Premier League Title Odds: Man City 8/11 After Edging Newcastle

Manchester City Edge Past Newcastle Thanks To Julian Alvarez First Half Stunner

Olly Taliku

Sports Editor

Last Updated: 19 Aug 2023 2 min read

A Julian Alvarez stunner ensured all three points stayed in Manchester on Saturday night, as Newcastle struggled to get past a resilient Manchester City defence.

Manchester City dominated the opening stages of the game, with the Cityzens having over 75% possession in the first 15 minutes before Newcastle settled into the game and started passing the ball around more.

Despite Newcastle growing into the game it was Manchester City who took the lead with just after half an hour played, as Julian Alvarez netted a stunner to open the scoring.

Phil Foden laid a perfectly weighted ball off to his Argentinian teammate on the edge of the area, with Alvarez sweeping a sweet strike over Nick Pope into the top corner to give the hosts the lead in spectacular fashion.

HALF-TIME Man City 1-0 Newcastle

The hosts lead at the break through Julian Alvarez’s stunning strike#MCINEW pic.twitter.com/78mypdlTpU

— Premier League (@premierleague) August 19, 2023

Anthony Gordon was shown an early yellow card for a reckless challenge on Ruben Dias and he was perhaps lucky to not pick up a second in the second half for a similar challenge on the defender.

Harvey Barnes came on to replace Gordon almost immediately after the second challenge, with Eddie Howe looking to inject some much needed pace into the game from a player who scored on his debut off the bench last week.

Pope was called into making a couple of sharp saves to deny Erling Haaland a goal, but the scoring machine wasn’t able to find the back of the net against a resilient Magpies defence.

Pep Guardiola chose to make no changes to his side throughout the game, but his decision proved to pay off as City’s resilient defence was able to hold Newcastle to a narrow 1-0 win.

FULL-TIME | ALL THREE POINTS! 🤩#ManCity | @okx pic.twitter.com/mVVTMXMim9

— Manchester City (@ManCity) August 19, 2023