Manchester City 5 Burnley 0 : Foden and Mahrez Shine
By David Crook
There was a refreshing familiarity about Manchester City’s demolition of Burnley.
Manchester City under Pep Guardiola are sometimes the footballing equivalent of sponge pudding and custard. Like a warm comfort blanket, they deliver happiness with a cuddly regularity.
Today City were quite simply superior in every regard and Burnley laboured to a 5-0 defeat, in fact they were lucky to only lose 5-0.
Pep conditions his players to perform almost rhythmically, caressing the ball into space. The players may change but the patterns do not.
More from Man City Square
- Rodri believes City can have even more success this season
- Grealish, Stones, and Kovacic will NOT play tomorrow
- My Manchester City UCL Group Stage predictions
- After Injury Guardiola is back in Etihad
- Phil Foden Scores Opener for England Against Scotland
The advantage here is that the players are all so consistently good that they can do as they are asked and every 15 minutes create a goalscoring opportunity.
Today much of the tormenting of Burnley was carried out by Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez, although it also marked another sublime David Silva performance.
The loss of Silva as soon as this season ends seems almost too much to bear, but thanks to Phil Foden we may have a ready made replacement.
City opened the scoring after 23 minutes and the biggest surprise was that it came from a corner. The ball was nudged to Phil Foden and he hit a daisy cutter into the bottom corner.
The second goal came from a lovely pass by Fernandinho who dissected the Burnley team before Riyad Mahrez stepped inside and eviscerated them. The control was beautiful and the curling shot was world class.
Just moments later and City had their third and the game was well and truly over. This time Aguero was caught by Ben Mee in the penalty area and what appeared innocuous was ruled illegal by VAR.
In the absence of Kevin de Bruyne, Mahrez stepped up and converted his chance, banishing the spectre of the miss against Liverpool which at one point threatened to over shadow his City career.
David Silva netted after the restart following some neat passing. The rout was concluded by Foden who side footed past the hapless Nick Pope to claim his second of the evening.
Whilst City settled for 5 there was even time for a cameo from Leroy Sane.
City have made a good start since football returned and as their intensity increases then so do the chances that this side can add further to their trophy haul in the months ahead.
The only blot was the loss of talismanic striker Sergio Aguero to a knee injury. In the immediate aftermath, Pep intimated things did not look good but the saving grace is that at the moment games come thick and fast and now there is an opportunity for Gabriel Jesus to seize.