Erling Haaland scored five goals as reigning champions Manchester City hammered Luton Town 6-2 to book a spot in the quarter-finals of the Emirates FA Cup on Tuesday evening.
Stefan Ortega, Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish indicated the alterations for City, with Ederson, Ruben Dias, Rodri Hernandez and Phil Foden dropped from Saturday’s win at Bournemouth.
City were in the lead after only three minutes when Erling Haaland latched onto De Bruyne’s cleverly worked reverse pass to tuck past Dutchman Tim Krul.
The Norwegian had a double nine minutes apart after he combined once again with De Bruyne to leave the defence in their wake before finishing with aplomb.
Grealish, who had battled to stay fit off late following a stellar past campaign, could unfortunately not continue and in came Jeremy Doku.
Luton themselves made a first substitution a little before halftime this as Amari Bell limped off the park and needed Joe Johnson to come on.
The duo of De Bruyne and Haaland continued to run riot and handed City a third when the latter charged on the end of the Belgian’s slide in-behind to claim a first half treble of strikes.
Luton did have something to shout about on the strike of halftime after a stunner by Jordan Clark from a long way out nestled in off the top corner.
Clark completed his brace a few moments into the second stanza through a smartly executed volley off a well-weighted delivery launched in-behind.
Haaland though wiped out any hopes of a comeback when he netted his and the team’s fourth with a simple tap-in off De Bruyne’s low cross-field pass.
The one-man show from the Norwegian didn’t end as he made it five a little later through a stern first-time strike after meeting Bernardo Silva’s smart assist.
Croatian Mateo Kovacic added a sixth goal to compound to the home side’s woes when he picked up John Stone penetrating pass to shape up an angle and fired beyond Krul.
The free-scoring visitors very nearly claimed a seventh courtesy of a curling effort by Doku, but he guided wide though it mattered little as the Citizens romped to victory regardless.
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