City’s old guard bailed out their younger and inexperienced team-mates as they made it out alive of a tricky cup tie in east London
Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish answered the call when Manchester City reached out to their most experienced and classiest seniors to get them out of a tricky situation in the FA Cup at Leyton Orient, as last year’s runners up survived an early scare to win 2-1.
City, who have reached the semi-finals in all but one of Guardiola’s previous eight seasons, were heading for a disastrous exit to the League One side when Tottenham loanee Jamie Donley let fly from the halfway line and crashed his shot against the bar, watching in delight as it tricked in off the back of Stefan Ortega and into the net.
To make matters worse for City, new £50m signing Nico Gonzalez had to be taken off with a suspected back injury after suffering a nightmare debut, along with fellow first-timer Vitor Reis, who was hauled off at half-time. Guardiola introduced John Stones and Abdukodir Khusanov, and later De Bruyne and Foden, although it was starter Grealish who made the real difference.
The England international crossed for Rico Lewis to shoot at goal, with the effort bouncing off Khusanov and into the net. Grealish then found De Bruyne with a sumptuous pass and the Belgian nudged the ball past the excellent Orient goalkeeper Josh Keeley to break the Londoners’ hearts.
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