Man City burst Sam Allardyce bubble despite leaving Pep Guardiola furious

Manchester City won a free-kick about 45 yards from goal and what happened next can't have sat well with Sam Allardyce.

The new Leeds United boss, and presumably still host of the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, could only watch from his technical area as Pep Guardiola's side spurned the opportunity to get it up top for the big man. Instead, Julian Alvarez and Aymeric Laporte passed it between each other like they were in the park as Leeds forward Patrick Bamford stood yards away looking unclear about what they were doing so casually.

Suddenly, the ball was shuffled forward to Kevin De Bruyne and a host of runners were charging into the box ready for the delivery. Instead, the Belgian went out to Riyad Mahrez and yet again Haaland was snubbed as the Algerian ignored everyone in the box and laid it square for Ilkay Gundogan.

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As a man of Allardyce's knowledge will know, you don't win football matches by not going for the goal. Except that tippy-tappy nonsense had splintered any form of shape Leeds had and Gundogan swept home the ball to give City the lead after just 19 minutes.

Eight minutes later, Gundogan could even afford the luxury of a touch after being found by Mahrez again in a similar position before firing past Joel Robles to double the City lead. Leeds had been passed to death and their footballing Messiah will have to wait for another chance to prove he is among the best managers in the game.

If that feels unnecessarily harsh on the manager of a relegation-threatened team low on form and confidence up against the best version of City, it was Allardyce who deliberately chose to talk himself up this week when there was no need to. On this evidence, chairman