Manchester City 3-0 Fulham: Premier League highlights and recap

Manchester City beat Fulham 3-0 in the Premier League on Saturday, Sept. 15. Here are all the highlights from the match.

There’s a reason teams don’t attack Manchester City, especially teams outside the top six, as Fulham found out the hard way on Saturday during a 3-0 loss to the defending Premier League champions.

The Cottagers secured promotion from the Championship last season with an open, attacking brand of soccer, and manager Slavisa Jokanovic promised his team would maintain that style in the top flight.

Commendable though that goal may be, City ruthlessly exposed Fulham’s defensive failings, taking the lead through Leroy Sane after a little over 90 seconds. The move started with a sloppy Jean Michael Seri giveaway in his own half.

The goal didn’t impact Fulham’s willingness to get players forward, but while they produced a few nice moves, they struggled to test Ederson while leaving themselves wide open on the counter-attack.

Silvas Bernardo and David, Sane, Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero were creating chances at will, and doubled their lead in the 21st minute, David Silva finishing from close range after a lovely flowing move that started with Ederson.

Fulham came out in the second half with the same approach, and were duly punished. Sterling, who had several good chances in the first half, got on the score sheet with a finish from even closer range than Sane’s in the first half.

Ahead of their first Champions League fixture of the season, on Wednesday against Lyon, this was about as easy a league fixture as the Citizens could have hoped for, with Aguero, Sterling and Fernandinho all getting extended rests.

As for Fulham, they shouldn’t be too hard on themselves for losing away to the best team in the league, but it will be interesting to see if Jokanovic changes his approach against the league’s top sides.

Highlights

Fulham host Watford in their next league match, while City travel to play Cardiff.