Stones scores injury-time winner as Man City beat struggling Wolves 2-1 in Premier League

WOLVERHAMPTON – John Stones scored again in injury time as Manchester City narrowly avoided a major setback by beating bottom-placed Wolves 2-1 in the Premier League on Sunday.

The Stones headed home a corner in the fifth minute of second-half injury time and the goal stood after referee Chris Kavanagh was called to the sideline monitor to check if Bernardo Silva was interfering with goalkeeper Jose Sa from an offside position.

Kavanagh’s decision denied Wolves only a second point of the season and sidelined enraged manager Gary O’Neil, while the victory put City two points above Liverpool ahead of their match at home against Chelsea later on Sunday.

“We are not used to winning games at the end,” said Man City manager Pep Guardiola, whose side won four consecutive league titles by regularly crushing most of their opponents. “It’s a good flavor for us.”

It also extended City’s unbeaten streak to a club record 31 league matches, breaking a record that Pep Guardiola’s side had set in 2018.

With prolific striker Erling Haaland left without a goal for a third successive league match, City’s defenders instead scored goals after Jorgen Strand Larsen gave the hosts a surprising lead in the seventh minute.

Josko Gvardiol fired a superb right-footed shot from outside the box to equalize in the 33rd minute, but Wolves then repelled wave after wave of City attacks before Stones’ late intervention also equalized at the last breath against Arsenal in the eighth. minute of added time last month.

“These moments don’t happen to us often,” Stones said. “We’ve found a few over the years and today was one of them.”

Wolves’ compact defense mainly limited City to long-range efforts as they searched for a second-half winner, with Sa stopping shots from outside the box from Ruben Dias and Jack Grealish after making two superb saves at one hand in the first half.

But the goalkeeper couldn’t react quickly enough to stop Stones’ header going into Phil Foden’s corner. The goal was initially ruled out after the linesman raised his offside flag because Silva had been positioned in front of Sa, but the VAR asked Kavanagh to review it after ruling that the Portuguese midfielder was not had no impact on the goalkeeper.

“I try to stay calm,” O’Neil said. “I’ve been involved in a few of them and not much has gone in our favor, so I expected this result. There is a gray area that can go one way or the other and once it was like that, I wasn’t sure it would go our way.

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