Manchester City made light of the absence of their key players as they thrash top-four hopefuls Aston Villa at Etihad to keep tabs on the Premier League title race, MySportDab reports.
City avenged their first-leg loss to the high-flying Unai Emery-led side, who saw off the Premier League champions with a narrow 1-0 victory at Villa Park.
It was a difficult ground for Emery and the Villains with City exercising absolute dominance in the game as they looked set to secure all three points.
Key names missing from the starting lineup for City in the clash were Norwegian attacking sensation Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones, including Kyle Walker, and Ederson, who is nursing injury.
Despite missing City’s top names against Aston Villa, Pep Guardiola got the best out of the squad as he got them to race into a deserved 4-1 victory.
England youngster Phil Foden starred with a standout performance for the Premier League champions, netting a hat-trick to marshal the team to victory.
Rodri had opened the scoring for Manchester City 11 minutes into the game, thanks to an assist by Jeremy Doku. Nine minutes after Rodri’s opener, Aston Villa fought back to level terms through Duran.
It almost ended 1-1 at the break before Phil Foden came up clutch and scored to restore City’s lead at the stroke of half-time.
In the second half, the Manchester City academy graduate scored two minutes after the hour to extend City’s lead and bag his brace.
With a 3-1 lead, the home side were still on top of proceedings and were looking set to secure all three points.
Phil Foden was not done scoring as he wrapped up City’s goalscoring spree, adding his third in the 69th minute to make it 4-1 at the blast of the final whistle.
The win has seen Manchester City equal Liverpool’s 67 points on the table with Arsenal now leading the three-horse race with 68 points.
Liverpool have played a game less and will hope to return to the summit when they take on Sheffield United tomorrow.
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