Enzo Fernández started for Manchester City after Nico O’Reilly’s back injury during the warm-up and sparkled, showing why the club paid a British-record-equalling £125m for the midfielder. The winner came courtesy of Erling Haaland’s 300th goal in club football and Fernández had a key part, feeding Antoine Semenyo, whose cross from the right was crashed home.
In the second half Coventry hammered away, but their wait for a first top-flight goal since Mustapha Hadji’s second in a 3-2 defeat at Aston Villa on 5 May 2001 goes on. The visitors did not like losing, but were heartened by holding the star-studded hosts to a slender win, though the bottom line is all three of their Premier League outings on their return have been defeats.
Frank Lampard said: “I don’t think we deserved to lose. I’m disappointed we didn’t get what we deserved – which was a point. We can walk out of here with our heads held extremely high.”
Enzo Maresca’s men have a maximum nine points so can be supremely satisfied. “Today was not a nice win, a bit ugly,” he said. “In the first half we deserved more goals – we scored one but could have scored one or two more.”
The manager said of Fernández: “The reason Enzo was on the bench [initially] was because he arrived only a few days ago. I know how frustrating it was for him in the last weeks but in the end he played some minutes and was quite good. Nico felt something in his back – not serious.”
