Yaya Touré strikes for Manchester City to crush Swansea fightback
Swansea 2 - 4 Man CityGylfi Sigurdsson 45
Bafetimbi Gomis 64
Yaya Toure 21
James Milner 36
Yaya Toure 74
Wilfried Bony 90 +1:19
Yaya Touré scores for Manchester City
Maybe this was Yaya Touré’s way of bowing out in style and showing Manchester City what they could be missing. Four days after celebrating his 32nd birthday, with or without a cake, Touré scored twice to help City rack up a fifth straight victory and guarantee a place in the group stage of the Champions League next season.
Whether Touré will be around to feature in that competition for City remains to be seen – according to the player’s agent he is 90% certain to leave, which feels like a rather familiar tale. Touré had a helping hand here from Lukasz Fabianski, who endured a rare bad day at the office and will feel as though he ought to have done better with both the midfielder’s goals.
It was a compelling game and Swansea deserve credit for the way that they recovered from being two goals down inside 36 minutes. Bafétimbi Gomis equalised midway through the second half after Gylfi Sigurdsson had pulled a goal back just before half-time.
There was always a sense City could go through the gears if required. Touré reestablished City’s lead in the 74th minute with his 10th Premier League goal of the season, yet Swansea were not finished and came agonisingly close to scoring a third. Joe Hart produced two outstanding saves to keep out headers from Federico Fernández and Gomis before Wilfried Bony, returning to the club who sold him for £28m in January, put the game to bed in injury time with only his second City goal.
Swansea had started brightly and but for a fingertip save from Hart to deny Nathan Dyer, after some calamitous defending from Eliaquim Mangala, the home team would have been in front. Yet in the blink of an eye, City raced into a two-goal lead and the complexion of the game had completely changed.
Touré scored the first, drilling home from just inside the area after Sergio Agüero and David Silva had combined on the City right. The midfielder’s shot took a deflection off Ashley Williams but Fabianski got a good hand to the ball and, given his outstanding form this season, it was a poor goal to concede,
If there was a touch of good fortune about that breakthrough, City’s second was a beauty. It came from a Swansea corner and owed much to the vision and technique of the evergreen Frank Lampard. The 36-year-old, who spent three months on loan at Swansea in the 1995-96 season, was deep inside the City half when he played an exquisite volleyed passed that was inch perfect for Agüero, up against the inexperienced Jazz Richards, to run onto in the inside left channel.
With Milner making a diagonal run in front of him, Agüero fed the ball into the England international’s path and the rest was made to look remarkably simple. Milner stepped inside Neil Taylor and, with Fabianski trying in vain to narrow the angle, the midfielder placed a low shot beyond the Swansea keeper and into the far corner.
City seemed to be coasting but Swansea got back into the game on the stroke of half-time. Jefferson Montero, a lively presence on the Swansea left throughout, was involved in the buildup, the ball broke to Taylor on the edge of the area and the full-back shifted possession on to Sigurdsson, whose splendid right-foot shot found the bottom corner.
Chances came and went at both ends in the early stages of the second half, albeit City always carried the greater threat. Fabianski denied Lampard, Silva and Jesús Navas from close range while at the other end Jonjo Shelvey’s raking drive had Hart scampering across his line.
Hart was powerless to keep out Gomis’s effort moments later. Richards delivered a ball from deep on the Swansea right that drifted over Mangala’s head and picked out Gomis, who brought the ball down superbly, held off the challenge of Martín Demichelis and struck a low shot across Hart.
Yet City were not finished. Bursting through the middle and shrugging off Jack Cork, Touré thumped a right-footed shot that somehow beat Fabianski at his near post.
Back came Swansea as Fernández, and then Gomis, saw fine headers brilliantly repelled by Hart. Bony, though, extinguished any hopes of a Swansea fightback two minutes into injury time.
Guardian
