It was a glorious day at the Etihad in Manchester as Pellegrini and his men were able to make the best of their blessings and take three points from Bayern Munich and earned a much needed win.
Manchester City had been in a slump after a good beginning to their season. It started with a draw to CSKA Moscow and continued with them winning just two matches of their last seven.
- Draw to CSKA Moscow
- Loss to West Ham United
- Loss to Newcastle (Knocked out of Capital One Cup)
- Win over Manchester United
- Loss to CSKA Moscow
- Draw Queens Park Rangers
- Win over Swansea
Manchester City’s luck seemed to come to an end early in the match between Bayern Munich.
Just 21 minutes into the match, Frank Lampard put a great ball over the top of the Bayern defense for Sergio Aguero to run onto, he was then brought down in the box by Mehdi Benatia. Benatia was shown the red card for his tactics and Bayern were left with 10 men on the pitch. Aguero steped up to the spot and was able to put the ball past Manuel Neuer to give City and early lead and the upper-hand.
Even after Bayern’s unfortunate send-off, they still were able to attack and held possession well. In the 40th minute, Bayern were awarded a free-kick just a few yards outside of the 18-yard box. Alonso showed how valuable he is and that at 33 can still score wonderfully. He curled his free-kick on the floor and into the bottom left-corner of Joe Hart’s goal. It was nearly perfect and Hart was left standing as he could do nothing to stop the equalizing goal.
Just five minutes later and Bayern still unaffected by the one-man deficit, Jerome Boateg’s cross was met by Robert Lewandowski and his header was deflected off of his own shoulder and over the top of Joe Hart. Bayern had come-back from one down and with 10 men, but another half was to be played.
Bayern played unaffected by the Red card for much of the half, but City was also able to create chances as well. For most of the time, it seemed like a fair game, as if Bayern had all 10 men.
But in the 85th minute, City were finally able to make use of their advantage as Xabi Alonso’s sloppy pass was intercepted by Stevan Jovetic and was able to send Aguero clear of the defense. The Argentine showed great ability and put the ball into the far post, bottom corner.
Citiy came to life and were able to keep possession from this point on. It was a rare and disturbing sight to see Bayern Munich defending and not keeping possession.
In the 90th minute, Aguero created his own chance as he stripped the ball from Jerome Boateng, who was having a great match, and the striker took it himself and calmly put the ball past Neuer for a hat-trick. He was substituted-off to waste time and was given a well-deserved standing ovation.
Jon Super/Associated Press
Final score:
Manchester City 3 : 2 Bayern Munich
Although City had been experiencing tough times, Aguero was on a hot-streak and has only improved it. He now has 17 goals in all competitions (12 in the Premier League, 5 in the Champions League) and is the top scorer of the premier league. Now that he has taken down European giants, Bayern Munich, his next task is to help take down Southampton on November 30th as they fight for the second place spot. City are only two points behind Southampton, but Southampton are in a five-game unbeaten streak with only one draw.
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