While it seems strange to laud Manchester City’s goalless encounter with FC Porto on Tuesday night, Pep Guardiola’s side were utterly dominant at the Estadio do Dragao and deserved the win.
Cynics would point to the fact that a stalemate was always going to be a convenient result between both sides but the flow of the game presents a different argument, given the front-foot nature of Pep’s team in Portugal, something the Spaniard seemed overly keen to emphasise in his post-match presser.
Frankly, the ex-Barcelona boss was right. His team’s inability to score at the Dragao was a mixture of brilliant goalkeeping from Agustin Marchesin, poor finishing and aware defending from the hosts — the case in point being Zaidu Sanusi smartly dropping to the goal-line to clear Raheem Sterling’s goal-bound effort in the opening half.