Manchester City suffered their fourth Premier League loss of the season as 10-man Leeds United slammed fugitive leaders thanks to Stuart Dallas’ double in a 2–1 win at the Etihad on Saturday. Dallas opened the scoring three minutes before half-time, but Marcello Bielassa’s hopes of a famous win for the men had vanished when captain Liam Cooper was shown a straight red card in first-half stoppage time.
By the time Ferran Torres equalized 14 minutes, the visitors stopped the City bombing.
But Leeds nevertheless summoned the energy to pose a threat on the counter-attack and offered Dallas its reward when it went down from Ederson.
Biela’s first win in five meetings against Pep Guardiola inspired Leeds to finish ninth in their first season in the English top flight for 16 years.
Guardiola paid to rotate clearly with his priority against Borussia Dortmund in the second leg of Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-finals.
City still enjoy a 14-point lead at the top of the Premier League and require only 11 points from their remaining six matches to guarantee a third title in four years.
But Manchester United can close the eight-point gap should the Red Devils win their two games, the first of which is away from Tottenham on Sunday.
A two-minute silence was observed in honor of Prince Philip before kick-off, who died on Friday at the age of 99.
Once the action was underway, Citi recalled Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Riyad Mahrez, Phil Foden and Reuben Dias, among the stars left on the bench by Guardiola.
The presence of Rahim Sterling was largely another episode, a reflection of how low England’s international stature has been in the last few weeks.
Sterling did not even land as a substitute in the first leg against Dortmund and did not advance his case for selection in midweek by crossing a huge wideout from Fernandinho’s cut-back.
Leeds had ruined several promising attacks with their final ball, but found the finishing touch on 43 minutes.
Patrick Bamford kills Dallas for a low strike from inside the post.
The enjoyment of visitors was short-lived. Exactly four minutes later he was a man downstairs.
Cooper played the ball before crashing into Gabriel Jesus, but after reviewing the incident on the pied side screen by referee Andre Mariner, the Leeds captain upgraded a yellow card shown in red.
Bamford was immediately sacrificed for more defensive cover in the Pascal Strezak as Leeds batted down the line.
The city was encamped inside Leeds for almost the entire second-half, but long-term efforts fell short as Olachen Zinchenko, Fernandinho and João Canso survived Elan Messaliar.
Gundogan and Foden were introduced to bring more spark to City’s attack, but de Bruyn was surprisingly left in reserve for the full 90 minutes.
Torres repaid City’s dominance for the first time after Silva was ejected inside the area by Fernandinho.
Nevertheless, Leeds were still looking for a winner.
Promoted
Ruffinha overtook Fernandinho, but was denied a stunning agreement by Brazilian compatriot Ederson.
Leeds’ approach was rewarded in a time of stagnation when Dallas galloped into the middle of a vacant city defense to clear the house.
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