MAN CITY 1, WOLVES 0
Kevin De Bruyne was Manchester City’s matchwinner on the night a win against Wolves lifted them to third place in the Premier League.
The Belgium’s penultimate match at the Etihad before his farewell saw him net the only goal of the game and his sixth of the season.
It was a hugely important strike in the scrap for a top-five finish to qualify for the Champions League.
It earned City a fifth straight win in all competitions, their best run since October as they are building some momentum at the business end of the season.
City were lucky, however, as form side Wolves, who had won their last six league matches, were unlucky to leave the Etihad empty handed.
They were twice denied by the frame of the goal, a goalline clearance as well as missing a sitter.
“The only things missing was the result. We should have scored two goals,” admitted Wolves’ boss Vitor Pereira.
And City boss Pep Guardiola believes there is still scope for improvement, saying: “If you analyse the result, we have improved, but analyse the performance and there is still a long way to come.
“In the first 20 minutes, they were much, much better and they had chances. We were fortunate.
“If we play like we did today, it is really good, but we cannot relax. Winning in that way is good because it will make us realise that we still need to work.”
City made four changes to the side that beat Nottingham Forest at Wembley on Sunday to reach the FA Cup final.
But the big news was on the substitutes’ bench as star striker Erling Haaland returned from an ankle injury and was involved in a matchday squad for the first time since the end of March.
De Bruyne started his penultimate home game with goalkeeper Ederson, Ilkay Gundogan and Jeremy Doku all returning.
Stefan Ortega, Rico Lewis, Jack Grealish and Savinho droped to the bench.
Embed from Getty ImagesPereira made one enforced change following their 3-0 win over Leicester last time out.
Jorgen Strand Larsen, with six goals in his last six games, was out with a minor groin injury so Jean-Ricner Bellegarde came in.
City had the chance to take the lead in the second minute when Ruben Dias saw a drive flash narrowly side.
That was before thousands of protesting fans streamed from the concourse in the sixth minute – they were voicing their anger at City not selling any new season tickets for six years.
Wolves ought to have taken the lead mid-half when Jean-Rioner Bellegarde raced clear but, instead of shooting, squared a pass to Marshall Munetsi.
However, the ball was played too far in front of Munetsi who, sliding in, failed to connect which was a glaring miss as it looked as though it would be an easy tap-in.
And not long after, City had another massive escape.
This time Rayan Alt-Nouri’s shot struck the upright with Ederson rooted to the spot. The rebounded to the same player and his second effort was cleared off the line by Josko Gvardiol.
Nico O’Reilly fired just over before De Bruyne made the breakthrough after initially winning the ball in midfield.
Gundogan then released Doku who cut in from the left and cut the ball back for De Bruyne to fire home from 12 yards.
Incredibly that was City’s only on-target goal attempt in the whole game. They managed only nine chances in the whole game, a measure of how well Wolves played.
The second half saw Matheus Cunha, Wolves’ golden boy, strike the upright with a shot from distance while City never looked like adding to their tally.