Manchester City overcame an FA Cup scare against plucky and wily Plymouth Argyle to win 3-1 thanks to the master Kevin De Bruyne and the apprentice Nico O’Reilly in a tale of three set pieces.
Plymouth centre-back Makysm ‘Maxi’ Talovyerov stunned the Etihad when he gave the visitors the lead in the fifth round tie with a towering header from a corner while the 19-year-old O’Reilly nodded City level on the stroke of half-time from a De Bruyne free-kick. The pair repeated their double act, this time from a corner, to put Pep Guardiola’s side in front in the 76th minute and they never looked back, with De Bruyne sliding in to score a late third to ensure City made it into the FA Cup quarter-finals for the eighth time in nine seasons.
It was City’s first game against Argyle since 1989. The visitors are second bottom of the Championship, 39 places below City, but have been experiencing a big resurgence since Wayne Rooney was sacked as coach at the end of 2024 and replaced by Miron Muslic. They pulled off two Cup shocks by winning away at Brentford in the third round and knocking out Liverpool in the fourth round.
Plymouth survived an early onslaught which included Ilkay Gundogan hitting the woodwork and then scored with their first corner and first attempt. Talovyerov – who bears some resemblance to Erling Haaland – climbed high to head home and send the 8,000 fans who had made the 280-mile journey from the south west coast to Manchester into dreamland.
City managed to equalise right on half-time when O’Reilly glanced a De Bruyne free-kick under Conor Hazard to score. The hosts utterly dominated the second half and it was as though there was an invisible force shield around the Plymouth goal as Rico Lewis, substitute Erling Haaland, Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva all missed good chances to score.
It fell again to De Bruyne and O’Reilly to finally put City ahead while De Bruyne added an extra shine to his individual performance by scoring in added time. It was his 29th FA Cup goal involvement, more than any player since his competition debut in 2016.
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