Whether Manchester City restore their powers as the Premier League’s formidable force after a summer of change remains one of the great unknowns but for Pep Guardiola the early evidence in victory at Wolves was supremely encouraging. The substitute Rayan Cherki, a £30m signing from Lyon, capped the scoring within eight minutes of entering and Tijjani Reijnders, another one of those pinpointed to drive the close-season makeover, was peerless on his league debut; the Netherlands midfielder was the architect for Erling Haaland’s double, which bookended Reijnders’s first City goal, a feathery first-time finish. “City are back,” crooned the away support and, by the end, it was hard to argue otherwise.
Guardiola, understandably, is not getting carried away. “Last season we were back when we won 2-0 at Chelsea [in our first game] and look what happened afterwards,” the City manager said. “We won [just] today. If you told me we were back in the second half, I’d say no.” City were clinical, scoring with all four shots on target, all of which were easy on the eye, even if Haaland’s first was a tap-in at the end of a move that began with the kind of Reijnders burst that may become commonplace. City had the swagger that has accompanied so much of their success. The injured pair of Rodri and Phil Foden, looking on from the stands, must have pondered where they will fit in.
