Manchester City on Tuesday cruised into the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League as early goals from Kevin de Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0 in Budapest and sealed a 4-0 aggregate victory.
The Champions League is the one trophy that has eluded Pep Guardiola during his five years in Manchester, with City failing to ever get beyond the last eight under the Catalan.
However, the runaway Premier League leaders are to get the opportunity to break that barrier next month, as they showed why they are the bookies’ favorite for the competition with another classy performance in the Hungarian capital.
Photo: AFP
De Bruyne and Gundogan were two of a host of first-team regulars left out by Guardiola for their 3-0 win at Fulham on Saturday last week and City looked refreshed as a fast start guaranteed a 24th win in their past 25 games in all competitions.
Phil Foden had forced Yann Sommer into a fine save low to his right before De Bruyne blasted in the opener off the underside of the bar on 12 minutes.
Six minutes later, a flowing move from back to front saw Foden release Gundogan in behind the ’Gladbach defense to score his 15th goal of the season.
The Germans have lost all seven games since manager Marco Rose announced that he would be leaving the club at the end of the season to join Borussia Dortmund.
’Gladbach did at least pose more of a threat than in the first-leg match, as Ederson was stretched to save Marcus Thuram’s deflected effort before the break.
The signing of Ruben Dias has transformed Guardiola’s men into a complete team this season, as they remain on course for an unprecedented quadruple of the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and EFL Cup.
With no key players missing through injury, the wealth of options Guardiola has to choose from is another reason this could finally be City’s year for a major breakthrough in Europe.
To give Dias, Joao Cancelo, Gundogan, Rodrigo and Bernardo Silva an early night ahead of Saturday’s trip to Everton in the FA Cup quarter-finals, Fernandinho, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Aymeric Laporte, Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling were all introduced off the bench in the second half.
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