No Rodri, No Party for Manchester City as early kick off ends all square

Saturday's 12:30 pm kick off was a game to watch as Manchester City travelled up the country to face Newcastle United at St James Park.

City were coming off the back of a 2-2 draw against Arsenal whereas Newcastle were hoping to get back to winning ways after their collapse at Craven cottage which saw them losing 3-1 to Fulham.

The Starting XI for Newcastle United consisted of: Pope (GK), Trippier,Schar, Burn, Hall, Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton, Murphy, Gordon, Barnes.

For the visitors Man City they fielded a starting XI of: Ederson (GK), Gvardiol, Akanji, Dias, Walker, Kovacic, Lewis, Grealish, Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Haaland.

City had won 10 out of their last 12 meetings against Newcastle in all competitions prior to the game so was looking in full steam to grab three points against such a difficult magpie's side, especially at St James park.

No Rodri No party was the story of Saturday's game as City have lost their main man for the rest of the reason due to suffering a ligament injury to his right knee during the first half City’s 2-2 draw to Arsenal. Pep decided to use a double pivot of Kovacic and youngster Rico Lewis to fill in for the big gap Rodri has left, interestingly instead of using Lewis as a right back and having him invert in the midfield which Pep so often does with Rico, he placed Rico Lewis in the midfield three alongside Kovacic and Gundogan to create room in the back line for returning captain Kyle Walker, most likely to counteract Newcastle counter attacking threat with in form Harvey Barnes and Number 10 Anthony Gordon.

Newcastle throughout the entire game pressed in such an impressive and structured manor with striker for today Gordon leading the charge in every way. Howe set of a system of attacking city's defence but to leave room in the number 10 position, this way there was no space in behind for Erling Haaland to run into and Newcastle’s electric midfield and high press defenders could capitalise on Haaland's poor first touches and regain possession in the dangerous Midfield spaces.

However, first blood was drawn for the Sky Blues and by defender Josko Gvardiol. Jack Grealish managed to skip past right back Trippier before moving towards the box and playing a lovely ball to Gvardiol. City’s left back takes the chance like any quality striker would do, composed and skillful Gvardiol chops back inside leaving the defender and places the ball in the bottom right corner to make the score 1-0 to City. Newcastle, however, wouldn't be put to sleep by the champions as City played very lethargically in possession and didn’t have the tempo a team needs to see off a game, especially against a side as quick and strong as Newcastle United.

Anthony Gordon was the main man for the magpies as Alexander Isak was not part of the squad, leading from the front in the press and when in possession Gordon took to the game like a knife to butter. His fantastic performance was rounded off with scoring the equalising penalty which many pundits around had different views on, Newcastle Legend Alan Shearer stated, ‘that was never a penalty, it's a yellow card for Gordon because he dived’. He took to X formally known as Twitter as well replying to fans with ‘i didn't think it was a pen, That ok?’. Penalty or no Penalty Anthony Gordon never looked like missing and slotted a beautiful strike into the bottom left corner to grab the equaliser.

From then on City had a few chances to get back in the lead but didn't have that cutting edge fans alike would normally expect. Pep made chances of bringing Foden on for Gundogan in the 66 th minute and later bringing Savinho and Jeremy Doku on, both in the 81 st minute however these changes couldn’t help City as in the entire second half they recorded no big changes compared to Newcastle's’ two.

Because of this draw and Liverpool winning their away game against Wolves 2-1 Manchester City drop to second place in the league table, a point behind Liverpool and level with title challengers Arsenal. No Rodri for the season could look to be the deciding factor that stops a five consecutive title run for Manchester City in the Premier League.

Image from @mancity on Instagram