Man City have powerful new Champions League weapon as they target final again

Pep Guardiola reserved a special hug for set-piece coach Carlos Vicens after Bernardo Silva had crashed in his stunning half-volleyed goal to put the Blues 2-0 up.

It might have seemed a strange “thank you” to hand out given that Bernardo’s strike was out of the blue and not something anyone could really coach - just sheer natural talent.

But Guardiola will have been delighted at the way the space was created by Riyad Mahrez’s deep corner, which found Rodri lurking, while the Sporting defence were pre-occupied by John Stones, Aymeric Laporte and Ruben Dias in the middle.

It had Vicens’ fingerprints all over it.

The Blues had clearly identified a far-post weakness in Sporting - Rodri popped up in the same position as City threatened to add even more goals in the second half.

Setpieces have provided a rich vein of goals for City this season, and it partly explains why Guardiola stuck with Stones at right back, resisting the temptation to stick with the excellent Aleks Zinchenko at left back.

In his pre-match interview Guardiola admitted that the excellent performance Aleks Zinchenko produced at Norwich on Saturday had made him think twice about his original plan, which was to replace the suspended Kyle Walker with Stones and stick with Joao Cancelo at left back.

The norm for City is for Cancelo to switch back to his more natural right-sided role and Zinchenko to step in on the left, as happened at Carrow Road.

But the fact that set pieces have become such a big thing for the Blues this season was a key factor in the decision to go with Stones.

The manager gave it a trial run in the Brentford game last week, although that was seen as more of a nod to the Bees’ own threat from setpieces rather than any forward planning for