{"id":1767,"date":"2025-11-06T15:44:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/?p=1767"},"modified":"2025-11-06T15:44:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:44:04","slug":"foden-hits-top-form-as-man-city-thrash-dortmund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/06\/foden-hits-top-form-as-man-city-thrash-dortmund\/","title":{"rendered":"Foden hits top form as Man City thrash Dortmund"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foden’s two sublime finishes<\/strong> came just in time to remind England manager Thomas Tuchel<\/strong> of his quality before the German names his final squad of the year on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Named captain for the night, Haaland <\/strong>led from the front and showed no mercy<\/strong> to his former employers with his 27th goal<\/strong> for club and country in just 17 games this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waldemar Anton’s consolation<\/strong> was the least <\/strong>Dortmund<\/a> deserved<\/strong> for a late rally, but Rayan Cherki<\/strong> rounded off the scoring for City in stoppage time. A first European defeat of the campaign leaves the German giants down in 14th<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haaland <\/strong>was handed the armband by Pep Guardiola as Bernardo<\/strong> Silva <\/strong>and Ruben Dias<\/strong> dropped to the bench with one eye<\/strong> on Liverpool’s visit to the Etihad on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dortmund <\/strong>had only lost once<\/strong> in their 14 previous games this season, 2-1 at Bayern Munich<\/strong> last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the visitors were undone <\/strong>by City’s quality in the final third to continue the trend<\/strong> of Premier League domination so far in this season’s Champions League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time, one nation has six sides in Europe’s elite competition<\/strong> and all of City<\/strong>, Liverpool<\/strong>, Arsenal<\/strong>, Newcastle<\/strong>, Tottenham <\/strong>and Chelsea <\/strong>are among the top 12 halfway<\/strong> through the league phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guardiola <\/strong>has repeatedly called <\/strong>on his other forward players to ease the goalscoring burden on Haaland<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No other City player has scored more<\/strong> than once in the Premier League yet this term, but Foden<\/strong> has shown flickers of the form that saw him win player of the year awards two seasons ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cut short a positive start<\/strong> from Dortmund <\/strong>on 22 minutes with a sharp turn before arrowing a trademark low left-footed effort<\/strong> into the far corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haaland<\/a> has only failed to score in two matches<\/strong> this season and smashed home at the back post after Jeremy Doku’s pace<\/strong> and trickery bamboozled Ryerson<\/strong>. Tijjani Reijnders<\/strong> then stung the palms of Gregor Kobel<\/strong> as City threatened to run riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the home side also needed Gianluigi Donnarumma<\/strong> to make an important stop<\/strong> to prevent Karim Adeyemi<\/strong> halving the Dortmund deficit before half-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foden <\/strong>will find out later this week whether his exile from Tuchel’s England squad<\/strong> will continue after being dropped for the past two squads. It will take a brave call <\/strong>from the former Dortmund boss to ignore the 25-year-old on this form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foden <\/strong>produced a feather-like touch out of his feet <\/strong>from Reijnders’ pass before curling into the far corner beyond Kobel<\/strong>. City minds then appeared to drift towards their weekend showdown against the defending Premier League champions Liverpool<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dortmund <\/strong>pulled a goal back when Anton <\/strong>turned in Ryerson’s low cross and could have had plenty more<\/strong> as City <\/strong>lost their concentration. Guardiola <\/strong>turned to Dias <\/strong>and Silva <\/strong>off the bench to restore some order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was another substitute<\/strong> in Cherki <\/strong>who added gloss to the scoreline with a purposeful run<\/strong> and precise finish <\/strong>to register his first Champions League goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Foden struck twice and Erling Haaland netted again […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1769,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions\/1769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dxtynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}