Guardiola praises 'awesome' Phil Foden as Man City reach FA Cup quarter-finals

Pep Guardiola described Phil Foden as "awesome" and "flabbergasting" after the forward scored twice against Bristol City to book Manchester City's place in the FA Cup quarter-finals.

Foden's brace – once in each half – put the visitors in command against the Championship side before the fit-again Kevin de Bruyne’s superb late strike sealed a 3-0 victory at Ashton Gate.

Foden has not always been a regular starter in recent weeks, but Guardiola said he has never doubted the England international's quality and praised his work ethic.

“I said last week that we don’t have any doubts about Phil,” said Guardiola.

“The impact of Phil since he has arrived has been flabbergasting. He has been awesome, getting better and better.

“He has struggled a little bit with the ankle, but he doesn’t complain. He wants to train, he wants to play, play with problems.

“But it’s not about the goal he scored in the last game [at Bournemouth], or the two goals he scored today. It’s about how aggressive he is and how he does things.

“He has done it again, his work ethic, the way he trained. Every single action is 100 per cent and at the end it will pay off.”

The Premier League champions were made to work hard for their victory even after Foden dispatched Riyad Mahrez’s seventh-minute cross before a capacity 25,713 crowd.

Bristol City, who had gone 12 games unbeaten, went close through Alex Scott and Sam Bell and might have had a penalty when Mark Sykes appeared to be bundled over by Rico Lewis.

But referee Andre Marriner was unmoved and VAR was not in operation for the incident to be reviewed.

On the first-half penalty incident, when Bristol City trailed 1-0, Robins boss Nigel Pearson said: “I joked with the fourth official and the assistant