ETIHAD STADIUM, MANCHESTER — When Manchester City headed to Leicester on December 29, they had won one of their past 13 games in all competitions. Savinho had made 15 Premier League appearances, supplied two assists and failed to score a goal.
Six days later, Pep Guardiola’s side had wins over Leicester City and West Ham despite being far from their imperious best. Savinho opened the scoring at the King Power Stadium, forced Vladimir Coufal’s opening own goal in the 4-1 win over West Ham and claimed three assists, all for Erling Haaland.
The last of those goal involvements came early in the second half at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, when Savinho darted in off the left flank — a position where the Brazil international has thrived over the past week having spent most of the season on the right wing – and pieced the West Ham defence with a brilliant pass for Haaland to do the rest.
Speaking after the match, Guardiola acknowledged that high-quality assist might not have occurred earlier this season as the 20-year-old grasped for confidence in a team doing much the same. “I think he’s cleaning his mind. Nothing in his head for the pass,” the City boss said.
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The overriding sense around this great City team’s decline is that it needs freshening up. Too old and too tired from too many miles in the legs in pursuit of history. Savinho has been no part of any of that and his failure to make an impression for most of the first half of the season meant it was easy to label him a player not up to the standard, another example of City conducting recent transfer windows on the cheap to sleepwalk into this winter crisis.
But perception in football is a funny thing. Now he looks like an irresistible box of tricks whose vitality might lift his teammates from their torpor. He’s already appears to have restored plenty of Haaland’s swagger.
The truth is probably somewhere in between but Guardiola took the invitation to praise Savinho as an opportunity to needle some of the trusted lieutenants who have failed to dig him out of a hole over recent weeks.
“Normally when you are many years here, the players think that they deserve something special for what they have done and that is a big mistake,” he said. “They have to prove it again and again. Savio has to do everything to prove himself.”
If you squint hard enough, Guardiola then offered a possible hint over City’s transfer business this January. The left-footed Savinho thriving on the left wing is a potential complication given it’s the flank where right-foot duo Jeremy Doku and Jack Grealish prefer to play.
Phil Foden, a left-footer like Savinho, rounded off Saturday’s scoring by coming in from the right wing but would prefer to play centrally. There is a vacancy for a naturally right-footed player to operate from the right flank. Perhaps that could be the heavily linked Eintracht Frankfurt forward Omar Marmoush, even though the Egypt international has taken flight as a central attacker in the Bundesliga this term.
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That’s very much Haaland’s job in east Manchester and Guardiola acknowledged how the hulking No. 9 could benefit from the traditional service Savinho and a more natural right-winger would bring. City fans who still think fondly of Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane’s performances during the 2017/18 100-points season no doubt agree.
“Having a left foot on the left side, like old-fashioned, vintage football – right on the right, left on the left — of course these kind of crosses helps a striker like we have,” Guardiola said. “For the second goal against Leicester and with two or three today he has this sense of aggressivity. Right now, he has something special and brilliant that helps the team.”
Guardiola also charted his usual course of hitting a standout player with a few public home truths to ensure they don’t bask in the afterglow for too long. Savinho is, according to his manager, not aggressive enough without the ball and “a little bit soft in many departments.
That’s a fair amount to improve, but Savinho definitely can improve. By contrast the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker, Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva – four of the finest players the Premier League has seen over the past decade — are all coming down the other side of the mountain at various speeds.
That’s where the overall picture and whether Savinho’s improvement leads to a sustained upturn for City overall is a little more complicated. But the youngster’s blossoming confidence and the manner in which he has reignited Haaland definitely gives Guardiola something to work with.