sport news Man City 4-0 Bournemouth: Pep Guardiola's champions continue impressive start ... trends now
This newest incarnation of Manchester City is 10 really good footballers and the other bloke who does things around the box that will decide more important games than this one.
No, not Erling Haaland. Kevin De Bruyne. Comfortably Europe’s best midfielder for a while now, City are creating an even better version.
More goals than ever and, it seems, the major beneficiary of Haaland’s introduction into this astonishing team.
Manchester City's Ilkay Gundogan opened the scoring as he fired past Mark Travers
City are, within reason, letting De Bruyne do what he wants at the moment, be it carrying possession from deep or whipping crosses from the right.
He wanders off to the left, to Phil Foden’s delight when latching onto a through ball that nutmegged poor Chris Mepham and went in via two deflections as City scored their third seven minutes before half-time.
By that point, this was all over. Bournemouth – heavily praised by Guardiola beforehand - decamped to their own box right from the off, conceded territory and hoped to remain compact enough to frustrate the champions yet class told rather quickly.
Ahead inside 19 minutes through Ilkay Gundogan, and with quite a few chances before then, City swatted away newly promoted opposition with minimal fuss.
Rather less emotional than his last goal in front of the Etihad Stadium’s South Stand on that dramatic May afternoon, Gundogan’s opener was a product of Haaland.
The Norwegian hadn’t actually touched the ball until then yet came to life when holding off two challenges,
