Riyad Mahrez and Julian Alvarez did the damage as Manchester City began their latest League Cup quest with a 2-0 win over Chelsea.
Mahrez gave City the lead with a fine free-kick after 53 minutes of Wednesday’s third-round tie before Alvarez tapped in the second five minutes later at the Etihad Stadium.
Chelsea’s impressive youngster Lewis Hall twice brought good saves out of Stefan Ortega but City, bidding to win the competition for a seventh time in 10 seasons, were good value for their victory.
Further good news for the home side – and potentially England – was that midfielder Kalvin Phillips had a 40-minute run-out.
Phillips had been out since undergoing shoulder surgery in September and the game was his last opportunity to prove his fitness before England boss Gareth Southgate names his World Cup squad on Thursday.
Phillips’ introduction allowed City to take and maintain control after a tame first half.
With both sides making seven changes, the game lacked Premier League intensity. With Erling Haaland, Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne on the City bench it was left to the likes of Jack Grealish and Mahrez to provide the spark.
Grealish went close early on with a shot that curled narrowly wide before he was felled just outside the area by Kalidou Koulibaly.
The resulting free-kick from Ilkay Gunodgan came to nothing but the German later teed up Alvarez only for the Argentinian to miss the target.
Grealish had another opportunity when he cut inside to force a save from Edouard Mendy but, although City controlled most of the possession, Chelsea also threatened.
City goalkeeper Ortega needed to be alert after the ball rebounded off team-mate Rico Lewis before he later saved from Christian Pulisic.
Hall, an 18-year-old making only his second Chelsea start, almost made a name for himself with a brilliant run and step to wrong-foot Lewis but Ortega saved with his feet.
City moved up a gear after the break as Grealish and Mahrez began to get the bit between their teeth.
The introduction of Phillips and Bernardo Silva after 50 minutes also injected some energy.
Grealish brought two brilliant saves out of Mendy before Trevoh Chalobah fouled Mahrez on the edge of the area and paid the price as the Algerian curled a free-kick over the wall to score.
City quickly doubled the lead with Mahrez again involved, this time controlling beautifully before shooting across goal. Mendy parried but Alvarez was on hand to snap up the rebound.
Chelsea responded well and Hakim Ziyech should have done better with an effort he slashed wide and Hall was unlucky to be denied again when Ortega got a strong hand to his low strike.
Chelsea boss Graham Potter turned to former City forward Raheem Sterling and the home side had a moment of alarm when Sergio Gomez headed against his own post. Pulisic also forced the ball into the net but the flag was raised.
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Brief scores:
Juventus 3
Dybala 6', Bonucci 17', Ronaldo 63'
Frosinone 0
Tewellah by Nawal Zoghbi is out now.
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Manchester City 4
Otamendi (52) Sterling (59) Stones (67) Brahim Diaz (81)
Real Madrid 1
Oscar (90)
CHELSEA'S NEXT FIVE GAMES
Mar 10: Norwich(A)
Mar 13: Newcastle(H)
Mar 16: Lille(A)
Mar 19: Middlesbrough(A)
Apr 2: Brentford(H)
Disposing of non-recycleable masks
Use your ‘black bag’ bin at home
Do not put them in a recycling bin
Take them home with you if there is no litter bin
- No need to bag the mask
How it works
A $10 hand-powered LED light and battery bank
Device is operated by hand cranking it at any time during the day or night
The charge is stored inside a battery
The ratio is that for every minute you crank, it provides 10 minutes light on the brightest mode
A full hand wound charge is of 16.5minutes
This gives 1.1 hours of light on high mode or 2.5 hours of light on low mode
When more light is needed, it can be recharged by winding again
The larger version costs between $18-20 and generates more than 15 hours of light with a 45-minute charge
No limit on how many times you can charge
Company profile
Name: Steppi
Founders: Joe Franklin and Milos Savic
Launched: February 2020
Size: 10,000 users by the end of July and a goal of 200,000 users by the end of the year
Employees: Five
Based: Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai
Financing stage: Two seed rounds – the first sourced from angel investors and the founders' personal savings
Second round raised Dh720,000 from silent investors in June this year
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE NEW BATCH'S FOCUS SECTORS
AiFlux – renewables, oil and gas
DevisionX – manufacturing
Event Gates – security and manufacturing
Farmdar – agriculture
Farmin – smart cities
Greener Crop – agriculture
Ipera.ai – space digitisation
Lune Technologies – fibre-optics
Monak – delivery
NutzenTech – environment
Nybl – machine learning
Occicor – shelf management
Olymon Solutions – smart automation
Pivony – user-generated data
PowerDev – energy big data
Sav – finance
Searover – renewables
Swftbox – delivery
Trade Capital Partners – FinTech
Valorafutbol – sports and entertainment
Workfam – employee engagement
Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
