Aguero’s treble sees City stroll to easy victory
...and he missed two penalties!
PEP Guardiola is unlikely to have it any easier all season. Not on a night when Sergio aguero had the luxury of missing two penalties before scoring a hat-trick.
More than £100million of talent was left at home and one began to wonder who else could have had a few days off without it affecting the scoreline in this qualifying play-off first leg.
‘We are almost in the Champions league and that was our target at the very beginning,’ said the City boss.
‘it was a great performance, we played really, really good. The result is amazing but the way we played, i’m so satisfied and it’s a big compliment to these fantastic players.
‘Every manager wants to create chances and concede few. We are there so now it’s rest and focus on our coming games.’
City won’t play too many more ordinary opponents, even in the domestic cups.
Take the third goal as an example. Nolito passed to Kevin de Bruyne. de Bruyne gave it back. it was training ground stuff. Nolito stepped round Steaua goalkeeper Florin Nita to tap the ball into the net.
The evening didn’t bode well for Joe Hart, however, because if there ever was a night when Guardiola could have played an understudy, it was here.
Willy Caballero had one save to make, after 30 minutes. reports in Spain suggest Chilean goalkeeper Claudio Bravo will be arriving from Barcelona before the weekend, so maybe this was Guardiola giving the second choice a run-out.
City’s fourth, after 78 minutes, saw Steaua’s defence reduced to traffic cones.
aguero to Nolito, Nolito back to aguero, and the ball finished low, smartly, past Nita.
aguero’s third, City’s fifth, came with a breakaway in the 89th minute. Had it been a fight, it would probably have been stopped before half-time.
in the first 45 alone, the visitors scored two goals, missed two penalties and hit the woodwork three times.
The tackling from Steaua’s back line was wholly inadequate and, if the same could not be said for aguero’s penalty-taking, this tie would have been concluded with three-quarters still to be played.
Yet City had started nervously and the romanians had one good chance.
only 25 seconds had passed when the frailty of Guardiola’s demand for every player to have the instinct of a midfielder was exposed. John Stones tried a knock-back to Caballero but underhit it, forcing his team-mate to come tearing out of his penalty area to kick clear.
Moments later, Nicolae Stanciu burst through the middle before unleashing a shot from outside the area that flew just wide.
Nolito forced the first save of the game from Nita with a weak shot and then City’s talent showed.
Winger raheem Sterling carried on where he left off against Sunderland, winning an early penalty. on Saturday, aguero stepped up and put City ahead — but he is short of confidence from the spot in Europe, with two misses in his last three takes. Make that three in four after Nita pushed the ball out one-handed.
Not that City had to wait long to make amends. in the 13th minute, poor control by alin Tosca saw Sterling pounce and he cut the ball back towards david Silva. He buried his shot.
in the 21st minute, aguero got a shot at redemption, too. Gabriel Enache made a hopelessly clumsy tackle on aleksandar Kolarov and the argentine placed the ball on its mark again. This time, the ball flew up into the warm summer night. Four in five, and counting.
a Kolarov shot was then deflected over the bar, de Bruyne shot wide, a Silva corner was met by a Nolito volley that hit the near post before Silva set up Sterling whose shot found the bar.
Time for one more? Sterling’s perfect lay-off saw aguero pass the ball into the net. Why he can’t do that from 12 in this competition is one of those mysteries Guardiola will need to solve.