PHIL FODEN EQUALS LIONEL MESSI AND ERLING HAALAND RECORD AFTER MAN CITY HEROICS

Phil Foden enjoyed another brilliant night as Manchester City destroyed Brighton – and his two-goal performance saw him join illustrious company.

City battered the injury-savaged Seagulls 4-0 on Thursday night to send Arsenal a clear message in the Premier League title race. They moved past Liverpool into second place and are just a point behind the Gunners while also crucially having a game in hand.

Kevin De Bruyne opened the scoring with a diving header before Foden made it 2-0 with a heavily deflected free-kick. Brighton were then the architects of their own downfall as they gave the ball away while trying to play out from the back, allowing Foden to find the bottom corner.

Julian Alvarez added a fourth goal in the second half after Ederson kicked long for Kyle Walker, but it was Foden who stole the headlines. The 23-year-old attacking midfielder is enjoying his best-ever goalscoring season for City, with 24 in 48 games across all competitions, as well as 10 assists.

His goals against Brighton were his 50th and 51st in the Premier League and, remarkably, that makes him just the third player to reach a half-century of league goals under Pep Guardiola’s management while aged 23 or younger. The others? Lionel Messi and Erling Haaland.

Guardiola was delighted to watch Foden’s performance and believes he should be crowned as the Premier League’s player of the year at the end of the season. “For sure,” he told Sky Sports. “But he wants to win the Premier League. He has said that he wants another title. His influence in the final third with the goals and everything today was playing better than the previous two or three games. It was a little bit more calm and the decision making was really good.”

De Bruyne also sang his team-mate’s praises and predicted that Foden will gradually move off the flanks and into the centre of the pitch. “I think he will end up centrally. I have seen Phil from the beginning and he was always a number 10,” the Belgian said. “I think it’s hard to understand everything you need to do in a Pep team and I don’t think it was necessarily offensive in the beginning, but it’s more the structure and then you get a little bit more freedom.

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“Phil gets trusted to play central and even today, we did not play with any wingers so we both played a little bit centrally and had to go on the wing sometimes. Phil does what he does that he has done for six or seven years already and it’s not like he has just come on the scene, he has done it for years. He has helped us win titles and this year he has gone up another level.”

It was a night of statistical quirks, with De Bruyne’s 68th goal in 255 Premier League appearances his first ever netted with his head. Meanwhile, in his 390th Premier League match, Walker provided two assists in the same game for the first time.

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2024-04-25T23:55:25Z dg43tfdfdgfd