Manchester City suffered their second straight preseason defeat on Saturday night as they fell 3-2 to AC Milan at Yankee Stadium.
Erling Haaland opened the scoring for the reigning Premier League champions in the 19th minute, but Milan flipped the game on its head with two goals from 22-year-old Lorenzo Colombo within four minutes of each other.
City, who played a youth-heavy lineup, lost control of the game and registered just three shots on target, though they were on their way to a draw when James McAtee equalized with a 56th minute header.
Milan, though, kept the pressure on their opponents and were deserved winners in the end as Marco Nasti squeezed in a winner, despite Ederson getting a hand to the effort.
Pep Guardiola won’t lose too much sleep over this late July result, in which USA star Christian Pulisic was merely a late entrant, but here are Jake Nisse’s winners and losers from the NYC affair.
Winner: Erling Haaland 7/10
It’s two goals in two preseason games now for the big Norwegian striker, who found the net on Saturday with a lunging sidefoot from inside the box.
He only played 45 minutes, exiting before City and Milan changed their kits, but certainly made his presence felt. He’ll be disappointed not to have added a second after a horror backpass from Lorenzo Colombo, when the latter striker oddly found himself near his own goal.
Overall, it was business as usual from Haaland and he gave the American fans a goal to cheer for.
Erling Haaland scored in the first half after teammate Oscar Bobb found him in the box
Winner: Oscar Bobb 8/10
The architect of Haaland’s goal from the right hand side, Bobb was City’s danger man on the night.
He constantly ran at defenders and often glided by them successfully, and should have scored in the first half after drifting over to the left and orchestrating a give-and-go with Maximo Perrone.
Pep Guardiola was full of praise for him after the match, and you feel the 21-year-old could cement himself as a regular contributor this season.
Bobb was City’s danger man in NYC and he could be set for more playing time next season
Winner: Samuel Chukwueze 8/10
It was Colombo who scored Milan’s first two goals, but Chukwueze did the hard work of setting them up.
The Nigerian delivered two carbon-copy passes to his teammate from his inside-left position, twice clipping gorgeous crosses to the back post for his teammate to poke home.
A real threat with the end product to show for it.
Loser: Jack Grealish 4/10
In a team full of kids (he, Haaland, Bobb and Lewis were the only established first-teamers in the outfield), you would have liked to see Grealish shoulder a larger amount of attacking responsibility but he was largely anonymous in New York.
Guardiola said it was still ‘step by step’ getting Grealish back to his top fitness and performances levels, and that showed as the younger Bobb was the City winger who stood out.
There was one moment in the second half when he retreated all the way to the City goal to get a few touches of the ball, and that summed up his night really.
It was a quiet night for Jack Grealish, as he produced little going forward in 79 minutes
Loser: Rico Lewis 5/10
It wasn’t the young full-back’s finest night, as he allowed Chukwueze to get onto his left foot for his first assist and was marking no one during Milan’s second goal.
In fairness, he also produced a good block from the top of the box in the second half, but two of Milan’s goals ultimately came from crosses from his left-hand side.
Lasted all 90 minutes, but there’s room for improvement.
Loser: Kalvin Phillips 5/10
City’s forgotten man only played the second half, but produced two highly unfortunate moments.
The first saw the midfielder lose the ball right in front of his own box in an extremely ponderous moment, nearly gifting Milan a goal before City ultimately closed off their opponents’ angle.
The second saw him in admittedly foreign territory, as he found space in the box late in the second half and got his chest on a pass but somewhat clumsily tried (and failed) to get the ball to fall for him.
He didn’t get a shot off in that moment, and City ultimately had no answer for Milan’s third and final goal.
