<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola is gearing up for a semi-final – and a final – after Manchester City swept aside Southampton 3-0.<\/p>\n
Goals from Vincent Kompany, Leroy Sane and Sergio Aguero set City up perfectly for a crunch week in which they face an FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal followed by the midweek Manchester derby with rivals United.<\/p>\n
Guardiola billed the latter clash, next Thursday, as the equivalent of a final, a potential eliminator for a top-four finish and a place in the Champions League next season.<\/p>\n
“I’m so happy, we played good,” said the City boss.<\/p>\n
“In 10 days we play the real final against United so that is why it was so important to win.”<\/p>\n
After a goalless first half, during which City felt they should have had a penalty after Fraser Forster tripped Sane, Kompany broke the deadlock in the 55th minute.<\/p>\n
The injury-plagued City skipper rose highest to head in a David Siva corner for his first goal since August 2015.<\/p>\n
Then came another milestone moment, of sorts, for much-maligned City keeper Claudio Bravo, who routinely caught a header from Maya Yoshida.<\/p>\n
Bravo had failed to stop any of the last seven shots on target he had faced, meaning it was in effect the first save he had made since January 2.<\/p>\n
City, perhaps inspired by Bravo’s heroics, promptly wrapped up the win with two goals in three minutes.<\/p>\n
First Silva’s through-ball sent De Bruyne through and he squared for Sane to sweep past Forster, then Aguero nodded in his 11th goal in 11 games.<\/p>\n
“In the first half it was not easy to find the right spaces, but we created enough chances to score goals,” added Guardiola.<\/p>\n
“In the second half we got a set piece and scored a goal, then they had to press even more and we could counter attack where Leroy, Kevin and David are so strong, and we got the goals.<\/p>\n
“City missed Kompany a lot last season. He’s a real defender, hopefully he can be fit until the end of the season because he’s an important player for us.”<\/p>\n
Southampton’s best chance fell to Dusan Tadic, who blazed over from 15 yards in the first half.<\/p>\n
“There is disappointment but not just with the result but also with our play. I think we can do better,” said Saints manager Claude Puel.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t show the Southampton quality on the pitch, we were nervous. We gave them opportunities.<\/p>\n
“We showed we could make good opportunities against this team but it was not sufficient and it was difficult for us.”<\/p>\n
Source: PA<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\t\tPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n From Football.co.uk<\/a>
Pep Guardiola is gearing up for a semi-final – and a final – after Manchester City swept aside Southampton 3-0. Goals from Vincent Kompany, Leroy Sane and Sergio Aguero set City up perfectly for a crunch week in which they face an FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal followed by the midweek Manchester derby with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[371,30,120,80,188],"class_list":["post-4263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-premier-league","tag-football-news","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today-sport","tag-sport","tag-sport-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
South Africa Today Sport \u2013 Sport News Football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\nPep Guardiola is gearing up for a semi-final – and a final – after Manchester City swept aside Southampton 3-0.<\/p>\nGoals from Vincent Kompany, Leroy Sane and Sergio Aguero set City up perfectly for a crunch week in which they face an FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal followed by the midweek Manchester derby with rivals United.<\/p>\nGuardiola billed the latter clash, next Thursday, as the equivalent of a final, a potential eliminator for a top-four finish and a place in the Champions League next season.<\/p>\n“I’m so happy, we played good,” said the City boss.<\/p>\n“In 10 days we play the real final against United so that is why it was so important to win.”<\/p>\nAfter a goalless first half, during which City felt they should have had a penalty after Fraser Forster tripped Sane, Kompany broke the deadlock in the 55th minute.<\/p>\nThe injury-plagued City skipper rose highest to head in a David Siva corner for his first goal since August 2015.<\/p>\nThen came another milestone moment, of sorts, for much-maligned City keeper Claudio Bravo, who routinely caught a header from Maya Yoshida.<\/p>\nBravo had failed to stop any of the last seven shots on target he had faced, meaning it was in effect the first save he had made since January 2.<\/p>\nCity, perhaps inspired by Bravo’s heroics, promptly wrapped up the win with two goals in three minutes.<\/p>\nFirst Silva’s through-ball sent De Bruyne through and he squared for Sane to sweep past Forster, then Aguero nodded in his 11th goal in 11 games.<\/p>\n“In the first half it was not easy to find the right spaces, but we created enough chances to score goals,” added Guardiola.<\/p>\n“In the second half we got a set piece and scored a goal, then they had to press even more and we could counter attack where Leroy, Kevin and David are so strong, and we got the goals.<\/p>\n“City missed Kompany a lot last season. He’s a real defender, hopefully he can be fit until the end of the season because he’s an important player for us.”<\/p>\nSouthampton’s best chance fell to Dusan Tadic, who blazed over from 15 yards in the first half.<\/p>\n“There is disappointment but not just with the result but also with our play. I think we can do better,” said Saints manager Claude Puel.<\/p>\n“We didn’t show the Southampton quality on the pitch, we were nervous. We gave them opportunities.<\/p>\n“We showed we could make good opportunities against this team but it was not sufficient and it was difficult for us.”<\/p>\nSource: PA<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\t\tPlease enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\nFrom Football.co.uk<\/a>\nSouth Africa Today Sport \u2013 Sport News Football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pep Guardiola is gearing up for a semi-final – and a final – after Manchester City swept aside Southampton 3-0. Goals from Vincent Kompany, Leroy Sane and Sergio Aguero set City up perfectly for a crunch week in which they face an FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal followed by the midweek Manchester derby with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[371,30,120,80,188],"class_list":["post-4263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-premier-league","tag-football-news","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today-sport","tag-sport","tag-sport-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/1640d40c6b3ac7e21b3d6eb0a0a6a250.jpg\"){kind=link}