Manchester City got their Champions League campaign back on track with a 5-1 win over AEK Athens at the Etihad Stadium, a businesslike performance lit up by Phil Foden’s hat-trick. On a night when Enzo Maresca had asked City to make their own noise amid the clamour around the club, the loudest statement came from Foden, who shone on the right wing and later through the middle as a false nine.
City were responding to being pummelled by Paris Saint-Germain in their previous European outing. Maresca made eight changes, bringing Enzo Fernández and Elliot Anderson back into the starting lineup and leaving Erling Haaland on the bench as an emergency option. With senior alternatives lacking, 17-year-old academy graduate Floyd Samba was deployed; his only previous senior football had come in a Carabao Cup win over Norwich, when he scored twice on debut. The loss of Antoine Semenyo to an eight-week injury had also created a problem for Maresca.
The Etihad was far from full — the official attendance was 40,042, some 20,000 fewer than watched the weekend win over Ipswich — and the home crowd was subdued. AEK’s supporters, by contrast, filled a corner over three tiers and created a party from two hours before kick-off. AEK head coach Marko Nikolic said: “Our fans are amazing.”
City found inspiration on the pitch in the 12th minute when Fernández clipped a free-kick onto the bar and Anderson forced the rebound into an empty net. Foden doubled the lead after neat work on the right from Rico Lewis, the two academy products combining. Stavros Pilios thrashed home a consolation for AEK, but Rayan Cherki restored the two-goal cushion with a neat trick inside the box and a precise shot into the corner. Foden then produced a sublime first-time finish from the edge of the box after Cherki’s long pass was controlled into his path by Lewis, before Ryan McAidoo came off the bench to cross for Foden to complete his treble with a striker’s instinct.
Foden’s hat-trick marked a personal return to form. He had spent much of the season watching from the sidelines, some of that absence self-inflicted after he was sent off for kicking out in frustration in the Manchester derby, and Saturday’s goal had been his first since mid-December. “Slowly but surely,” Foden said. “Still got a long way to go, but I am going in the right direction. Scoring along the way definitely helps. I want to keep working hard and keep being the best I can for the manager and the team. When I changed into that false 9 role, I enjoyed it a lot. Really enjoyed that role tonight.”
Maresca said: “I consider him one of the best English players but for different reasons in the last two-three years, he was not good enough – but I know how good he is. We are just trying to help him because we are sure that he’s going to help us this season.”