Matt finish provides a Rod to stand upon
RODRI may be a lucky charm for Pep Guardiola – but four-time Champions League winner Mateo Kovacic made sure Manchester City didn’t miss their talisman one bit.
Kovacic was City’s lone anchorman against Luton, while Spanish midfielder Rodri was given a breather after complaining of fatigue.
And the Croatian, three times a Champions League winner with Real Madrid, topped off a super smooth display to help City storm top of the table – for 24 hours at least.
Kovacic scored City’s crucial second goal with a superbly executed volley to help Guardiola’s stars navigate what proved, for a while at least, a tricky game.
The Hatters, pulverised 6-2 by City at Kenilworth Road in the FA Cup in February, managed to frustrate the champions for long spells with body-on-the-line defending.
But City eventually cut loose in the closing stages to score three times in the final phase of the game as Luton wilted.
The biggest plus for Guardiola, though, was that he was able to rest main stars Rodri, Phil
Foden, Bernardo Silva and Jack Grealish ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid.
And the return of Kyle Walker and Nathan Ake, fit enough for the bench, made it pretty much the perfect day for the City boss.
Yet until late in the game, if Real Madrid had a spy at The Etihad his message back to Spain wouldn’t have been too terrifying for Carlo Ancelotti.
Despite eventually overpowering plucky
Luton, City were hardly at their invincible best with the Madrid tie maybe a distraction.
The general view is that if City, Premier League Champions in five of the last six seasons, put their foot on the gas they can take the title race away from Arsenal and Liverpool.
But they made hard work of it despite the boost of scoring a goal so quickly no one had time to break into a sweat, Luton conceding after just 66 seconds.
Daiki Hashioka diverted Erling Haaland’s wildly off-target shot past Thomas Kaminski. It looked as if it might open the floodgates, especially with Kevin De Bruyne in the groove.
But with Luton battling, Guardiola had to wait for over an hour before Kovacic’s
goal made victory safe for the hosts.
Even then, City had a scare when Fred Onyedinma robbed Josko Gvardiol and pulled the ball back for Cauley Woodrow to sweep a shot against the bar.
Onyedinma then blatantly fouled City livewire Jeremy Doku for a clear penalty coolly converted by Haaland.
Brave Luton came again with Ross Barkley firing home after a mistake by Matheus Nunes but Doku tortured Oneyedinma to score City’s fourth.
Gvardiol wrapped up the scoring to give City the perfect end to the day.
Luton boss Rob Edwards said: “It was a long afternoon, the longest game of football I have ever had.
“We are really depleted at the moment. We now have five huge games where we can get ourselves out of it, we almost have to write this off.”