Manchester City beat Leicester City in a nine-goal Premier League match and ended 6-3 at home at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday (26/12).
The game was only five minutes when City opened their lead with De Bruyne dodging Jannik Vestergaard’s block after picking up Fernandinho’s cross and finishing with a curling effort past goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.
The start of the game only got worse for Leicester as referee Chris Kavanagh awarded a penalty to the hosts after reviewing Youri Tielemans’ foul on Aymeric Laporte on the pitchside VAR monitor.
Mahrez was the executioner and mercilessly slotted the ball into his former team’s goal to double City’s 2-0 lead in the 14th minute.
Leicester fought back but goalkeeper Ederson Moraes made two brilliant saves from Maddison’s shot and Ayoze Perez’s strike. Ederson’s performance was paid off by his team-mates who added to the lead in the 21st minute when Gundogan only found the ball to throw up the result of Schmeichel’s imperfect anticipation on Joao Cancelo’s tug.
Leicester further sank when Tielemans committed another foul in the box against Sterling and the referee again pointed to the spot. Sterling confronted the ball himself at the spot and slotted it into the top right corner of the net to make it 4-0 for City.
The score was 4-0 unchanged until half-time, although City had at least two good chances to increase the margin through Sterling and De Bruyne but this time Schmeichel was able to make a perfect save.
Tielemans’ subpar performances continued in the second half and Leicester almost cost Leicester in the 53rd minute, fortunately this time Daniel Amartey stepped in to block Mahrez’s volley.
Two minutes later, Leicester’s fortunes seemed to have changed when Laporter failed to anticipate an attack and Maddison completed a one-two with Iheanacho with a low effort that put the visitors 4-1 down. Leicester’s momentum continued as Lookman scored the visitors’ second goal in the 59th minute which was followed by Iheanacho’s strike from Maddison’s throw-in to cut the score to 3-4 six minutes later.
However, City recovered their concentration and Laporte made it 5-3 with a header from a Mahrez corner in the 69th minute. A two-goal margin opened up the game but Sterling sealed a 6-3 win for City when he scored his second three minutes from time.
This victory made Pep Guardiola’s troops managed to strengthen the top position of the Premier League standings with a score of 47 points. Meanwhile, Leicester, who lost their second in the last three games, dropped automatically to tenth because they lost on goal difference to Aston Villa, despite both having collected 22 points, according to the Premier League’s official website.
Meanwhile, in another Premier League match, Arsenal managed to beat host Norwich City with a landslide score of 5-0.
Tottenham Hotspur also managed to win big 3-0 over Crystal Palace. Meanwhile, Southampton managed to beat West Ham 3-2.
