Manchester City began the new Premier League era under Enzo Maresca in extraordinary fashion as two goals in the closing stages transformed what looked certain to be a frustrating defeat into a dramatic 2-1 victory over Bournemouth at the Etihad Stadium.
Josko Gvardiol was the unlikely match-winner, scoring in the first minute of stoppage time after Marc Guehi had dragged City level in the 84th minute. Until that remarkable late turnaround, Bournemouth had appeared on course to give their new manager Marco Rose a memorable victory after Marcus Tavernier put the visitors ahead midway through the first half.
Instead, Bournemouth left Manchester wondering how three points had disappeared in a matter of minutes, while Maresca celebrated a winning Premier League debut as City’s manager and an afternoon that provided an immediate demonstration of the emotional extremes that accompany life in England’s top flight.
It was far from a convincing Manchester City performance. For long periods they looked like exactly what they are: a team entering a new era, attempting to absorb different ideas and searching for a new identity after the departure of Pep Guardiola.
Yet if Maresca wanted evidence of the character within his squad, he received it emphatically. City were six minutes from defeat before Guehi equalised. Seven minutes later, Gvardiol had scored the winner. The celebrations that followed told their own story.
This was only the opening weekend of the season, but there was a release of emotion around the Etihad that suggested the importance went considerably beyond three points.
Maresca had been given a warm reception before kick-off, including a huge banner welcoming him back to the club where he had previously worked as part of Guardiola’s staff. Following the dominance of the Guardiola years, replacing one of the most successful managers in English football history represents an enormous challenge.
There will inevitably be comparisons.
There will also be periods when City’s football does not possess the fluency that became almost routine during Guardiola’s best seasons.
For more than 80 minutes against Bournemouth, this looked like it might become an uncomfortable first lesson.
Maresca made several intriguing tactical decisions in his opening Premier League starting XI. Guehi was used in an unfamiliar midfield role, while Nico O’Reilly operated further forward. Phil Foden and former Bournemouth attacker Antoine Semenyo were selected in the attacking structure alongside Erling Haaland.
City dominated possession, finishing with approximately two-thirds of the ball, but possession alone did not provide control.
Bournemouth were organised, energetic and willing to press. Rose’s side demonstrated very quickly that they had not travelled to Manchester simply hoping to survive.
The visitors were compact when City had the ball and aggressive when opportunities arose to move forward.
City produced early moments of danger, and Haaland had opportunities that on another afternoon might have settled the match before Bournemouth had properly established themselves.
The Norwegian was unable to capitalise.
That became increasingly significant when Bournemouth punished City in the 26th minute.
The goal exposed precisely the sort of vulnerability Maresca will want to remove.
Evanilson was able to send a low delivery across the penalty area and Tavernier arrived to finish the move, beating Gianluigi Donnarumma and putting Bournemouth 1-0 ahead.
It was an excellent moment for the visitors and an uncomfortable one for City. The Etihad suddenly became considerably quieter. Bournemouth had something to defend and Rose’s players appeared increasingly confident that an opening-weekend upset was possible. There was also a psychological element to the situation.
During the most dominant years of the Guardiola era, visiting teams frequently found themselves chasing games at the Etihad. City would score early, monopolise possession and force opponents into increasingly desperate defensive work.
This was different. Bournemouth were leading. City were chasing. And the longer the afternoon progressed, the greater the pressure became.
The home side continued to see considerably more of the ball but struggled to translate possession into clear chances. Bournemouth’s defensive shape forced City into areas where they were less threatening, and Rose’s players showed admirable concentration whenever the hosts attempted to move through the centre.
Haaland remained the obvious focal point, but Bournemouth worked hard to restrict the service reaching him.
Foden looked for openings between the lines without consistently finding them, while Semenyo’s appearance against his former club provided an intriguing subplot but not the breakthrough City required.
By half-time Bournemouth still led 1-0. Maresca therefore entered his first Premier League interval as Manchester City manager with a significant problem to solve.
The second half followed a similar pattern initially. City controlled possession. Bournemouth protected their penalty area. The clock continued moving.
There were moments when City threatened to create something, but the combination of Bournemouth’s organisation and City’s lack of precision meant the equaliser continued to elude them.
Rose would have been delighted with much of what he was watching.
Bournemouth were disciplined without becoming completely passive. When possession was recovered, they attempted to move forward rather than simply clearing the ball and waiting for another City attack.
That ambition ensured the home side could never commit everybody forward without considering the threat behind them.
Maresca eventually turned towards his substitutes.
One decision proved decisive.
Rayan Cherki entered in the 62nd minute and completely altered the complexion of the match.
The Frenchman’s technical ability and willingness to attempt something unpredictable gave Bournemouth a different problem.
Cherki wanted the ball.
He wanted to create.
Most importantly, he was prepared to take risks.
It later emerged that Cherki had not been particularly pleased about starting on the bench, something Maresca readily acknowledged afterwards. His response was exactly what his manager would have wanted.
Instead of allowing that frustration to affect him negatively, Cherki entered the game determined to influence it.
The final half-hour became his stage.
City gradually increased the pressure and Bournemouth were pushed deeper.
There was still no panic from Rose’s side, but defending against sustained pressure at the Etihad is physically and mentally exhausting. Every clearance has to be followed by another sprint into position. Every blocked shot produces another phase. Every corner creates another opportunity for City to load the penalty area.
As the game entered its final ten minutes, Bournemouth remained ahead.
The possibility of a remarkable away victory was becoming increasingly real.
Then, in the 84th minute, everything changed.
Cherki delivered a corner into the Bournemouth penalty area and Guehi attacked it.
The England defender made contact with a header that found its way into the net, finally beating Djordje Petrovic and bringing City level.
The relief around the stadium was immediate.
For Guehi, it represented a remarkable contribution after spending much of the afternoon being asked to perform an unfamiliar midfield assignment.
For Bournemouth, it was the moment the contest changed completely.
A team that had spent so long protecting a one-goal advantage suddenly had to reset mentally with only a few minutes remaining.
City sensed vulnerability.
The tempo increased.
The crowd responded.
Players who had looked anxious only minutes earlier suddenly appeared energised.
The momentum had shifted decisively.
Bournemouth needed to find a way of slowing the contest down and restoring some control, but City were no longer interested in accepting a point.
Maresca’s players went looking for the winner.
Once again, Cherki was at the centre of it.
In the first minute of stoppage time, the substitute helped create the opening for Gvardiol.
The Croatian moved into an advanced position, received the ball and guided his finish into the bottom corner.
For a moment, however, City’s celebrations were interrupted.
The assistant’s flag was raised.
Offside.
The apparent winner had been disallowed.
VAR then intervened.
Replays showed Gvardiol had timed his movement sufficiently well, with Bournemouth defender James Hill playing him onside.
The decision was overturned.
Goal.
Manchester City 2, Bournemouth 1.
The Etihad erupted.
Maresca’s reaction on the touchline reflected the significance of the moment. City had been staring at an opening-day defeat and the inevitable questions that would have accompanied it.
Instead, within seven extraordinary minutes, they had turned the match around.
Gvardiol’s goal was the decisive moment, but Cherki deserved enormous credit for changing the contest.
Two goals.
Two significant contributions from the substitute.
His corner created Guehi’s equaliser and his involvement again helped release Gvardiol for the winner.
It was precisely the sort of impact that demonstrates why squad depth becomes so important across a Premier League campaign.
Maresca will also have learned something valuable about the personality of his player.
Cherki had wanted to start.
He was disappointed when he did not.
When his opportunity arrived, he responded by helping win the game.
The final whistle brought relief for City and devastation for Bournemouth.
Statistically, the home side’s victory could be justified.
City finished with around 66 per cent possession, completed far more passes and produced 13 attempts compared with Bournemouth’s five. Six of City’s efforts were on target, while the visitors managed four.
City also won eight corners to Bournemouth’s three.
Yet those numbers only tell part of the story.
For 83 minutes, Bournemouth had executed their game plan extremely effectively.
Rose’s team frustrated City’s attacking players, took their opportunity when it arrived and defended their advantage with discipline.
That is why the defeat felt particularly painful.
Afterwards, Rose made no attempt to conceal his disappointment.
The Bournemouth manager believed his players had produced a strong away performance and understandably felt they should have taken something from the afternoon.
However, his frustration focused particularly on how Bournemouth handled the final stages.
Rose felt his team did not defend well enough when the pressure became most intense. His view was that with the clock running down, Bournemouth needed to remain proactive rather than simply allowing City to push them backwards.
The German wanted his players to continue putting their opponents in uncomfortable situations rather than concentrating solely on survival.
It was a revealing assessment.
Rose was not criticising the overall performance.
Far from it.
There was plenty for him to admire.
Bournemouth had competed with City, led for the majority of the afternoon and demonstrated they could adapt quickly to their new manager’s approach.
What hurt was the manner in which the opportunity disappeared.
Rose’s frustration was therefore mixed with encouragement.
If Bournemouth can reproduce the organisation, work rate and counterattacking threat they demonstrated at the Etihad, they will cause plenty of Premier League opponents problems.
The challenge is learning how to finish games.
Against Manchester City, a concentration lapse lasting only seconds can destroy more than an hour of excellent work.
Maresca’s emotions after the match were understandably very different.
The Italian described the occasion as effectively the perfect day.
The welcome from the supporters had affected him emotionally and the manner in which his players eventually gave those fans something to celebrate made the afternoon even more memorable.
Yet Maresca was careful not to allow the result to disguise the work still required.
He acknowledged that City remain a work in progress.
That may be the most important observation to emerge from the afternoon.
The scoreline says Manchester City won.
The performance says Manchester City are still developing.
Maresca even suggested his overall assessment had not dramatically changed from City’s 3-0 Community Shield defeat against Arsenal a week earlier.
Results inevitably influence outside judgement, but managers are often more interested in the processes underneath them.
Against Bournemouth there were promising elements but also obvious weaknesses.
City created opportunities but did not take them early enough.
Their midfield balance occasionally looked uncertain.
There were periods when Bournemouth were able to disrupt City’s build-up.
Haaland was kept unusually quiet.
And the experimental use of Guehi in midfield demonstrated the problems Maresca is attempting to solve as he reshapes the team.
Fitness is another issue.
Several City players have had limited preparation following their involvement at the World Cup, meaning Maresca is attempting to implement a new tactical structure while some members of his squad are still building towards peak condition.
That makes the three points particularly valuable.
Managers often speak about needing victories while a team develops.
City got one here.
They did it the difficult way.
Maresca was also effusive about Cherki’s contribution.
The substitute offered the creativity and unpredictability City had lacked for much of the afternoon, and his influence on both goals made him arguably the decisive attacking player despite spending less than half an hour on the pitch.
It provides Maresca with an interesting selection decision moving forward.
Foden remains one of City’s most gifted attacking players.
Semenyo offers directness and Premier League experience.
Haaland is virtually guaranteed to lead the line whenever fit.
But Cherki demonstrated that leaving him out comes with consequences of its own.
Competition for places should be one of City’s greatest strengths this season.
The afternoon also provided a reminder that City’s defenders remain capable of producing decisive attacking moments.
Guehi scored the equaliser.
Gvardiol scored the winner.
On a day when Haaland, Foden and City’s other attacking players could not find the net, two defenders rescued the result.
Gvardiol admitted afterwards that he believed he had remained onside when the flag initially went up, although there was an anxious wait while the officials checked the footage.
Confirmation of the goal produced one of the biggest celebrations of the afternoon.
For Gvardiol, the most important thing was straightforward: City had won.
That mentality will appeal to Maresca.
There will be time to analyse the tactical shortcomings.
There will be training sessions devoted to improving the press, refining the midfield structure and developing relationships between new and established players.
Opening weekend, however, is primarily about getting points onto the board.
City have three.
Bournemouth have none.
Yet the difference between those outcomes was incredibly small.
Had Bournemouth survived another seven minutes after the clock reached 84, the conversation surrounding both new managers would have been dramatically different.
Rose would have been celebrated for masterminding a superb victory at the Etihad.
Maresca would have faced immediate questions about City’s transition into the post-Guardiola era.
Instead, Guehi and Gvardiol transformed the narrative.
That is the brutality of Premier League football.
The result should not obscure the fact that Bournemouth produced a performance containing plenty of positives.
Tavernier took his goal well.
Evanilson’s involvement in creating it demonstrated the threat he can provide.
The visitors defended impressively for long periods and showed enough tactical discipline to make one of the league’s strongest squads uncomfortable on their own ground.
Rose will demand that his players learn from the final minutes rather than dwell on them.
For City, the lesson is different.
They cannot rely on dramatic late comebacks every week.
Maresca wants a team capable of controlling matches much earlier and converting possession into goals before desperation enters the equation.
But sometimes a new managerial era needs a defining early moment.
Gvardiol may just have provided one.
There was the initial disappointment of falling behind.
There was the growing anxiety as the minutes disappeared.
There was the introduction of a frustrated substitute who transformed the contest.
There was Guehi’s equaliser.
There was Gvardiol’s apparent winner being ruled out.
Then there was the VAR intervention, the referee confirming the goal and the explosion of celebration around the Etihad.
For Maresca, it was difficult to imagine a more dramatic introduction to Premier League management with Manchester City.
For Rose, it was an agonising reminder of how unforgiving the division can be.
The two managers will leave the afternoon with very different emotions but surprisingly similar conclusions.
Both teams remain at the beginning of something.
Bournemouth showed enough to suggest Rose can build an aggressive and competitive side.
City showed enough to suggest Maresca has inherited players with the mentality to keep fighting even when their football is not flowing.
Neither performance was complete.
Neither manager would pretend otherwise.
But only one left with three points.
After 83 minutes, Manchester City were losing their first Premier League game of the post-Guardiola era.
Eight minutes later, Gvardiol was celebrating in front of a jubilant Etihad crowd, Cherki had transformed the game from the substitutes’ bench and Maresca had his first Premier League victory as Manchester City manager.
It was messy, imperfect and at times deeply frustrating.
But for Manchester City, it was also a winning start.
And for Maresca, on an afternoon that began with a huge welcome from the supporters and ended with a stoppage-time winner, that was enough to make it feel close to perfect.
