Manchester City 4 Stoke 0
Fernando (35’), Agüero (43’ pen), Iheanacho (64’, 74’)
Man of the Match: Kelechi Iheanacho (Manchester City)
Off they went, one by one. First David Silva, then Sergio Aguero, finally Fernando. They joined Vincent Kompany, Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy, Fernandinho and Kevin de Bruyne, who were not required to take the field at all.
By the end, Manchester City were without eight of the men who are likely to start against Real Madrid on Tuesday, they had scored four goals and reclaimed third place.
Preparations rarely go as smoothly as this. “We made a good game,” Manuel Pellegrini said. “That is the best way.”
Stoke City were seen off, premier players taken off. Those with minor knocks could be removed.
The sole note of concern struck was when Yaya Toure required treatment. “The doctor will see him,” Pellegrini said. “He finished with a muscle injury.”
Even then, Toure’s presence on the pitch in the closing minutes was a sign he was not due to begin against Madrid. City go into their maiden Uefa Champions League semi-final in fine fettle, full of confidence, perhaps with a clean bill of health and certainly buoyed by plenty of goals.
It was the sort of game that can only be seen in the context of another. Thus Kelechi Iheanacho’s impressive display was facilitated by De Bruyne’s omission and will be followed by a place on the bench against the 10-time European champions.
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The Nigerian scored twice, won a penalty and produced evidence of the rich talent that Pep Guardiola should appreciate. “Kelechi will have an important role in this club in the next years,” Pellegrini said. In the short term, however, he merely enabled others to get a rest and City to move a step closer to securing a top-four finish.
The doom-laden predictions that a demob-happy team would let the season peter out seem misguided. They have won four of their last five league games. It looks less likely that Manchester United will catch them.
What City possess, which their neighbours do not, is the ability to inflict thrashings of weakened teams.
The opener came from an unusual scorer. Fernando had started his City career superbly before being injured against Stoke in August 2014. Twenty months later, it felt a cathartic moment when the anchorman scored against the same opponents, heading in Jesus Navas’ corner.
A second set-piece brought another goal. There has been a renewed focus on players resorting to pulling, pushing and tugging in the penalty box, highlighted when referee Jonathan Moss awarded a penalty against Leicester City’s Wes Morgan last week.
The consequences felt lesser but the offence was clearer when Ryan Shawcross grabbed Iheanacho. Aguero converted the resulting penalty.
The overlapping Pablo Zabaleta marked his 300th City game by surging forward to set up Iheanacho for the third. Aguero’s replacement Wilfried Bony combined beautifully with Iheanacho to send the teenager scurrying through to add a fourth.
“To score four goals and have a clean sheet is very important,” Pellegrini said. That clean sheet came despite a few alarms. The excellence of Stoke’s creator-in-chief Marko Arnautovic was not reflected in the result.
“We are disappointed with the performance and the scoreline,” said Stoke manager Mark Hughes, who endured a miserable return to his former club. This has been the worst spell of his season, with three heavy defeats compounded by the loss of Ibrahim Afellay for nine months with a knee injury sustained on the training ground.
It says something about Stoke’s decline that they seemed solid for the first half-hour and nonetheless conceded four goals. It was the wrong sort of treble for a team who were also breached four times by Liverpool and Tottenham. “Poor games,” Hughes said. “Poor goals conceded.”
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