Fulham 4 Man city 5
Where do I even start with this one? First of all, how good did City look in that first half? I thought City were excellent in that first half creating chance after chance not giving Fulham even a sniff of an attack throughout that first half. The first goal was taking brilliantly by Erling Haaland who becomes the fastest player to reach 100 Premier League goals reaching it 111 games, 13 matches fewer than Alan Shearer who did it in 124 games. It’s hard to quantify just how good Haaland is and really he could have scored a hat-trick in this game hitting the woodwork twice in the game. The second goal was also created brilliantly with Haaland and Reijnders linking up with Reijnders lifting the ball delightfully over Bernd Leno in the Fulham goal. The first half was City at their brilliant best.
Phil Foden is back to his best. We know just how good Foden is when he’s at his best winning the PFA Player Of The Year in 2024 leading City to the Premier League title with some brilliant performances. There were a lot of questions about his performances last year along with Cities in general as they slumped in the Premier League and Champions League. However, it looks like Phil Foden has found his form in recent weeks scoring another 2 goals in this game to go with his 2 against Leeds on the weekend. His first goal was taken brilliantly with Leno punching a the ball from a City corner straight to Foden who had the time to take it down and set it up for a curler into the far corner from just outside the box, City will be hoping that Foden can continue this form throughout the December period to take some of the burden off of Erling Haaland.
What on Earth happened in that second half? After City made it 5-1 in the second half you would think that would be that and Fulham would retreat into their shell not trying to get embarrassed any further but the complete opposite happened. The introduction of Samuel Chukwueze in the second half changed everything and it makes you think if he had started could Fulham have got something from the game, especially since Chukwueze had played so well against Spurs a couple of days prior. He took his two goals expertly and in the end if Gvardiol hadn’t cleared King’s effort off the line Fulham would have somehow salvaged a draw from 5-1 down.
Can Cities defence win the league? Whilst it’s easy to wax lyrical about how good Cities attack was in this game, you could spin it the other way for that collapse in the second half. Similar to Leeds on the weekend City look like they’re cruising to 3 points only to let it slip with some of the worst defending you’ll see, whether it was Matheus Nunes’ dreadful defending against Leeds or some questionable defending from the whole backline in this game, City aren’t going to get away with defending like this for long and Pep is going to have to sort something out before City start dropping points because of it.
Game of the season? It’s hard to say but there’s a good case for this being the game of the season so far in the Premier League, the combination of Cities attacking play especially in that first half mixed with the fight back from Fulham in the second led to an enthralling 90 minutes. You also look at some the goals that were scored with Reijnders one the pick of the bunch in my opinion, it would be hard to argue with someone who had this as there game of the season so far in the Premier League anyway. Hopefully there’s more to come in next few weeks.