Best Games of the 2012-13 Season: Number 5

The 5th best game of last year's Premier League season is Manchester City 3-2 Southhampton. The game was the highlight of the opening weekend of the Premier League, with City, the defending champions, faced off against newly promoted Southampton.

Build Up:
Roberto Mancini's City was coming off a convincing 3-2 win over Chelsea in the Community Shield. The two biggest changes from that lineup was the addition of Joe Hart instead of Costell Pantilimon, and Jack Rodwell over Nigel De Jong. Nigel Adkins left Rickie Lambert, who had been Championship player of the year the season before, and had scored 27 goals in the league to help the Saints secure promotion, on the bench. The Merseysider would become crucial to the game, later on.

The Game:
Southampton had a good chance in the 11th minute, with Morgan Schniederlin hitting a 25 yard shot several yards wide of the post. City drew a penalty in the 15th minute when Jos Hooiveld tripped up Carlos Tevez as the Argentine was trying to turn around him. David Silva stepped up to take the penalty, hitting it low and to his right; but Kelvin Davis guessed right, easily saving the ball, whereafter Daniel Fox put the ball out for a City corner. The Southampton players mobbed Davis, the keeper reminding them to play smart with the corner coming. Tevez finally broke the deadlock in the 40th minute, picking up a Samir Nasri through ball, down the right wing with miles of space. He hit a strong shot past Davis, who was caught flat footed. Replays would show that the Argentine was offside, but, as usually, he showed no problem with scoring controversial goal (refer to this). So the Saints, for all their hard work, went into half time down a goal.

City continued to have good chances early on in the second half, as Edin Dzeko, David Silva and Gael Clichy all shanked balls into the keepers mitts or over the bar. Adkins finally brought Lambert on in the 55th minute, and hit impact was immediate, scoring a goal in the 59th minute. After several deflections, Lambert found the ball on the edge of the area and tried to play the ball into the box to Guilherme Do Prado, only to see the ball come right back to him. He took advantage of it, smacking a curling shot past Hart. The Saints fans were sent into euphoria, with the stewards just barely holding them back. Southampton took the lead ten minutes later when, after breaking away off a City set piece, Steven Davis picked up a deflected pass that he, much like Lambert's goal, had passed, and curled it again around Hart. This goal was eerily similar to the second goal QPR scored in the last game of the previous season. The Saints and their fans were now ecstatic; a win in their first Premier League game, and against the defending champions too! But City had another thing coming. Edin Dzeko drew even off a corner just 4 minutes later, and finally, in the 80th minute, Samir Nasri won the game for the Manchester club, when a Gael Clichy cross, which was hit long to the back post, was headed back towards the middle by Daniel Fox; Nasri took it on a half volley, slamming the ball into the old onion bag.

Aftermath
The game, for City, was quite similar to the finale of the previous season, where they went down 2-1 to a small team, QPR, but made a late comeback to win 3-2; that game, of course, carried much more weight, as it was to decide the title. City went on to have a poor campaign, going out of the Champions League in the group stage, losing in the final of the FA Cup and losing their title back to United. So'town stayed up, finishing a respectable 14th place. This game's biggest detraction was that it was the opening weekend, not as crucial to the season as other game later on.

Stay tuned for the next four Best Games of the 2012-13 Premier League Season from Pitch View, as well as the rest of the blog's countdown to the start of the season.