Jack Grealish has a weight lifted as Man City show some of the old ruthless spark
The IndependentSign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Despite Pep Guardiola making an uncharacteristic number of changes to his starting XI, City showed zero mercy, as they often do against lower-ranked opponents in cup competitions, with Grealish the beating heart of the champions’ attempts to rediscover their unrelenting streak that has helped them dominate English football for so long. While it is Salford-born McAtee, who is slowly forcing his way into Guardiola’s thinking on a more regular basis, grabbing the headlines with his first City treble, Grealish’s goal and two assists from a free role in the team – where he made his name as a maverick forward at Aston Villa – shows there is life in the £100m man yet. open image in gallery Ryan Giggs, centre, was on the Salford bench during the match Giggs’s new-found omnipresence on the Salford bench overshadowed a day that, on paper, should have been one to remember for a club competing in the Northern Premier League Division One North, a now defunct league at level eight of the English football pyramid, a decade ago. The impressive Nunes squared for Divin Mubama – a striker signed from West Ham in the summer who will almost certainly be the latest starlet City eventually make a profit on – to score his first goal for the club, effectively putting the tie to bed, before another more established fledgling talent, Nico O’Reilly, netted his first City strike before half-time.