Emmanuel Adebayor for Manchester City v Wolves

Adebayor's big-money move from Arsenal was such big news that some people may have forgotten how lazy and frequently caught offside he'd become by the end of his stint with the Arse. However, if nothing else, City fans will be hoping that he's going to be out to prove that he's worth the money. You can't argue with two goals in two matches to start things off, so let's take a look at what proved to be the only goal of the match.

Manchester City v Wolverhampton Wanderers
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Skip ahead to 1:15, and do please try not to vomit. We'll pick it up as Wayne Bridge moves the ball out wide to Robinho on the right. What you can't see, but which will become obvious soon, is that Bridge has made youth coaches up and down the country very happy by passing the ball and then moving to follow his pass. There's a reason they made you do that drill, you know, it's so that you could instinctually do what Bridge does here.



Part of Wolves's gameplan was to neutralize the obvious danger posed by Robinho by playing two strong defensive players (Halford and Stearman) on the right and having them double up on him. However, the obvious downside is that it leaves a big fat hole behind them. Wolves would probably argue that they'd rather anyone else have possession and space back there rather than Robinho have it further up the pitch. Robinho tries a few fancy moves and then, denied space, lays it off for Bridge.



Bridge doesn't waste time and whips in a dangerous cross, first-time towards the penalty spot, aiming for Gareth Barry, who's making a dangerous run from deep. At this point, the danger man is clearly Barry, although someone (and I apologise wholeheartedly to both Wolves fans and to whoever he is, but I can't work out who it is) has picked him up and is moving to cover. Adebayor is being marked tightly by Mancienne and Tevez is wide enough that Ward has gone tight to provide extra cover in the middle, on the assumption that he's not an immediate threat, and if the ball does go to Tevez he can read it and push out to pressure him. This is a very strong defensive situation and you'd expect Wolves to deal with it.



Unfortunately, they then fall victim to misfortune. Nameless guy (again: sorry, if anyone knows who he is please leave a comment) continues tracking Barry and makes a brilliant, superhuman effort to deny him. Unfortunately, he's completely unable to direct his header, which heads for Tevez. He reacts first and moves towards it.



What started out as a strong situation has now gone completely to pot. First, the ball's reached Tevez sooner than expected, and the header in the middle has frozen Ward. He's now unable to reach Tevez in time to pressure him as soon as he recieves the ball. He's got two options, and they both suck. The first one is to dive in with a shit-or-bust challenge. However, Tevez is a good enough player that it's extremely likely that he'll either dance round it or get fouled and win a penalty. Ward sensibly plays the percentages and gives Tevez a chance to fuck it up. Unfortunately (again), Adebayor has seen the space that's now appeared in behind Ward and drifts into it. Even now, the situation would still be rescuable, except that Mancienne was drawn inside towards Barry's run (and had nameless guy not made his brilliant effort, it would have been the right decision), and while he isn't unmarked, Adebayor now has enough space to go to work.



Tevez slides it perfectly past Ward. That is an extremely hard ball to play - he's got to knock it far enough that Ward can't deal with it, but not so hard or far wide that Adebayor can't get round it to shoot. Mancienne is desperately trying to make up his lost ground, but he's too far away by the very narrowest of margins.



With the rest of the defence now reduced to a witless offside appeal (I can understand it when you've pushed out, but from the guys who are stationary and playing him on? Desperation city, population 2), Adebayor pulls the trigger.



One final question. Wayne Hennessey had an excellent match, but did he get his angles wrong here? Adebayor can see a lot of the goal inside the near post, and goalkeepers are always annoyed to let one in at the near post. Having said that, let's not take anything away from Adebayor: he's come up with an absolutely top-rate finish to find the gap, first-time, on the turn, with that much power and control. That's exactly what City paid for.

In summary, Wolves did pretty much everything right in defending that, but were undone by the bounce of the ball. However, this does hearken back to what I was saying about Arsenal against Celtic. City were in a strong attacking position, which enabled them to capitalise on their good fortune. You make your own luck, and they did.

And that's why that goal was scored.