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pep guardiola called Ryan Cherky An “extraordinary player” led Manchester City to a 2–0 victory in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals after the Frenchman’s first-half strike. brentford,
Cherky has suffered an injury-hit start to life at City since his £30million summer transfer lyonBut the 22-year-old has impressed in recent weeks, with four assists in his last four Premier League Performance and now a brilliant goal for his fourth of the campaign.
When Brentford failed to clear Devine Mukasa’s corner properly, the ball came to Cherki on the edge of the box and he quickly beat Mikael Damsgaard before firing a powerful shot into the top corner.
“Close to the opponent’s 18-yard box he is an extraordinary player,” Guardiola said.
“It was a brilliant goal, a blind man, a blind woman can feel it, it is not necessary to be a journalist or a manager to realize what a brilliant, brilliant player he is.
“I’ve seen this type of goal many times with Phil (Foden), with Kevin (De Bruyne) before, so I’m glad it started the game.”
With seven changes from Sunday’s 3-0 win at Crystal Palace, City were far from their best and could have gone down to 10 men on 16 minutes when Abdukodir Khusanov fouled Kevin Schade as he prepared to shoot from the edge of the box.
Having survived that, they dominated the rest of the first half and Savinho’s heavily deflected strike sealed the victory.
The Brazilian’s shot may not have troubled Haakon Valdimarsson unless it beat the retreating Kristoffer Ajer over the goalkeeper, but Guardiola praised Savinho’s mentality after facing criticism.
“What I like is that he is always on the move all the time,” Guardiola said. “The final decision could be better but always as a reward for his work ethic and he goes and he goes all the time.”
Brentford boss Keith Andrews was clear that Khusanov should have walked away, reshaping the entire game.
“Normally I’m very quick to defend officers, it’s a very difficult job, but this was a job they didn’t do properly,” he said.
“The explanation was that the touch being too far from goal doesn’t sit well with me after watching it back because he went clean through to goal…
“If it’s a red card then obviously it’s a big advantage for us, but we’ll never know.”
Despite that moment, Andrews was pleased with his team’s performance.
“We showed a lot of courage, a lot of conviction and bravery in the way we played and we had to do that,” he said. “We were missing some players up front, after Leeds we had one day of preparation where we changed the system, how we created, how we pressed.
“It’s testament to the players, how intelligent they are, how adaptable they are and how versatile they are… I thought there were moments where we could have punished City, we just didn’t take the extra pass, but we limited them to very few.”
Brentford were staying in Manchester after the game and were due to train at City’s facility on Thursday.
Asked whether he agreed with Andrews on Khusanov’s decision, Guardiola said: “Tomorrow at the training ground, I will invite him to the café and we will discuss it.”