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Manchester City: Petulant Pulis points to City purse as Sane brace beats Baggies.

By Jason Bardwell

WEST BROMWICH, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 20: Leroy Sane of Manchester City celebrates scoring his sides first goal with his Manchester City team mates during the Carabao Cup Third Round match between West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City at The Hawthorns September 20, 2017 in West Bromwich, England. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
WEST BROMWICH, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 20: Leroy Sane of Manchester City celebrates scoring his sides first goal with his Manchester City team mates during the Carabao Cup Third Round match between West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City at The Hawthorns September 20, 2017 in West Bromwich, England. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images) /
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The third round of the Carabao Cup is in the books, and Manchester City are through. It wasn’t an easy task on paper, and that’s exactly how it turned out on Wednesday night at the Hawthorns.

Five Premier league clubs had already been knocked out the night before, two by lower tier opposition. In the five fixtures remaining Wednesday night, City were the only top flight side away from home.

Pep made eight changes from the starting lineup at Watford. Bravo was in-goal, which neither surprised me nor filled me with confidence. Fabian Delph, Yaya Toure and Eliaquim Mangala all returned to the lineup.

Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane swapped the bench for a starting spot while Ilkay Gundogan made his first start after a long injury lay-off. Danilo, Fernandinho, Jesus and Bernardo completed the eleven tasked with progressing City to the next round.

The game really couldn’t have started any better for City as Leroy Sane opened the scoring after only three minutes. A shot by Gundogan was parried by the West Brom keeper directly into the path of Sane who didn’t miss.

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In fact that parry from the keeper was the first touch a West Brom player had. City played the ball around between themselves for close to three minutes from kick off, making over 50 passes in the process.

The first half continued with much of the same, but without the goals to show. A combination of fantastic saves from Foster and woeful finishing saw City go in at the break with just the solitary goal lead.

Fifteen minutes into the second half and Gundogan limped off and replaced by Kyle Walker. A bad tackle from behind seemed to catch the Germans ankle possibly twisting his knee in the process, and he required treatment before being replaced.

Early indications are positive that he will not be out for too long. Hopefully it will be nowhere near the nine months on the sidelines he’s just returned from, and more of a game or two. Certainly within the next few hours we’ll know more. It was a shame for both him and City as he’d impressed in the match.

WEST BROMWICH, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 20: Ilkay Gundogan of Manchester City receives treatment from the medical team during the Carabao Cup Third Round match between West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City at The Hawthorns September 20, 2017 in West Bromwich, England. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
WEST BROMWICH, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 20: Ilkay Gundogan of Manchester City receives treatment from the medical team during the Carabao Cup Third Round match between West Bromwich Albion and Manchester City at The Hawthorns September 20, 2017 in West Bromwich, England. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images) /

Claudio Yacob was the aggressor, but didn’t receive a booking. Having only just issued a yellow, not five minutes before, Mike Jones decided against a second and, therefore, a sending off. As luck would have it Yacob would be the one to draw the sides level minutes later.

Although Bravo could, and should, have done much better with the effort you began to wonder. Minds go into overdrive as you look at the clock and see the Baggies getting two lifts in quick succession.

Fortunately, our lead was returned through Sane with thirteen minutes left on the clock. A fantastic finish from just inside the box, curling into the top corner. I say fortunately because West Brom had missed a couple of half decent chances and had they gone ahead I’m not sure we’d have gone though at that point.

A scare late on saw Robson-Kanu guilty of missing a sitter, something he had been guilty of earlier in the game also. That was pretty much the last real chance of the game. City had the ball and worked down the clock until the final ‘peep’ of the referees whistle.

Next: City get home draw for Carabao Cup

Now attention for Pep and City turns to Crystal Palace at the weekend who, themselves, progressed to the next round. For West Brom, it’s a trip to Arsenal and the continuing pursuit of ’40 points’.