City into Carabao Cup quarter-finals

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Manchester City F.C.

·29 de outubro de 2025

City into Carabao Cup quarter-finals

City are into the Carabao Cup quarter-finals after a hard-fought 3-1 win over Swansea..

In an entertaining game, the Championship side pushed the Blues all the way, taking an early lead and going close to doubling their advantage before Jeremy Doku’s deflected shot levelled the scores before half-time.

Vídeos OneFootball

Though City dominated much of the play, it wasn’t until the 77th minute that the Blues finally led in the game as Omar Marmoush thundered home an angled drive.

Rayan Cherki's added time strike then added a little more gloss to the scoreline as we booked our place in the last eight of the competition.

The game in 250 words

It was clear from the outset that Swansea felt they could get at a much-changed City.

The home side passed the ball crisply and pressed aggressively, giving the Blues little or no time to settle.

Rayan Cherki quickly got into his stride with two sumptuous-looking passes that fell inches short before 10 minutes had passed, but it was the Swans who struck first shortly after.

Josh King’ picked the unmarked Goncalo Franco on the edge of the box and the Portuguese curled a superb shot into the top right corner to give Trafford no chance.

The Blues responded by pinning the home side back for a lengthy period without really testing the keeper.

But despite dominance on the ball, City were fortunate not to go further behind on 31 when a loose Abdukodir Khusanov pass was intercepted by Widell, but as he raced in on goal, Trafford was equal to his low shot with a fine fingertip save.

That seemed to spark City into more decisive action and Cherki saw a poked effort hit the inside of the post on 37 before Doku finally forced an equaliser.

The Belgian cut into the box from the left before making himself enough room to fire a shot that Cameron Burgess deflected past his own keeper.

The second-half was mostly City pinning the home side in their own final third until the 77th-minute when Cherki's short ball allowed Marmoush to spin clear into the box before thundering an angled shot into the roof of the net.

And in added time, Cherki capped a fine display with a well-placed shot into the bottom right-hand corner to finally end Swansea's resistance.

TEAMS

Swansea XI: Fisher, Key, Widell (Manuel Benson 69), Tymon, Burgess (C), Samuels-Smith (Cullen 83), Franco (Fulton 69), Casey, Inoussa (Ronald 60), Galbraith, Idah (Vipotnik 59)

Subs: Farman, Cabango, Eom, Benson, Santos

City XI: Trafford, Lewis, Khusanov (Stones 63), Ake (C), Ait-Nouri, (Gvardiol 63) Nico, Mukasa (Foden 63), Bobb, Cherki, Doku, Marmoush

Subs: Bettinelli, Donnarumma, Savinho, Nunes, O’Reilly, Phillips,

Attendance: 20,490

Star man: Rayan Cherki

Outstanding performance by the Frenchman, full of invention and imagination.

An assist and a goal capped a wonderful evening.

Cherki a special talent

Anyone who has looked at Rayan Cherki’s showreels knows what a talented player he is.

The young French star has only been able to give brief cameos since he joined City, with injury preventing him the opportunity to do more.

But now fully fit and given licence to express himself against Swansea, Cherki demonstrated what a stellar footballer he is.

He was a little rusty at times and nothing everything he attempted came off, but his passing range is, at times, breath-taking.

He offers something different, something unique and in full flow, he is a joy to watch.

The good news is that he is only getting started and while there is hard work ahead and improvements to be made, it seems likely that he is going to bring City fans a lot of joy in the coming years.