With about 25 seconds of five fraught minutes of second-half stoppage time remaining, John Stones powered in Phil Foden’s corner to send the Wolves assistant coach, Shaun Derry, sinking to the turf in the home technical area and the away fans wild. For Gary O’Neil, the sickening part centred on the manner of the goal, with Bernardo Silva screening José Sá in the Wolves goal. Last season Wolves railed at VAR after Max Kilman saw a 99th-minute leveller disallowed at West Ham because Tawanda Chirewa was deemed to be blocking the view of Lukasz Fabianski. This time the referee, Chris Kavanagh, visited the VAR monitor and returned a verdict in Pep Guardiola’s favour.
Of course, a hulking 6ft 4in Norwegian, a 24-year-old No 9 would open the scoring. Only it was not Erling Haaland but Jørgen Strand Larsen who capped a slick Wolves move to give City something to think about. Guardiola’s side equalised courtesy of a graceful Josko Gvardiol strike but just as it seemed Wolves would be rewarded for digging deep into the energy reserves to eke out an invaluable point, they were consigned to a damaging defeat. By this point next weekend, Wolves will have faced seven of the top eight across their first nine matches.
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