David Platt has hailed Edin Dzeko’s late winner after Manchester City snatched victory at West Brom.
Shane Long had given the home side the lead after James Milner was sent off, but the Bosnian equalised just a minute after coming off the bench and then struck again in injury time.
Platt told reporters: “If you look at Edin’s career for Manchester City, the goals he has scored, he has got a lot of heavy goals, goals that are very important.
“I remember goals at Blackburn the season before last which more or less gave us Champions League qualification.
“You look back at last season as well and he got some vital goals. To win the league, [Sergio] Aguero’s goal will always be the one but remember Edin equalised.
“He has been a threat all season and his form has been very good all season.”
Milner was dismissed for denying a goalscoring opportunity, and Platt was keen to avoid talking about the decision, instead focusing on the team’s efforts to come from behind, despite their deficit on the field.
“Watching it live it didn’t seem a goalscoring opportunity to me for the sending-off. Equally you can see why it is given,” he explained.
“But we can’t sit there for 70 minutes grumbling about a decision. For the rest of the first half we were affected by it to a certain extent and no-one was controlling the game.
“We said at half-time if we keep our control and discipline, stay together, we know we can impose our play on them and in that second period we controlled the match.
“If you look at the stats of efforts on goal and possession, you wouldn’t have thought we’d had a man less than them.”
Mario Balotelli was also shown a yellow card in the first half for a challenge on Claudio Yacob, with referee Mark Clattenburg asking Vincent Kompany to have a word with the Italian after further fouls.
Platt admitted that Balotelli was almost substituted as City looked to avoid losing another player, but praised the his overall temperament.
He said: “The temptation is there [to substitute Balotelli]. He got booked inside 20 minutes.
“We looked at it at half-time but he was causing them a problem and we felt confident just by speaking to him that there was not going to be any loss of head. He looked pretty calm.”