Phil Foden leads youthful Man City side to Carabao Cup victory over Huddersfield | OneFootball

Phil Foden helped ensure there was no giant killing as Manchester City beat League One Huddersfield Town to make it through to the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.

Foden, starting despite playing three games in the space of seven days last week, scored with a powerful, low strike from range, firing past Lee Nicholls in the Huddersfield goal to put City ahead.

That was later followed by a fantastic hit into the roof of the net from Savinho in the second half, which was enough for the Premier League side to see off their opponents.

On a fairly quiet night for City where they were not required to get out of second gear, Foden found his groove early on, interchanging passes with his teammates and spraying balls across the park, showing a sense of maturity in a youthful City side against the League One opposition as he continues to work his way back towards the form which won him player of the season in the 2023/24 campaign.

Six of City’s starting line-up consisted of academy graduates, and Foden, now 25, set the standard for the likes of Oscar Bobb and Divine Mukasa, who find themselves in that awkward walkway between the academy and first team as they aim to break into Pep Guardiola’s plans on a much more regular basis, much like Rico Lewis and Nico O’Reilly.

Another straight off the City Football Academy carousel is goalkeeper James Trafford, who found himself back in the line-up having started the opening three games of the season after re-signing from Burnley for £27m.

Having signed and expecting to be made City’s number one, the England international now finds himself behind Gianluigi Donnarumma after his deadline day move from Paris Saint-Germain. Though as Huddersfield failed to muster any real attacks on Trafford’s goal, it was hardly an audition for the 22-year-old to fight his way back into the first-choice goalkeeper spot.

On his goalkeeping situation pre-match, Guardiola said: “He [Trafford] is training better than ever. He is a fantastic keeper. With me, all the keepers play a lot of games and this is the same. He will learn from Gigio. I’m not a genius to anticipate what will happen in the future [regarding Trafford as no.1].”

On Tuesday, Trafford’s counter part Donnarumma was awarded the Men’s Yashin Trophy, awarded as the best goalkeeper in the world over the previous 12 months at the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris.

But for Guardiola, it is just the selection headache he would like, having been blessed within his goalkeeping department in recent years with Ederson and Stefan Ortega. Trafford is a more than able deputy for Donnarumma.

City welcome Trafford’s former side Burnley to the Etihad on Saturday in the Premier League as they aim to climb further up the table having won just two of their opening five league games.