Manchester City may have been without Erling Haaland but Pep Guardiola’s side are so awash with talent that it just meant another of their stars came to the fore.
The pass-o-meter was heavily in the visitors’ favour but in the end Kevin De Bruyne’s majestic second-half free-kick proved the difference as the champions clinched victory and moved top of the pile.
Guardiola spent much of the three minutes of second-half stoppage time crouched on the edge of his technical area as if about to thunder from the starting blocks.
City had a brief fright when John Stones’s headed clearance cannoned off Rúben Dias and just wide of Ederson’s goal but the visitors swept upfield on the counter from the resulting corner.
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