Manchester City were purring at points in the first half of their 2-0 victory over Nottingham Forest on Saturday afternoon.
The treble winners’ slick attacking football was too much for Steve Cooper’s side at the Etihad before Rodri was sent off, giving the visitors more of a foothold in the game with a player advantage.
The damage had already been down, however, as Phil Foden and Erling Haaland both scored in the opening 15 minutes to give the hosts a dominant advantage, even with the red card to come.
City are renowned for their accurate build-up and incisive passing in the final third and both were on full display during the move which led to Foden’s opener, a sequence which included a dizzying 46 passes.
Kyle Walker’s assist was the final ball played before Foden tucked in his first goal of the season. Only one goal in Premier League history (or since the data was first tracked in 2006/07) has seen more passes made in the build-up.
That effort came from Nacer Chadli for Tottenham in a 4-0 victory over Queens Park Rangers in 2014, early on during Mauricio Pochettino’s reign at the club. The likes of Eric Dier, Younes Kaboul, Etienne Capoue and Emmanuel Adebayor all started that game.
Those players don’t come close to the quality of injured City stars Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, John Stones and Mateo Kovacic, but Pep Guardiola’s side were still as smooth as ever against Forest without a key group of players.
While the arrival of Erling Haaland has allowed City to become a more direct team than in the past, the Premier League champions still unsurprisingly feature heavily in the top 11 moves with most passes leading to a goal.
Stars like Ilkay Gundogan, Sergio Aguero and Julian Alvarez have all been on the end of flowing sequences to apply the finishing touches.
Sergio Aguero signed off as a Manchester City player by scoring twice in a thrashing of Everton, his second being a header which finished off a flowing 42-pass move.
City’s all-time leading goalscorer had netted his first earlier in the game with a precise outside of the boot finish.
Ilkay Gundogan’s best goalscoring days came shortly before his Man City exit but he still had bags of composure in his early seasons at the Etihad.
The current Barcelona midfielder ran through Man Utd’s midfield and brought down Bernardo Silva’s cross to tuck in his second Manchester derby goal back in 2018.
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