Steaua Bucharest 0-5 Manchester City: Sergio Aguero hits hat-trick after missing two penalties
Sergio Aguero finally hit the back of the net by stroking home from cushioned Raheem Sterling pass
Argentine striker grabbed his second on 79 minutes when he collected Nolito's pass to rifle into corner
And Aguero completed his hat-trick by racing through to add City's fifth with one minute to play
Summer signing Nolito scored his first City goal to send Pep Guardiola's team into comfortable lead
By MARTIN SAMUEL FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 20:34 GMT, 16 August 2016 | UPDATED: 22:00 GMT, 16 August 2016
Nolito passed the ball to Kevin De Bruyne. De Bruyne gave it back, and quite delightfully, too. It was training ground stuff now. Nolito stepped around goalkeeper Florin Nita, and tapped the ball into the net for Manchester City’s third. More than £100m of talent left at home, and they are unlikely to have it any easier all season.
One began to wonder who else could have had a few days off without it affecting the scoreline? The defence? The goalkeeper? Maybe Pep Guardiola. Certainly Joe Hart. Tony Hart would probably have kept a clean sheet against this lot. City could have played Morph at centre half.
This was Manchester City’s greatest away win in Europe, and mightily impressive for it, but hard to view as evidence of the players becoming accustomed to Guardiola’s way of thinking. They won’t play many more ordinary opponents this season, even in the domestic cups. You’ll get a game at Barnsley on a wet Saturday in January.
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Sergio Aguero recovered from a grim start to his night in Romania to ensure he would come home with the match ball
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Manchester City have lift off after David Silva profits from Raheem Sterling's good work to open the scoring on 13 minutes
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Aguero began a miserable 13 minutes for him on a personal level by seeing his first penalty saved by Florin Nita
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Aguero fared no better with his second spot kick, hitting his 21st minute effort against the top of goalkeeper Nita's bar
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Pep Guardiola can't quite bring himself to look after his Argentine forward's scarcely credible second failure from the spot
MATCH FACTS
STEAUA BUCHAREST (4-2-3-1): Nita 6.5; Enache 4.5, Tamas 5, Tosca 5, Momcilovic 5; Achim 4.5 (Bourceanu 46, 6), Sulley 4 (O Popescu 67); Popa 6.5, Stanciu 6.5, Hamroun 6; Golubovic 5 (Tudorie 46, 6). Subs: Cojocaru, Mitrea, Aganovic, D Popescu.
Booked: Tudorie, Tosca, Tamas
MAN CITY (4-2-3-1): Caballero 6.5; Zabaleta 7 (Sagna 70), Stones 6.5, Otamendi 6.5, Kolarov 6.5 (Clichy 75, 6); Silva 8, Fernandinho 7; Nolito 6.5, De Bruyne 6.5 (Fernando 80), Sterling 7; Aguero 7. Subs: Hart, Delph, Navas, Iheanacho.
Scorers: Silva 13, Aguero 41, 78, 89, Nolito 49
Booked: Zabaleta, Kolarov
Referee: Daniele Orsato (Italy) 7
Star man: David Silva
City didn’t get one here after the briefest of early flurries. It certainly doesn’t bode well for Hart, though, because if there ever was a night when Guardiola could have played an understudy it was here. Willy Caballero had one save to make, from Jugurtha Hamroun after 30 minutes, and once he had made it, the job was done.
Reports in Spain suggest Chilean goalkeeper Claudio Bravo will be arriving from Barcelona before the weekend, so maybe this was Guardiola giving the second choice a run-out. If Bravo arrives, presuming Cabellero stays on as deputy, Hart will have little option but to find another club – and there are no vacancies among the English Champions League entrants right now. Not that anyone had a chance to impress last night bar City’s forwards. This was an exhibition game masquerading as the Champions League, a dispiriting mismatch showcasing the gulf that may one day kill European football, beyond the existence of a super league.
The next Champions League revamp is to be ratified soon and it is predicted there will be an end to qualifying games for Premier League clubs – providing England keeps its top four co-efficient. The word is the most highly-rated leagues in Europe – Spain, Germany, England and Italy – will each get a guaranteed four entry spots, meaning half the places at the Champions League group stage will come from a high-powered quartet of countries.
Some will insist this is desperately unfair. The counter argument is the sight of the 90 minutes here in which the fourth best team in the Premier League was so far ahead of the Romanian champions it was close to embarrassing. The problem is how to stop that gap widening, until the rump can no longer compete and the super league becomes a necessity. That one is for another day.
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Joe Hart missed out to Willy Caballero for City's keeper's jersey and the England No 1 might have to move on
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The man in possession: Willy Caballero is greeted by the man he's deposed as City No 1, Hart
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Aguero releases an enormous amount of pent-up frustration after finally hitting the target to put City two ahead
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Nolito scored his first City goal following his summer move from Celta Vigo to stretch City's advantage after the break
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City's players rush to congratulate Nolito, whose first goal for the club all but wrapped up the two-legged tie
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John Stones acknowledges City's travelling support after featuring in his first Champions League match for the club
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The former Everton player's defending is perennially under the microscope but he's happy to mix it here
The bottom line, then, is that Manchester City scored five goals, missed two penalties and hit the woodwork four times. They got a better game from Sunderland last Saturday; they will get better from Stoke at the weekend.
The tackling from Steaua’s back line was wholly inadequate and if the same could not be said for Sergio Aguero’s penalty taking this tie would have been concluded with five-sixths of it still to play. Teams in Europe usually search for an away goal – City could have been searching for their eighth before the midway point of the first leg.
And here’s the irony. In the first four minutes, Steaua looked as if they might be tidy opponents. City started nervously and the Romanians had one good chance through Nicolae Stanciu and the name of Manchester City’s captain Pablo Zabaleta in referee Daniele Orsato’s book. The danger, however, proved fleeting.
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Silva, Fernandinho, Gael Clichy, Fernando and Sterling return the applause of their supporters after a job well done
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Things might have been rather comfortable for the English side but Pablo Zabaletta with delighted with Aguero's efforts
In the sixth minute, Nolito forced the first save of the game from Nita with a weak shot, before City’s superior talent entirely overwhelmed them. Raheem Sterling, in particular, seems a new player under Guardiola and he carried on where he left off against Sunderland, winning an early penalty to break the deadlock.
At least that is what should have happened. On Saturday, Aguero stepped up and put City ahead – but he is strangely short of confidence from the spot in Europe, with two misses in his last three takes. Make that three in four – goalkeeper Nita was like a jumping jack on the goal-line and it seemed to put Aguero off. He went left, Nita called this accurately and pushed the ball out one-handed. In came Nolito, goal at his mercy, and struck it against the woodwork. It would become a common theme.
Not that City had to wait long to make amends. In the 13th minute, poor control by Alin Tosca saw Sterling pounce and he cut the ball back towards David Silva. This was the unselfishness in front of goal that Guardiola demands – don’t take a gamble on scoring yourself, look for the extra pass to allow a team-mate to make certain – and Silva duly enforced the point by burying his shot with Steaua desperately overstretched.
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Guardiola doesn't rest for a second. Here the Spanish manager is dishing out some advice to his compatriot, Silva
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Sterling was in sparkling form in the Arena Nationola, winning a penalty and setting up his side's opening two goals
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The Romanian side's boss, Laurentiu Reghecampf (left), can forget the £1million bonus he was on for winning the tie
The Romanians were struggling now – the new National Arena quiet and apprehensive, City ready to make the return an irrelevance, two games won on a single night. In the 21st minute, Aguero got a shot at redemption, too. Gabriel Enache made a hopelessly clumsy tackle on Aleksandar Kolarov and the Argentine placed the ball on its mark again.
This time, he hit his shot high, like Eden Hazard’s for Chelsea on Monday night, but overcooked. The ball clipped the crossbar and flew up into the warm summer night. Four in five, and counting. Had anyone ever missed a hat-trick of penalties in Champions League competition?
As statisticians tried to find the answer, City did their best to change the narrative: 3-0 was their biggest winning margin away in Europe and they could have had double that before half-time. A Kolarov shot was deflected in an agonising loop over the bar, De Bruyne shot wide when put in by Nolito, a Silva corner was met by a Nolito volley that hit the near post, before Silva set up the outstanding Sterling whose shot was flicked by Nita onto the bar.
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The wide-eyed Aguero has a shot saved by Nita but it was the striker who would win the day, eventually
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Nolito takes instructions on board from his manager, who would have been delighted with the Spaniard's contribution
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Guardiola takes his leaves of Romania's national stadium having made a perfect start to his European assignment
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Caballero could yet lose the gloves to a new recruit, but here he's congratulated on his work by skipper Fernandinho
Time for one more? Indeed there was and up stepped Aguero to provide it. Zlatan Ibrahimovic would have been proud of Sterling’s perfect lay-off and Aguero as good as passed the ball into the net from 15 yards. Why he cannot do that from 12 in this competition is one of those mysteries Guardiola will need to solve. He could put some time aside for that meeting next Wednesday evening because, let’s face it, after City’s second-half he is unlikely to have any more pressing matters on his mind.
The utter ease of Manchester City’s win can be summed up with one fact: Aguero missed two penalties but still ended up with a hat-trick. City’s fourth, after 78 minutes, was another slick exchange of passes, aided by taking place around traffic cones imitating a defence. Aguero to Nolito, Nolito back to Aguero, the red shirts burned off like the field in an Olympic 100 metres race, and the ball finished low, smartly, past Nita. His third, City’s fifth, came with a breakaway in the 89th minute. It is hard to calculate who was moving faster by then: Aguero or the locals in the direction of the exits.
Maybe it was a clue that the hosts aired the Champions League anthem in its full symphonic glory, twice, at half-time, and again at the final whistle, making the most of their moment. Their fans didn’t seem to mind, though. After all, it is not as if they are going to hear it at any time round here through the rest of the season.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/champions_league/article-3743927/Steaua-Bucharest-0-5-Manchester-City-Pep-Guardiola-s-City-cusp-Champions-League-group-stage-Romanian-rout-Sergio-Aguero-hits-hat-trick-missing-two-penalties.html#ixzz4HXSCQk5N
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