Wolves 1 Manchester City 2: Stones wins it, VAR drama and Gvardiol appreciation

John Stone had the final say as Manchester City clinched a dramatic last-gasp victory at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

City had huffed and puffed at Molineux and, until the fifth minute of stoppage time, they had struggled to blow away Wolves — but then Stones powered home a header from a corner at the death.

Pep Guardiola’s side endured a frustrating afternoon in the West Midlands and looked certain to have to settle for a point. They fell behind to an early goal from Jorgen Strand Larsen and had a moment of brilliant from Josko Gvardiol to thank for drawing them level, but largely struggled to turn their domination of the ball into three points.

But when all looked lost, City won a succession of late corner kicks and Stones found the net, with City’s celebrations enduring after a VAR review.

Sam Lee breaks down the main talking points from City’s 2-1 win.

Stones saves the day – and why was his goal initially disallowed?

The ‘problem’ with City’s performance up until that last-gasp goal was that they controlled the match but looked weak at times on the break, and had no real threat from the wings until some second-half changes. The set pieces were not much better either.

That changed with the 16th corner of the match, after a flurry of four in the final seconds, when Stones headed in and celebrated wildly. Those celebrations were cut short — temporarily — when the goal was disallowed on-field, with Bernardo Silva alleged to have impeded Jose Sa from an offside position. Cue VAR’s intervention, with Silva adjudged not to be in Sa’s line of vision.

#WOLMCI – 95’ VAR OVERTURN

Stones’ goal was disallowed on-field due to Bernardo Silva being in an offside position and in the goalkeeper’s line of vision. The VAR deemed Bernardo Silva wasn’t in the line of vision and had no impact on the goalkeeper and recommended an on-field… pic.twitter.com/4o1AHBWyzb

— Premier League Match Centre (@PLMatchCentre) October 20, 2024

Clearly, Bernardo had got out of Sa’s way just at the right time (the point where Stones headed the ball, really) and the goal was allowed to stand.

Given that Wolves fans have been singing about the league’s ‘corruption’ for over a year now, including a few times on Sunday, it is no surprise that many of them left Molineux feeling cheated. You would have to say, though, that it was the right decision.

Kudos also to Jack Grealish, who brightened up City’s wing play after he came on. What City needed here was more from their wingers — Savinho did a lot defensively, although he and Jeremy Doku’s threat diminishes the closer they are to goal — and more from their set pieces, and right at the end, they got that.

Conceding the opening goal is a worrying trend

City have now conceded the first goal in five of their last seven league matches, and there are surely some underlying reasons for it too.

For starters, opposition teams might be more likely to try their luck early on and then, if successful and they actually score, less likely to chance their arm again and instead try to sit on their lead a little more (even if still trying to break again, of course).

But maybe the biggest reason for it is that City are just a bit vulnerable at the moment.

The problem can probably be summed up like this: players like Mateo Kovacic, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva and Rico Lewis, when in possession, can dictate the entire game — but when the ball is lost, which is going to happen, they are hardly physical and athletic enough to make up the ground, meaning that if the ball is played in behind them, or around them, teams can open up the game and counter-attack.

That has been a bit of a theme this season and Wolves highlighted it again, although of course City dominated the ball thanks largely to the positive traits of those players mentioned.

A moment of praise for Gvardiol

With all of that said, it is a good job that City can count on Gvardiol’s goalscoring exploits.

The Croatian defender got four during the title race run-in last season, as well as a screamer against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu, and after notching a tidy goal at Newcastle in September, he recreated that screamer against Wolves at a time when everything else that City did hit the buffers.

You can see exactly why City wanted to get their hands on the 22-year-old, who was described by some in the Red Bull set-up as ‘the Haaland of centre-backs’.

He is clearly top-class: composed in possession, solid defensively (with a bit of room for improvement) and his presence in the final third, in terms of passing, runs and goal threat, has become obvious.