Manchester City left it late to win a second successive Champions League game, with Kevin De Bruyne scoring a minute into stoppage time to give them a 2-1 win over Sevilla at the Etihad Stadium in Group D on Wednesday.
Last month Sergio Aguero’s penalty in the 90th minute gave them a 2-1 win at Borussia Moenchengladbach and the two wins, following a home defeat by Juventus in their opening game, have boosted their chances of reaching the last 16.
De Bruyne’s goal came even later than Aguero’s with the Belgian’s neatly-executed left-foot angled shot coming after 91 minutes to give City victory when it looked as though Sevilla were about to leave with a deserved point.
De Bruyne has had a huge impact since arriving for 55 million pounds ($84.78 million) from VfL Wolfsburg at the end of August and he played a defining role in this game too, after coach Manuel Pellegrini pushed him up front in search of the winner.
“Even though we did not have our best game, we tried everything to look for victory and in the end I could score,” he told BT Sport afterwards.
The result, plus Juventus’s 0-0 draw with Moenchengladbach in the other game, left Juve top with seven points, followed by City on six, Sevilla (3) and Moenchengladbach (1).
Sevilla took the lead after 30 minutes when the impressive Ukrainian striker Yevhen Konoplyanka took advantage of some poor City defending to sweep the ball past Joe Hart, but City were level six minutes later.
The equaliser came when a shot from Wilfried Bony deflected off the foot and shin of Adil Rami and into the net and that looked to be that until De Bruyne’s last gasp goal.
Going into the match, City had won only five of their 15 home Champions League matches and their vulnerability in front of their own fans was exposed again. Noisy Sevilla fans enjoyed the game far more than the muted home ones until the last few moments.
Konoplyanka also cracked a free kick against Joe Hart’s left-hand post after 18 minutes before scoring and City, without the injured Aguero and the creative David Silva, lacked real spark in attack until Pellegrini shuffled his side at the end to unlock the winning goal.
Their next match is at Sevilla on Nov.3 when Borussia entertain Juventus in Moenchengladbach.
