Football: Smiles Better For Guardiola In City FA Cup Stroll

LONDON, Jan 7 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 07th Jan, 2017 ) - Manchester City put a smile back on Pep Guardiola's face as they swaggered into the FA Cup fourth round with a 5-0 demolition of West Ham on Friday.

Guardiola showed signs of feeling the strain of City's inconsistent season when he snapped at reporters during a series of tetchy interviews following Monday's win against Burnley. The Spaniard was also forced to backtrack this week after appearing to suggest he wouldn't be in management much longer and seeming to admit City weren't as big a club as rivals Manchester United.

But the City manager's image issues looked a lot less problematic after his team destroyed West Ham with a three-goal blitz in the space of 10 minutes at the London Stadium. Yaya Toure's penalty opened the floodgates before Havard Nordtveit's own goal and a David Silva strike effectively finished the third round tie before half-time.

City, who last won the FA Cup in 2011, added two more after the interval through Sergio Aguero and John Stones to ensure Guardiola enjoyed a memorable first taste of the famous old competition.

Guardiola won the domestic cup in his first seasons in charge of Barcelona and Bayern Munich and often selected strong teams in the process. He treated the FA Cup no differently and sent out a star-studded line-up featuring Sergio Aguero after he started on the bench against Burnley.

Guardiola's side quickly showed they meant business when Silva's stinging shot was blocked by West Ham goalkeeper Adrian. City were dominating possession and a flowing move started by Toure deep inside his own half ended with Silva setting up Raheem Sterling for a shot that was blocked by Winston Reid at the last moment.