Pep Guardiola saw improvement from his Manchester City players against Wolves in a test they had twice failed earlier in the season.
City’s coach had been disappointed at the way his team had performed in home matches with Southampton and Crystal Palace. Both opponents set up to frustrate City and exploit any errors on the counter-attack, and left the Etihad with a draw and a win respectively.
Wolves posed an even more difficult version of the same challenge for the Blues, not only possessing more quality on paper and having more experience of such a defensive set-up but showing through their theatrical playacting that they would go even further to disrupt the game.
City managed to keep their cool though, and while the award of the penalty that brought their only goal was controversial they had other chances and would surely have kept attacking the Wolves goal with more intensity if they hadn’t taken the lead.
It took until second-half injury time for Wolves to have a shot on goal — a moment where City dropped their standards as a result of briefly replacing reason with…
