Brentford 1-3 Man City: Phil Foden nets STUNNING hat-trick as the champions come from behind to leapfrog Arsenal and close the gap to Liverpool to just two points

No victory lap here for Manchester City. No cameras required. Still three points. Three predictable and rather ominous points for Pep Guardiola and his team of champions.

After the carnival in the Emirates on Sunday, things were a little quieter, even though City had to come from behind. However, City’s intention is now clear. Arsenal’s victory over Liverpool may have put the London club back in the title race, but it also put City back in control of the title.

Guardiola’s team are not top players in the Premier League, but they will be if they win their game on their own, including against Brentford later this month. For the first time in a long time, City have their destiny in their own hands and that’s just the way they like it.

Here they were dominant all the time. Brentford even scored first midway through the first half when Neal Maupay ran through to a long goal kick to give his team the lead. Not a darts celebration like there had been when he scored for Spurs, just a tiny pinprick set City’s ambitions for the evening.

Brentford held their own against the pounding velvet of City for a while. Goalkeeper Mark Fleken was great. By the time half-time approached, City had made sixteen shots and their seventeenth shot, delivered from twelve yards by Phil Foden, finally went in.

The City midfielder was on hand to finish, with assists from both Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland.

That wasn’t quite the end of Brentford’s ambitions, but it was the start of it. Foden scored twice in the second half and registered a hat-trick. There were also 85 minutes for Erling Haaland, another night of progress for Kevin de Bruyne, while City have John Stones, Jack Grealish and the likes of Jeremy Doku and young Oscar Bobb on the substitutes’ bench.

There is renewed hope at Arsenal. Liverpool will be driven by the emotion and adrenaline of Jürgen Klopp’s long farewell. So it should be a compelling title race. However, it will still be a surprise if City don’t pull off another win, and that’s simply because they are still the best team.

We haven’t really seen the best of them yet this season. Haaland himself said last week that the intensity of last season’s treble, combined with a short summer, had left City’s dressing room feeling lethargic in their legs and perhaps even their minds all autumn. But there has been a palpable increase in purpose, intensity and perhaps belief since they returned from Saudi Arabia at the end of December as Club World Cup champions. Since then, City have gone to WWWWWW and there is nothing on their immediate horizon in terms of fixtures to suggest the run will do anything but continue from this point.

It won’t be easy. It never is. The Champions League starts again next week with a trip to Copenhagen. That in itself will bring some complications. But Arsenal also play in the Champions League, while Liverpool will face Europa League football on Thursday. So the playing field is level and when that happens, the best teams tend to win.

Here in West London they were superior from the start. Fleken made two consecutive saves from Julian Alvarez early on, while Ethan Pinnock denied Haaland with a timely block on the six-yard line. De Bruyne was also denied by the goalkeeper’s fingertips, while Fleken dived to his right to deny Kyle Walker’s blistering drive after seemingly spotting it late on.

It felt like a goal had to come quickly, and it did, for Brentford.

It’s hard to remember the last time – if ever – a Guardiola team conceded a goal like this and it was perhaps fitting that Flokken was involved. The long goal kick delivered onto the pitch in the 21st minute may well have been headed away by Nathan Ake, but with Ivan Toney blocking the City defender’s progress, Maupay was able to run through unmarked and score his fifth goal in five games under goalkeeper Ederson pushes through and slips inside. the corner.

Maupay was delighted and his recent upturn in form was significant. But Toney also did his share of congratulations, suggesting City had just fallen victim to a Brentford training scheme.

City may have been shocked, but they responded almost immediately. Haaland ran clear, but was denied by Flek’s legs.

City eventually equalized before half-time, but only by a matter of seconds. Another in a series of crosses from De Bruyne was actually his worst of the half, but when Pinnock misjudged the run and headed weakly at Foden, he controlled the ball and smashed it home from about twelve yards.

That was the beginning of the end for Brentford. Foden’s second goal, in the 53rd minute, was a neat, curling header from, of course, De Bruyne’s cross, with Pinnock failing to get out as his teammates played the goalscorer onside.

Brentford could have collapsed, but they don’t do that here. Instead, they briefly rallied when a Christian Norgaard short was blocked by Ruben Dias as he appeared to head in. Then Josko Gvardiol did the same to frustrate Maupay before Toney made good contact on the volley but skipped the ball over.

This brief flurry of activity in City’s penalty area lasted just six minutes and that was as good as it got. In the 70th minute Foden was first with a loose ball from fourteen yards out and drove into the goal ending a match of contrasting styles but all the more watchable for it.