Chronicle Editor
MANCHESTER CITY racked up another landslide of goals in the FA Cup to brush aside a Fulham side who played all bar the first six minutes of this hopelessly one-sided affair with 10 men following Tim Ream’s early dismissal.
Pep Guardiola could not have asked for a more gentle, routine warm-up ahead of the second leg of City’s Carabao Cup semi-final against Manchester United.
The City manager rested Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne, Aymeric Laporte, Fernandinho and Ederson with a clear eye on Wednesday and watched the stand-ins make the lightest of work of a Fulham team who barely had a hope once Ream departed.
The reigning FA Cup and Carabao Cup holders, Guardiola’s City now won 19 consecutive domestic cup matches since losing to Wigan Athletic in February 2018.
City had scored 25 goals across Guardiola’s previous FA Cup home ties going into this. The challenge facing Fulham then was obvious. For the Championship high-fliers to make a proper game of it, let alone pull off a huge upset, they needed most things to go their way. What they absolutely did not need was to go a man down after six minutes. Ream hacked down Gabriel Jesus after David Silva had craftily knocked Ilkay Gundogan’s pass into the path of the City striker with a deft touch.
Watching Jesus bear down on goal in front of him, the Fulham captain deliberately pulled back the Brazilian. Kevin Friend will not have an easier penalty decision to make all season and, since Ream made no attempt to play the ball, the referee was correct to also brandish a red card.
There was no chance of Jesus being entrusted with the spot-kick after his miss in midweek against Sheffield United. Guardiola said he had settled on a new penalty taker after his side’s latest failure from 12 yards and the City manager will have been relieved to see Gundogan bury the ball in the bottom corner.
And so began one of the longer exercises in damage limitation, the game pretty much over as a contest and the only real question focusing on how many goals might run up.
When Bernardo made it 2-0 on 19 minutes, with a superb finish to cap off a fine team move, Scott Parker must have feared the worst. In that respect, the Fulham manager will have been both surprised and relieved his team entered the final 20 minutes of the game without their net having been breached again, a switch to five at the back at half-time, with striker Bobby Decordova-Reid deputising in defence, ensuring they got bodies behind the ball.
That the scoreline remained respectable up to that point was mainly thanks to some errant City finishing, with Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez and substitute Raheem Sterling, who hit the crossbar, all erring, but tired Fulham legs eventually gave way to sloppiness as they were twice ransacked trying to play out from the back in quick succession.
Fulham have their philosophy, their way of playing, but sometimes needs must and they looked hesitant and nervy every time they tried to build up from the back.
Goal number three for City arrived when Reid overran the ball and lost possession from Marek Rodak’s goal kick. Sterling tapped the ball back to Joao Cancelo and the City right-back plonked a lovely cross on the head of Jesus to power the ball home.
Three minutes later, it was 4-0. This time, Hector was caught by Jesus on the edge of his penalty area trying to be too clever. Silva picked up the ball and found Foden to his left. His shot was saved but Rodak could only push a bouncing ball into the path of Jesus, who nodded in from a few yards out on the rebound. — The Telegraph
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