Ilkay Gundogan’s heroics grabbed the headlines, and rightly so, with his two goals in six minutes either side of Rodrigo’s precise low drive ensuring the defending champions edged home 3-2 to secure a fourth Premier League title in five years.
But Zinchenko was key to that incredible late burst, with perhaps his finest display yet for the Club – an opinion shared by many and backed up with our Opta graphics.
Pass Master
The first of our stats shows that Zinchenko managed to have more successful passes than any Aston Villa player, despite only coming on at half-time.
In fact, he had more than double that of Callum Chambers (21), Tyrone Mings (21), Lucas Digne (20) and Douglas Luiz (20) who were Villa’s most involved players and all had 90 minutes on the pitch.
Touch and Go
Zinchenko was integral to everything City did in the second half, with much of our focus down the left flank where the Ukrainian left-back linked up well with Kevin De Bruyne throughout.
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Again, he bettered every Aston Villa player with his 56 touches in 45 minutes topping Villa keeper Robin Olsen who had 55 during his 90 minutes on the pitch.
Zinchenko’s tally was also double that of creative Villa midfield trio Emiliano Buendia (26) and Philippe Coutinho (26 and) John McGinn (24), all of whom had at least 72 minutes of action.
Carry on, Oleks
Our third graphic shows just how focused on attack Zinchenko was in this game.
He had 13 carries, eight of which saw him cut in from the left in a bid to move towards the Villa box.
He also managed to match his Premier League best with three dribbles all successfully completed, one of which was a mesmerising run into the box past several challenges that saw him lay the ball back to Riyad Mahrez who was denied by a last-ditch clearance by a Villa defender.
Zinchenko was unstoppable in the final third and he skipped past his marker on the left flank, cut inside the box and then played a perfectly weighted pass to Rodrigo – effectively making the Spaniard’s mind up – as he side-footed a superb low shot into the bottom left corner to make it 2-2.
It was his fourth Premier League assist of the season – his best tally yet – and he also had time to make two excellent interceptions as Villa counter-attacked.
All in all, a wonderful contribution from our Ukraine international.
Statistics provided by Stats Perform
