How Savinho and his ‘glimpses of brilliance’ restored Man City’s strength
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Manchester City 4-1 West Ham: The Brazilian has inspired back-to-back wins and his creativity is helping Erling Haaland rediscover his scoring touch. A summer of transfer-market misjudgements may have sent Manchester City spiralling into decline but there are signs it will nevertheless yield one benefit. While City have suffered because of sales and because they neglected to buy where they needed players, while one summer recruit, Ilkay Gundogan, has been benched, the other has proved the catalyst who has spurred them out of the worst run of Pep Guardiola’s managerial career. They had a lone win in 13 games. Now they have two in two, each inspired by Savinho.
![[Savinho’s deflected strike opened the scoring and gave City the impetus to go on and win the game]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/04/18/2192394304.jpg)
After a goal and an assist at Leicester came pivotal contributions to City’s first three strikes as West Ham were routed; somehow both unconvincingly and yet emphatically. “You cannot ask me if the old Manchester City is back,” Guardiola said. “If you saw the game, we are not. If you ask me the team is playing like it has played years ago, no, absolutely not. Our performance was not good.”.
![[Pep Guardiola’s tweak of Savinho’s position to the left has been rewarded]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/04/18/GettyImages-2192394516.jpg)
But Savinho’s was. He waited 23 games for his first City goal: he was denied a second in as many matches only because City’s deflected opener was instead debited to Vladimir Coufal. But he went on to set up each of Erling Haaland’s brace. After providing the Norwegian’s goal at the King Power Stadium, perhaps Savinho has restored Haaland to form, too.
![[Erling Haaland was in the goals again with a confident brace at the Etihad Stadium]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/04/17/2191807497.jpg)
Or maybe West Ham did that. Even as many of the old certainties of City have been destroyed, two remain. Haaland scores against West Ham and City always beat them. This took his tally to nine in six matches at their expense, his fourth and fifth this season after an August hat-trick. Haaland’s first City goal came against West Ham; so, too, his record-breaking 35th league strike of the 2022-23 season. Now he has crashed through the 20 barrier in all competitions in the current campaign, in early January and when City have had a wretched run. “Being at 20 goals at this stage of the season is exceptional,” said Kevin De Bruyne. If it is predictable that Haaland is City’s top scorer, Savinho now leads the way for their assists.
![[Phil Foden took his opportunity to add a fourth for City]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/04/18/11805732.jpg)
