sport news Phil Foden justifies Pep Guardiola's bold call to bench Erling Haaland and ... trends now
As they trundled away from Villa Park in the bitterness of December, bruised and well beaten, nobody at Manchester City would have really thought a 24-match unbeaten run was on its way.
Equally, nobody would have really thought that after such a long stretch without defeat in all competitions, City might find themselves last in a three-horse race for the Premier League title.
But here they are.
A funny season, where Liverpool and Arsenal have made sizeable gains on the perennial champions, who themselves have threatened to motor and then accidentally eased on the brakes.
A season where Pep Guardiola saw fit to bench not only Erling Haaland but Kevin De Bruyne against opposition who had undoubtedly caused his team the most problems in any individual game.
Phil Foden scored a hat-trick as Manchester City crushed Aston Villa on Wednesday night
Foden justified Pep Guardiola's bold call to bench Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne
A big call or the last roll of the dice. The dice were hot; so too was Phil Foden.
Just after the hour last night, Foden was running to the corner where both Guardiola’s creative genius and goalscoring behemoth stood warming up in florescent tangerine bibs.
He was running over because his second of the night had just nestled calmly into Villa’s far corner, City were two goals clear, and the nervousness had subsided.
Foden, more productive when he is the main protagonist, has hit 20 goals in a campaign for the first time in his career.
Foden, another hat-trick to his name. The third of his career and second in the space of two months after rifling in City’s fourth.
Twenty isn’t bad at all and it will not be the last time Foden reaches that milestone but the bigger picture here was that City have not ceded any further ground to their rivals in possibly their trickiest fixture of the dash to the finish.
The headline news had come as a shock to the guy who controls the music at the Etihad Stadium too, keeping Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes on the playlist.
Shortly after Guardiola’s team had filtered through onto the concourses, those filtering in were singing along to De Bruyne’s terrace chant.
And it was strange, not seeing either he or Haaland line up for a night that came as close to a must-win as you can get. Even more so given Arsenal were already two goals up by the time City even kicked off.
Rodri struck first for Man City when he swept home Jeremy Doku's cross at the near post
Villa striker Jhon Duran beat Stefan Ortega with a low finish to equalise in the 20th minute
Foden restored City's lead with a low 20-yard free-kick on the stroke of half-time at the Etihad
Foden extended City's lead after 62 minutes when he fired low past Villa keeper Robin Olsen
Points to prove everywhere and Guardiola knew it. To Foden: go and dominate the central area with Bernardo Silva. To Rico Lewis: stand up to Nicolo Zaniolo, one of the
