Manchester City survived a late scare to beat Watford 2-1 and progress to the Carabao Cup fourth round on Tuesday. The English champions had a two-goal cushion at half-time thanks to Jeremy Doku and Matheus Nunes and looked set to stroll through the tie, only for Tom Ince to pop up with a beautiful late goal.
The likes of Erling Haaland, Rodri, Ruben Dias, Bernardo Silva and Ederson were all absent as youngsters Nico O’Reilly, James McAtee and Kaden Braithwaite made the starting XI, but City still dominated the early proceedings. They did not have to work hard for the early opener, though, as Watford handed it to them. Ryan Porteous’ weak pass back to goalkeeper Jon Bond was caught by 21-year-old McAtee and he found Jack Grealish, who squared to Doku to tuck away a fine strike from inside the box.
The Championship side thought they had equalised later in the half when a strong run from Kwadwo Baah ended with his shot beating Stefan Ortega, but a foul was given instead as he had barged 16-year-old Braithwaite off the ball.
City had almost three quarters of possession as the game wore on but they made few great chances before Rico Lewis poked through the middle, passing to Nunes as the Brazilian set himself up well to bury it from 18 yards.
The home team continued to create opportunities with their immense firepower but simply couldn’t find the net, with Phil Foden slowing his team down and failing to spark anything. Watford, on the other hand, kept pushing but failed to hit the target until the 86th minute went Ince sent it curling past Ortega to set up a nervy ending.
GOAL rates City’s players from Etihad Stadium…