Man City 3-0 Fulham: City cruise to a statement win at the Etihad | OneFootball

Manchester City provisionally cut the gap to leaders Arsenal to just three points with an assured 3-0 win over Fulham at the Etihad Stadium.

Antoine Semenyo maintained his fast start to life in Manchester with a fifth goal in eight games, with Nico O’Reilly adding a second with a deft chip being drafted into central midfield.

Erling Haaland added a third before half time, and his side cruised through the second half to extend their winning run against the Cottagers, who fell into the bottom half, to 16 Premier League matches.

As it happened

Fulham’s brave attempts to play out from the back were quelled by the hosts’ high press, but chances were few and far between for Pep Guardiola’s men inside an uneventful first quarter of an hour.

Mexican striker Raul Jiménez showed good strength holding up the ball and finding left winger Chukweze, before Alex Iwobi darted into the penalty area and forced Ruben Dias into a good block with 20 minutes gone.

City chose to go direct moments later through Matheus Nunes bending in a promising cross from the left, which came off of Sande Berge making a mess of the header away and fell invitingly for Semenyo.

The 26-year-old made no mistake poking home the opener on the slide, his fifth in eight games for the Citizens in what’s proven to be a seamless transition to Manchester.

Gianluigi Donnarumma was called into action with a reaction save for the first time after half an hour, sweeping forward with Emil Smith Rowe who touched it onto the late-arriving Harry Wilson on the right hand side.

Marco Silva’s men would rue their first real opportunity as Man City broke away on the counter, Semenyo running at the Fulham defense on the left and shuffling the ball onto O’Reilly.

The teenager executed a delightful chip over Bernd Leno and into the top right corner of the net, putting the Premier League title hopefuls in cruise control.

He could’ve had a second in no time after the visitors cheaply gave possession away 30 yards out and Semenyo’s pass forward bounced his way off of Joachim Andersen, but the shot was blocked by a defender.

Haaland rolled in a third for his side and an eighth in as many games against the Cottagers after Rayan Ait-Nouri won it with a strong tackle on Berge and found the Norwegian’s provider, Phil Foden.

Fulham almost had a route back into the game when Marc Guéhi headed a high ball straight to Wilson 40 yards out.

He slotted Jiménez in behind to the right of goal, and his low ball flashed across just avoided the foot of Smith Rowe inside the penalty area.

Foden saw his shot from the edge of the box parried by Leno after Omar Marmousch made good progress on the left wing, and Gianluigi Donnarumma matched the German’s save in stoppage time to deny Josh King.

City continued their dominance over Fulham with a 16th league win in a row, marking the longest winning streak a side has had over another in English football history, and a statement to Arsenal ahead of tomorrow’s London derby.

Man City analysis: O’Reilly makes case for World Cup

Amid all the discussion as to whether Man City will catch Arsenal in the race for the Premier League title, the competition’s latest young revelation has had his eyes set on a certain competition over the pond.

Speaking to BBC Sport in November, Nico O’Reilly said: “It is an aim for me to try and get to the World Cup.

“There’s huge competition but I have got to just keep working hard, game by game and day by day.”

And tonight, his hard work on the pitch very much came to light. He scored a lovely goal, managed to get himself in smart positions in the final third, and was awarded man of the match over the public address system, all in his return to the more familiar box-to-box role.

His preference for a place in midfield, dating back to his days captaining the U18s to a youth league title, makes the majority of the time he has spent at left-back during his breakthrough all the more impressive.

Man City have more challenging games ahead as the fixture schedule only gets busier, but the caliber of players in O’Reilly’s position that only made the bench with the stakes as high as they are does speak volumes about the trust placed in the 20-year-old by one of football’s best managers.

The Englishman managed to break into Thomas Tuchel’s squad and earn his very first cap against Serbia in November, being picked over the more natural left-backs Myles Lewis-Skelly and Djed Spence. Showing off his versatility against Fulham this evening just adds to the case he is building for a place in the World Cup squad.

Tournament football requires either quality in depth or some level of flexibility in a nation’s 23-man squad, and O’Reilly is currently ticking both of those boxes. However unlikely some may think it is, a Premier League title would all but book his ticket on the plane to the United States in June.

Fulham analysis: Should Tete have seen red?

The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) has set a precedent this season for hair pulls leading to straight red cards. There was no hesitation when Michael Keane was guilty of pulling the hair of Wolves forward Tolu Arokodare, being suspended for three matches.

David Moyes’ appeal to reverse the decision, believing Keane was unjustly dismissed after challenging for a header, was waived away, with PGMOL backing the decision to send him off following the incident.

The organization stated: “The forceful pulling of a person’s hair can be said to fall outside the normal constituent elements of a challenge in football.”

Play between City and Fulham was halted to review footage of Kenny Tete grabbing at the hair of Antoine Semenyo as the visitors defended a corner, only for the incident to be cleared on the basis of insufficient evidence of violent conduct.

TNT Sports co-commentator and former Sky Blues goalkeeper Joe Hart was left scratching his head, pointing out that the officials – who couldn’t find enough justification to send Tete off – were the ones that spotted it in the first place.

Hart said: “I’d love to pretend I know what they mean by these rules.

“If the rule is ‘if you pull someone’s hair, you get sent off’, then of course that’s a red card, but I’d like to think there’s a little bit of wiggle room.”

It will certainly be interesting to see how PGMOL will respond to any claims from the City camp that the Fulham defender should have been sent off, particularly as the home side could’ve improved their goal difference.

It isn’t unprecedented for teams to win the Premier League on goal difference, with the Citizens having snatched their maiden title from the clutches of rivals Manchester United in 2011/12 by a narrow advantage of +8 goals.

Regardless of the inevitable debate, the home victory will do wonders for their bid for a 12th title this time around.