Honeymoon over for Hodgson as City find their rhythm

Any spectator at Eastlands this evening unaware as to which team had spent £130 million this summer and which had spent less than £10 million, wouldn’t have had too many problems guessing by the end of the ninety minutes. In front of owner Sheikh Mansour, Manchester City outmuscled and outplayed Liverpool far too easily for the liking of the Roy Hodgson and the travelling support. Is this indicative of the way things are likely to go for the two teams this season?

As Hodgson pointed out after the match, two games into the season is not the time to be drawing conclusions, although he must be slightly concerned about the lack of offensive threat or defensive cohesion that his side showed. In the absence of Joe Cole, he chose to start Fernando Torres and David Ngog together, a decision that neither really looked comfortable with. They also badly missed Javier Mascherano, “not in the right frame of mind” and seemingly Barcelona bound.

For City, Roberto Mancini will have been buoyed by a strong debut from James Milner and an equally as encouraging performance from Adam Johnson on the other wing. Other positives included a confident boosting brace for Carlos Tevez, as well as another solid display from Joe Hart in goal who pulled off an important double save from David Ngog and Fernando Torres with the game at 2-0 and still far from won. 

If events on the field didn’t send out a strong enough signal, the substitutes’ benches told you all you needed to know about City’s superiority. Had they been required, Mancini had Emmanuel Adebayor and David Silva available to bring on, whilst Hodgson had to settle for Ryan Babel and Daniel Pacheco. Liverpool are apparently close to a deal for PSV Eindhoven duo Ola Toivonen and Carlos Saicedo, but is this really the class of player that is going to see them trouble the top four?

So following the false start against Tottenham, City’s season is now up and running and they have seen off one of their close rivals with comparative ease. This was a margin of victory which suggests they have the players, and the strength in depth, to trouble for the major prizes. On this evidence, Liverpool may have to set their sights a little lower, although, to quote Hodgson again, “ the season is a marathon race”, and he’ll hope his side is still just getting warmed up.

What do you think? Is it too easy to draw conclusions from a game this early in the season, or was City’s victory an ominous sign of things to come? Who impressed and who disappointed for each side this evening? As ever, let us know your thoughts.