Manchester City travelled to Spain with a lot resting on their shoulders.
City had not performed as well as we know they can while on European duty and their performances from League to Champions League have been like night and day.
First came the draw in the opening game to Napoli followed by the defeat in Munich. Two weeks ago saw City get away with a win at the death of the game to keep their qualification aspirations alive. Sure Villarreal had a number of key players having to withdraw due to injury but still no English side had won against Villarreal in their own stadium and so it certainly wasn’t going to be an easy game.
Mancini surprised many people by placing Savic in the centre of defence to partner Kompany rather than his usual partner, Lescott. This is probably due partly to the fact that Kompany will be serving a ban domestically for his sending off against Wolves at the weekend.
City looked nervy to start off with their free flowing football usually being interrupted by a loose pass rather than decisive Villarreal tackling. In fact Villarreal looked scared from the outset with usually all the players bar one in their own half and the only concern for City was the injury to Mancini who needs to work on how he extricates himself from old fashioned dugouts in future!
After half an hour though City opened the scoring through Yaya Toure as the FA Cup hero, who has been rather quiet this term, got the ball from David Silva and curled his effort from a good 15 yards out into the bottom right corner away from Lopez.
From then on Villarreal had to come forward to get something and when playing City it is always dangerous. Despite a little more aggression and a notable fierce shot from De Guzman it was City who were overwhelmingly the aggressors. City looked good to go in at the half 1-0 up but Balotelli had other ideas. Deep into stoppage time Ballotelli received the ball on the edge of the area, turned and drove into the area.
The Italian was brought down by, needlessly, by the Villarreal defender and the referee pointed to the spot. After protests from the Villarreal team and gamesmanship from the Goalkeeper Lopez, Balotelli converted to make it 2-0.
The second half was just a formality as City dominated without really forcing the issue too much. With twenty minutes left on the clock Yaya Toure found himself almost with embarrassing ease with just the keeper to beat, which he did.
Toure was then brought off for Villarreal’s favourite City player, Sergio Aguero and then a few minutes later Kolarov came on for the other goalscorer Balotelli as Mancini looked to see out the game. The only slight concern for City would be the withdrawal of David Silva with a back injury, which hopefully will not prove to be too serious.
In the other Group game Bayern held on for a 3-2 against Napoli to pretty much secure their progression. City move up to second knowing that a win in three weeks time against Napoli in Naples will be enough for them also.
The only thing City can be assured of when travelling to Italy is that they will face more intimidation and a more skilled opposition than they did tonight.