CITY ARE FIRST AMONG EQUALS
Newport County 1 Man City 4
NEWPORT and Manchester City are separated by 81 places on the football pyramid – and about a billion quid.
And Pep Guardiola could not have cared less. It is to the City manager’s great credit that when he sent out his players at Rodney Parade last night, he urged them to take on Michael Flynn’s League Two scrappers as equals.
He had to. Guardiola was bitten on the backside at Wigan last year. This time he paid the FA Cup his full respect.
There was no way he was going to allow Newport to add another glorious chapter to a story that has made the most famous knockout competition such compelling sport for almost a century-and-a-half.
Proud
Newport did the Cup and every lower league footballer proud on an evening in South Wales that will live long in the memory. But after 90 gruelling minutes, it was as the Premier League champions who prevailed.
While the scoreline illustrated the gulf in class, this was far from a comfortable evening for the Blues. Two goals in the dying minutes from m Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez hrez finally killed off the hosts, after Newport’s £1,500-a-week top earner Padraig Amond (above) had given his team a cruel glimmer of hope.
Foden scored twice on a rare start after Leroy Sane had put City ahead early in the second half.
But for long periods it was tight and tense. Flynn’s make-do-and-mend side strained every muscle to produce what their manager said would be “the biggest shock in FA Cup history”.
But City rolled up their sleeves to ensure they weren’t scalped in the same way as Middlesbrough and Leicester. Yes, the visitors tried to weave their pretty passing patterns on a treacherous surface.
But they also matched their hosts for passion and physicality. And even when he was two goals to the good with 11 minutes to go, Guardiola was taking no chances. Off came Fernandinho and on went defender Aymeric Laporte.
Rodney Parade is known locally as Newport-on-mud – and the pitch looked like it had been sourced from a no-man’s land in northern France.
Fitting then, that some of their players looked like they were going to war rather than into a cup tie.
They clutched babies and young children as they greeted Guardiola’s men before the kick-off. Keeper Joe Day handed 20-month-old son Harrison to his wife Lizzie before planting a kiss on the heads of Sophia Grace and Emelia Lillie, twin daughters who were born just hours after Newport had knocked out Boro 10 days ago.
Sure enough, City were forced to endure an early bombardment.
Keeper Ederson smashed one clearance out of the ground and down Corporation Road. And the sight of the usually unflappable Fernandinho lumping one pass aimlessly down the p pitch would have given Michael Flynn’ Flynn’s side further enc encouragement.
As would Mahrez, l looking pleadingly at referee Andre Marriner after being muscled off the ball by Amond.
Newport deserved th the standing ovation they the got at half-time. But it too took City just five minutes of the sec second half to make class pay.
Sane combined brilliantly with Gabriel Jesus down the left to cut Newport open by twice exchanging passes. And while Day managed to get his face in the way of the German’s shot, it carried enough power to loop into the goal.
But City had to wait until the 75th minute before scoring again, thanks to Foden’s run and finish from 20 yards.
Yet Guardiola’s side weren’t home and hosed. And when the talismanic Amond looped a clever finish over Ederson after Laporte had blundered with two minutes to go, the roof came off and a light of hope flickered.
It was extinguished within seconds by Foden’s thumping finish.
And when Mahrez walloped in a fourth City goal in injury-time, it gave the scoreline a flattering look.