Dzeko may have missed out on the 3-0 win over Sunderland but he came off the bench to win the ‘Battle of the Hawthorns’ for ten-man City, much to David Platt’s delight.
“Edin’s been in superb form, not just in terms of goal scoring but at the end of last season, at the start of the season, coming off the bench or starting, he’s been excellent,” Platt said.
“It’s not about who our best 11 players are like the man on the street might think, we pick a team from 24 players based on many factors.
“Edin’s a top, top player and if we can keep the spirit, that’s great, people should be disappointed when they’re left out but the reaction that you want is that if they come on they fight and all of our players did that.”
...David Platt...
City ended West Brom’s unbeaten home record with the victory and Platt took his hat off to the hosts.
“We knew this was going to be a difficult game right from the off, West Brom have started the season so well, they’re very well organised and they have a lot of good of players, a lot of dangerous players,” he said.
“We also knew we were coming into the game with most of our players away for the international break and there have been a couple of injuries so we haven’t had a full complement to choose from.”
Platt admitted that he hadn’t seen a replay of the incident which saw James Milner sent off but that his players reacted well to the set-back.
“Whether or not it’s a goal-scoring opportunity I’m not sure but there’s nothing we can do about that and we had to play 70 minutes with ten men,” he said, “it’s difficult for all referees but it’s all pretty irrelevant now.
“As soon as we got in at half-time, we calmed down and we said we have to stay compact, we stay together and we stay disciplined.
“Even with ten men we dominated, I think the stats prove that in terms of possession and in terms of shots on goal and I think we deserved the result, we’d have taken 1-1 but we managed to get the second.”
...David Platt...
Steve Clarke was magnanimous in defeat, hinting that the nature of City’s comeback was the stuff of champions.
“It’s a sore one to take but credit to Manchester City, I think today they showed why they’re champions,” said the West Brom manager.
“To play the way they did with ten men for 70 minutes was excellent.”
