A Phil Foden hat-trick fired Manchester City to a 5-1 win over AEK Athens at the Etihad on Tuesday night, a second Champions League win of the season that came with eight changes to the side that beat Ipswich at the weekend. According to the club’s own match report, Elliot Anderson and Rayan Cherki scored the other City goals, while Stavros Pilios got AEK’s only goal.
Anderson and Foden put City in control
City led after 12 minutes. Teenage striker Floyd Samba, 17 and starting from the first whistle, was fouled on the edge of the AEK box, Enzo Fernandez’s dipping free kick clipped the underside of the bar, and Anderson followed up to fend off Lazaros Rota and score his first goal for the club; Allan then hit the woodwork from the left edge of the box on 23 minutes, and Foden made it 2-0 on 34 minutes with a close-range finish after good work from Rico Lewis. The club notes it was his second goal in two games, after he waited 10 months for his previous one against Ipswich; the Foden hat-trick made it four goals in two games.
Pilios pulls one back before Cherki and the Foden hat-trick finish it
AEK found a way back into it on 52 minutes when a sweeping counter-attack gave Pilios the space to drill a low shot past Gianluigi Donnarumma. City answered within about five minutes through Cherki, who received a pass from Foden inside the box, dragged the ball back past a defender and finished calmly. Foden scored again in the second half from just inside the box, set up by another Lewis pass, and the Foden hat-trick arrived on 76 minutes as he met a cross from substitute Ryan McAidoo. The report calls it his fourth hat-trick for City.
Maresca’s side had already shown eight changes from the Ipswich game, and the club’s report says there was still a familiar application about City’s dominance despite a relentless fixture schedule.
