite that hiccup last week at Villa Park, Pep’s blues came out in full force today against the 2nd place team in the Premier League, coming out on the right side of a 3-1 victory. It felt like a classic city performance, and was our 10th win in a row at the Etihad against the Cherries.

The game started off fast from the get go, and had a very high pace to the match that both teams lived up to. After a few minutes it looked like the match may be a repeat of last week’s disaster after Bournemouth scored, but luckily the flag came up and saved us. From the get go you could see the game was running through City’s number 10 Rayan Cherki, and after a few promising but failed through balls he assisted Erling Haaland’s opening goal with a beautiful headed pass. After a sketchy equalizer, Cherki played another through ball to Haaland, and they both doubled their account for the match and regained City’s lead. City stayed on the front foot for the rest of the match controlling the tempo, and eventually a beautiful combination between Cherki and Foden ended up at the feet of Nico O’Reilly who slotted the ball home for City’s third. 

There were many standouts today, but there are three that deserve a little more focus; Rayan Cherki, Nico Gonzalez, and Nico O’Reilly. Obviously Erling Haaland is a standout, but we're used to it at this point he's just doing Erling Haaland things. Another great performance from him, and hopefully we'll be rewatching these goals in a Ballon’Dor video package next September. 

Nico and Nico were both stellar today. They were both players that looked promising last season but very unpolished, but have both come into their own this season. Nico O’Reilly looks like he may be the next great CFA Graduate after Foden and Palmer, and is genuinely an elite fullback. He is confident on the ball, physical, has great positioning, a smart IQ, and always seems to make the right decision. With the addition of Rayan Ait Nouri in the summer it looked like he would have the position on lock, but now Pep will have a major decision to make. O’Reilly is untouchable with the form he is in, and Ait Nouri will need a lot of luck to get his position back. The next standout is the other Nico, Nico G. The “Baby Rodri” joke that is going around social media may be a little more than just a joke. Last year you could see his quality on the ball, but he was missing any sense of composure or decision making. He seemed to be moving a little slower than everyone else and was half a step behind at all times, but now he dictates the game just like our Ballon’Dor winner. He does a great job of breaking up play with his physicality, very rarely gives up the ball, and is always looking to make line-breaking passes and advance the ball to the likes of Foden and Cherki. 

The last standout is of course Rayan Cherki. Another match from him, and another stellar performance. Every time he gets the ball he wants to do something with it, and you know he will. One of the most impressive parts about his play is his usage, and how much his teammates trust him. Cherki had another 69 touches, 2 assists, 48 passes, and another 3 shots. It looks like Nico Gonzalez and Foden are always looking to get him the ball, and obviously Haaland plays perfectly off of him. It's great to see him come back as the same player we thought we had from his injury, and it's even more impressive to see how seamlessly he's fit into a team that for much of the last year has been so out of sync. The sky is the limit for the Frenchman. 

Overall it was great to see a performance like this, and should make all City fans very optimistic for the rest of the season. It seems like the whole level of the team has raised so much, as players like Doku, Dias, and Bernardo are all playing at a very high and consistent level. We have two very big fixtures coming up in the next week to look forward to. Borussia Dortmund comes to Manchester in the week, and after dropping points against Monaco last month it is imperative that we win this to make sure we don't fall into the Champions League playoff round again. Then next weekend is the big one, Liverpool is coming to the Etihad for the last match before the international break. Hopefully we can take advantage of their bad form, and increase our gap to 4 points ahead of them. Haaland is also sitting at 98 Premier League goals, so hopefully Sunday he can hit a Century in fashion.