Rayan Cherki sparkled for Manchester City as they came from behind to beat Swansea City and book their place in the quarter finals of the Carabao Cup.
The French attacking midfielder was by far the best
player on the pitch, and contributed a goal and an assist in the last fifteen minutes to wrap up the win for City.
Swansea did take the lead after a remarkable strike from Goncalo Franco clipping the inside of the post and beating City’s backup goalkeeper James Trafford.
But Jeremy Doku equalised just before the break as his shot clipped Swansea skipper Cameron Burgess and looped into the back of the net.
Omar Marmoush scored his first goal of the season with an emphatic finish into the roof of the net, before Cherki finished the game off in injury time with a crisp effort into the bottom right hand corner.
The Blues will now face Brentford at the Etihad Stadium in the quarter finals, who smashed Grimsby Town 5-0 on their way to the last eight of the competition.
Here are three things we learned from victory in the Carabao Cup:
Cherki is the man of the moment
Back from injury and firing on all cylinders, Cherki can be an important player for City in the coming weeks.
The 22-year-old, who joined for £30 million from Lyon this summer, was comfortably the best player yesterday and dragged City over the line in the end.
Cherki has created the second most chances of any player in Europe’s top five leagues this season after Bayern’s Michael Olise, which is extremely impressive considering he missed over a month injured.
He’s constantly showing for the ball and playing forward, is good with both feet and excellent in tight spaces. His decision making is good and he plays with an excellent blend of caution and intent.
Cherki has had a slow start to his City career but now he’s shaken off his muscular problems he’s looking set to kick start it in fine fashion.
Bobb tidy but has lost his mojo
The swaggering, silky, confident Oscar Bobb that lit up pre-season in 2024 seems to be unable to resurface after his leg break last season.
Bobb is still technical on the ball and was extremely unfortunate to not have an assist after a brilliant take on and cut back, but he doesn’t do it nearly often enough.
The Norwegian winger plays like Jack Grealish did in his last two seasons at City; he keeps the ball relatively well and has ability in abundance but seems to be playing within himself.
Whether it’s confidence, lacking match sharpness or a mixture of both, Bobb isn’t the same player he was and we can only hope he recovers soon.
Doku’s performance is going under the radar
On the other wing, many people are ignoring Jeremy Doku’s good performance after a few underwhelming matches.
The Belgian international, who joined City in 2023, has had a good start to the season largely, and scored his second goal of the campaign against the Swans.
Doku’s better games have come when he’s been given freedom to drift inside, swapping taking up these central positions with the left back.
He did this sometimes last night with Rayan Ait-Nouri, and especially thrives when playing along with Nico O’Reilly.
With Bobb and Savinho struggling, it’s good to see Doku play as well as he did ahead of a difficult run of fixtures for City, where they’ll be facing Bournemouth, Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool in the space of a week.
