Yaya Toure Helps Depleted Sky Blues Grind out Badly Needed Win over Swans

There were handfuls of minutes in the early going of Manchester City's 2-1 win over Swansea City where, for what promises to be a recurring feeling this season, the feeling at the Etihad was heavily impending doom.

Allowing early goals is becoming a serious problem for City, and this flaw cropped up again with Wilfried Bony putting the Swans ahead in the ninth minute. Soon enough, Chelsea were quickly up 2-0 against West Bromwich Albion, and the Sky Blues' eight-point deficit in the league seemed headed for double digits.

These moments of doubt have come far too often this season.

Virtually every Champions League match City have played this season has featured several such spells of uncertainty, and even in the league, City's displays against Stoke City and at Queens Park Rangers showed the Sky Blues to be occasionally afraid of success.

Against Swansea, anyway, City found their way out of trouble. And it was the rightly scrutinized Yaya Toure who ultimately provided the winning margin.

A result against Swansea was always going to require some grinding and invention for City, especially since manager Manuel Pellegrini once again had to get inventive with his XI.

For starters, Pellegrini named a hobbled Vincent Kompany and the always-worrisome Martin Demichelis in central defense because—let's just say it—the Eliaquim Mangala signing has not worked out at all. Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov were also unavailable.

You know Pellegrini is running out of useful players to choose when the very capable but very young Jose Pozos makes the team sheet.

David Silva's extended absence is also making life very difficult for Pellegrini.

As he so often must, Pellegrini played Jesus Navas and Samir Nasri together in the midfield hoping that the two offensive-minded speedsters could together replicate what Pellegrini gets from one player when Silva plays. And Pellegrini did—sort of.

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Navas gave and took away in the early going, playing Bony onside to lead to the Swansea goal but then atoning with a deft cross that found slumping striker Stevan Jovetic.

The Montenegrin's resulting poke home had to be a huge relief for both the Etihad faithful and for Jovetic, who has been awfully quiet since his brace against Liverpool in August.

By the time the second half rolled around, Pellegrini would have been perfectly happy to see any of his players provide a second goal for City. If pressed, though, Pellegrini might have preferred to see it come from Toure. Sometimes, wishes do come true.

Some of the unflattering attention on Toure this season is the unjust product of his prolific scoring work in 2013-14. Pellegrini said as much in his post-match remarks, according to a PA Sport report (h/t ESPNFC.com):

"

(W)e cannot analyse [all the time] with Yaya if he scores or doesn't. It is impossible for Yaya to score again the amount of goals he scored last season. That was not normal. He is not a striker, he is a midfielder.

"

But Pellegrini is no fool. When he gets a match-winning goal from Toure, Pellegrini is very sure to let the press and the world know what it means to the manager and to the club. 

"(I)t is important for him to score the way he did today, and it is important for him to play well. I think Yaya is improving with every game," gushed the manager about his on-again, off-again star midfielder.

Whether Chelsea can be caught in the Premier League this season is still very much in question.

For City, that question will never be answered if they cannot keep squeezing out results like this one against Swansea on a day where they featured a patchwork side and for once did not get a goal from Sergio Aguero.

For the moment, at least, City have not lost any more ground to Jose Mourinho's rampant Blues.

It will take several more of these group efforts from City to keep Chelsea from putting the league out of reach before Pellegrini gets all of his pieces back healthy and then gets them operating at top speed.

That's assuming, of course, that City's best ever do get healthy and on form together this season.