Silva leads Manchester City’s charge towards last eight in rout of Sporting

This Manchester City demolition of Sporting was akin to a heavyweight bullying a featherweight. Really, you wondered how these opponents shared the same pitch, so dominant were England’s champions. At the break Pep Guardiola’s men were four goals up, by the final whistle it was 5-0, and at the close of the tie they may go close to Bayern Munich’s 12-1 evisceration of Sporting at the same stage in 2008-09.

That was the Portuguese club’s only previous experience of the last-16 and this lack of knowhow was written all over how City toyed with them and landed killer blows at will. A prime factor is, of course, the riches the side fuelled by Abu Dhabi’s petro-dollars enjoy: that should allow them to beat a significantly lower-budget operation like Sporting but so immaculately are they drilled by their manager, who might stop the City juggernaut finally claiming the Champions League this term is a puzzle.

The Estádio José Alvalade glittered from phone-torches that lit up the Lisbon night at kick-off and City had the perfect start. A move that featured Aymeric Laporte finding Bernardo Silva ended with Phil Foden’s shot being saved, Kevin De Bruyne passing the rebound to Riyad Mahrez, and the Algerian scoring. City appeared to think De Bruyne was offside but VAR ruled Gonçalo Inácio played the Belgian on, and so Mahrez had a 10th goal in his last 11 Champions League appearances.

Sporting and their support were stunned. The Portuguese champions’ last outing, Friday’s 2-2 draw with Porto, ended in a mass brawl and three of their men sent off. In Rúben Amorim, they have a 37-year-old manager who cost the club €10m to prise from Braga and whose repayment was a cup-and-championship double, the latter a first title in 19 years.

Amorim