Match Report: Manchester City 5 Newcastle United 0

Match shots

Match stats

Att: 45,602

Goals: Aguero 1(pen), Nasri 12, Dzeko 22, Silva 51 & 53

Performances

Hart: Made a great save to deny Cisse, given the deflection. Otherwise unemployed: 7
Zabaleta: Survived one early skinning to return to his sharpest, proactive best, nipping in front of opponents to win the ball: 7
Kompany: A good solid show, but Newcastle did not get enough service to Cisse to test him: 7
Mangala: Steady: a good easy game like this is what was needed to find his feet and build his confidence: 7
Kolarov: Some good interceptions: 7
Nasri: Took his goal brilliantly, and precisely set up Silva for his 2nd goal. His tendency to take an extra touch when he could shoot costs him good goal-scoring opportunities, but it would be churlish to judge him by that. He really has matured into a fine player who takes responsibility to make things happen: 8
Fernandinho: Kept the engine room ticking over. Forced a low save from Krul in the first half: 7
Yaya: He controlled the game and made us a better team with his composure, poise and patient passing. Yaya’s pass to Aguero in the build up to our 5th goal showed his great vision and accurate passing. He had time to go on one of his trademark runs too: 9
Silva: Superb pass of great vision for Dzeko to set up the 2nd goal. Took his tally to 9 goals this season with two excellent finishes. Such a delight to watch this great player. Indeed, is there a more enjoyable player to watch than David Silva? 9 (Man of the match)
Dzeko: Had a good game, linking play well and looking lie scoring again, setting up the 2nd and scoring the 3rd goal: 8
Aguero: Despatched his penalty with great calmness. His play was unselfish and constructive, perfectly illustrated in the build up to Silva’s 2nd goal

Subs:

Navas: Lively and his distribution is slowly improving: 7
Bony (for Aguero 60): Not every pass was on the same wavelength as his new team mates, even Yaya, but an understanding will come with time. Made a good run to anticipate Yaya’s touch and at his sharpest would have given Krul no chance of saving his shot: 6
Lampard (for Nasri 70): Neat and tidy: 6

Best Oppo: Krul: Kept the score down with some very good saves: 7

Refwatch: Chris Foy: How he did not award City at least one more penalty is a mystery. His booking of Kompany was ridiculous. He and a Newcastle player went in for a 50-50 ball with no malicious intent and yet Kompany was booked for catching his opponent (suffered no lasting injury). Yaya was booked for pulling someone back. Newcastle players did not receive bookings for similar offences. Foy should be explaining why. Poor: 2

The atmosphere: There was a minute’s applause from the Newcastle fans and many City fans in the 17th minute for the two Geordie fans who perished in the MH17 air disaster.

Wilfried Bony received a warm Manchester welcome, and his country man Yaya Toure received a very enthusiastic welcome back. There were exchanges of chants but as you’d expect in this fixture, nothing truly malicious. The visitors brought the lowest following for years and were reminded of this with a “You’ve only got one tier” (of the away section) chant and “Sunderland brought more than you”. As one might expect, this didn’t go down well with the visitors who retorted with “You’re just a s*** Man United”, which was laughed off really. They didn’t seem to care for “There’s only one Alan Pardew”. Ah well, if they are going to continually ask where we were when we were, er, not very good, what do they expect. We were watching City getting beaten by Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle (see my piece below), and there when we averaged 28,000 in the Third Division, but that’s not easy to fit into a chant!

The chant of the day came from City’s singing section: “You only sing when you’re 4-0”. After a while it was apparent there’s only so much baiting that the Kippax Singing Section wanted to engage in! Anyway, time had to be made for a few choruses of:

“I never felt more like singing the Blues,
the City win, United lose,
oh City, you’ve got me singing the Blues”

and why not?