Manchester City 7-0 Leeds United
by James Nalton
at Eastlands

Looking at the line-ups shortly after Manchester City and Leeds United kicked off on Tuesday night, there was the faintest prospect of some joy for the visitors.

The speedy Daniel James took his place up front against City’s high defensive line marshalled by Ruben Dias and Aymeric Laporte.

It was an idea worth experimenting with for Marcelo Bielsa who is currently without numerous key players through injury.

But from the start, it was all Man City, and James spent more time tracking the runs of Dias, Rodri, and Laporte than they did worrying about him.

Leeds struggled with the basics but were given no time to settle into the game by a relentless home side.

The opener was a sign of things to come as City’s notional defensive midfielder Rodri careered forward — something he did throughout — only to be thwarted at the last by Leeds goalkeeper Illan Meslier.

The loose ball fell to Phil Foden whose shot should have been cleared on the line by Stuart Dallas but he missed the ball and City took the lead.

Jack Grealish added a second shortly after, heading home a Riyad Mahrez cross before Rodri turned his hand to playmaking to set up Kevin De Bruyne for a third.

At half time, Pep Guardiola decided to rest Bernardo Silva, his side’s best player so far this season, and just 10 minutes later he was replacing the excellent Rodri with Fernandinho.

Guardiola probably knew the game was over as a contest after the Grealish goal in the 13th minute but in truth, it was probably over after Foden’s opener.

With just over an hour gone the City fans started their own version of a Mexican wave as the Poznan rippled around the bottom tier of the Eastlands stadium. Shortly after, Nathan Ake replaced Dias and Guardiola had used all of his subs early to rest key players.

Leeds’ squad has been decimated by injuries and their bench was effectively their youth team plus Mateusz Klich, who was called into action after just 38 minutes, replacing the injured Jamie Shackleton, but they were poor nevertheless in a first half during which they registered no shots.

Their passing from the back was sloppy and in their man-to-man assignments they were fighting a losing battle, epitomised by Adam Forshaw’s valiant but ultimately failed attempts to contain De Bruyne.

The Belgian’s second goal would stand out in any game, rifled from distance with so much power it didn’t even need to be in the corner to beat Meslier.

Mahrez added his name to the scoresheet as City created from all kinds of situations, with Ake and John Stones taking the opportunity to net their first league goals of the season.

It was the most routine of wins for City — for Leeds, a game to forget. They will be hoping this feeling doesn’t extend to the season as a whole.