Phil Foden struck twice and Erling Haaland netted against his former club as Manchester City beat Borussia Dortmund 4-1 to climb to fourth in the Champions League table on Wednesday.
Foden’s two sublime finishes came just in time to remind England manager Thomas Tuchel of his quality before the German names his final squad of the year on Friday.
“Phil is back,” said City boss Pep Guardiola after Foden’s struggles for fitness and form last season.
“He’s a special player, but we need his goals, definitely. Today, hopefully, he made the first step to do it (more regularly).”
Follow The Standard
channel
on WhatsApp
Named captain for the night, Haaland led from the front and showed no mercy to his former employers with his 27th goal for club and country in just 17 games this season.
Waldemar Anton’s consolation was the least Dortmund deserved for a late rally but Rayan Cherki rounded off the scoring for City in stoppage time.
A first European defeat of the campaign leaves the German club down in 14th.
Haaland was handed the armband by Pep Guardiola as Bernardo Silva and Ruben Dias dropped to the bench with one eye on Liverpool’s visit to the Etihad on Sunday.
Dortmund had only lost once in their 14 previous games this season, 2-1 at Bayern Munich last month.
However, the visitors were undone by City’s quality in the final third to continue the trend of Premier League domination so far in this season’s Champions League.
For the first time one nation has six sides in Europe’s elite competition and all of City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle, Tottenham and Chelsea are among the top 12 halfway through the league phase.
Guardiola has repeatedly called on his other forward players to ease the goalscoring burden on Haaland.
No other City player has scored more than once in the Premier League yet this term but Foden has shown flickers of the form that saw him win player of the year awards two seasons ago.
“You learn a lot when you’re going through a tough patch,” said Foden, whose individual drop off came during a collective collapse from City last season.
“It’s just about speaking how we can get back on track and try and be the team that we used to be and I think this season we’re seeing glimpses of that.”
Foden cut short a positive start from Dortmund on 22 minutes with a sharp turn before arrowing a trademark low left-footed effort into the far corner.
Haaland has only failed to score in two matches this season and smashed home at the back post after Jeremy Doku’s pace and trickery bamboozled Julian Ryerson.
Foden will find out later this week whether his exile from Tuchel’s England squad will continue after being dropped for the past two squads.
It will take a brave call from the former Dortmund boss to ignore the 25-year-old on this form.
Foden produced a feather-like touch out of his feet from Tijjani Reijnders’ pass before curling into the far corner beyond Gregor Kobel.
City minds then appeared to drift towards their weekend showdown against the defending Premier League champions Liverpool.
Dortmund pulled a goal back when Anton turned in Ryerson’s low cross and could have had plenty more as City lost their concentration.
Guardiola turned to Dias and Silva off the bench to restore some order.
But it was another substitute in Cherki who added gloss to the scoreline with a purposeful run and precise finish to register his first Champions League goal.