Manchester City enjoyed the perfect warm-up for Sunday’s crucial Premier League trip to Liverpool as they cruised past Copenhagen to reach the Champions League quarterfinals for the seventh successive season.
Ahead by two goals from the first leg in Copenhagen three weeks ago, any lingering hopes of a shock were ended within nine minutes as Manuel Akanji and Julian Alvarez found the net.
Erling Haaland went joint top of the tournament scoring charts alongside Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe as he netted his sixth of the campaign—and 29th in all competitions—as City scored a third before halftime after the visitors had pulled one back.
The Norwegian, who Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reminded everyone Manchester United could have signed for £17 million in 2019 on the Stick to Football podcast, has scored in three successive games for the first time since October.
It is good news for City boss Pep Guardiola before the Anfield encounter.
Guardiola had said in the build-up that he would not be spending any time thinking about Liverpool until the Copenhagen match was out of the way.
That statement was exposed by the fact that he made seven changes to the side that beat Manchester United at the weekend and then replaced key man Rodri at the break.
The changes did not hinder City, who are on the longest current run of successive Champions League quarter-final appearances. The only English club to ever have done better in the competition is Manchester United, who reached the last eight in seven consecutive seasons from 1996–97 to 2002–03.
