MANCHESTER.- He Manchester Citydespite giving minutes to less common players, crushed its neighbor Salford 8-0, a fourth division team that is owned by former glories of rival Manchester United, this Saturday in the third round of the English Cup.
The pupils of Pep Guardiola Thus they started this edition of the FA Cup, the oldest football tournament in the world, with the biggest win among all the matches played so far.
David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville are part of Salford’s ownership, a modest formation that showed itself to be light years away from the current quadruple Premier League champion.
Guardiola combined in his eleven some regular starters (Ederson, Aké, Nunes, Doku, Savinho) with promising young players (Simpson-Pusey, O’Reilly, McAtee) and even a debutant, Divin Mubama.
The latter, 20 years old, started in attack instead of Erling Haaland and celebrated his debut with a first goal, pushing with his left foot in front of an empty goal after a center from Matheus Nunes, to put the provisional 2 to 0 in the minute 20.
Before that, his teammate Jeremy Doku had led the way in the 8th. The Belgian player also scored in the 69th and also stood out for giving two assists in the game.
The player who scored the most times was James McAtee, a 22-year-old attacking midfielder, who scored a hat trick (62, 72, 81).
End of a drought
The other goals for the ‘Sky Blues’ in the match were scored by 19-year-old Nico O’Reilly (43) and Jack Grealish (49 from a penalty). The latter had not scored in official competition with his club since December 2023.
After the deep slump that marked its final stretch of 2024, Manchester City seems to have woken up. They have won their last three games, two in the Premier League and now in their debut in the Cup, a tournament where City was runner-up last season.