MANCHESTER, Nov 6 — 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 yesterday.
Foden’s two sublime finishes came just in time to remind England manager Thomas Tuchel of his quality before the German names his final squad of the year on Friday.
“Phil is back,” said City boss Pep Guardiola after Foden struggled for fitness and form last season.
“He’s a special player, but we need his goals, definitely. Today, hopefully, he made the first step to do it (more regularly).”
Named captain for the night, Haaland led from the front and showed no mercy to his former employers with his 27th goal for club and country in just 17 games this season.
Waldemar Anton’s consolation was the least Dortmund deserved for a late rally but Rayan Cherki rounded off the scoring for City in stoppage time.
A first European defeat of the campaign leaves the German club down in 14th.
Haaland was handed the armband by Pep Guardiola as Bernardo Silva and Ruben Dias dropped to the bench with one eye on Liverpool’s visit to the Etihad on Sunday.
Dortmund had only lost once in their previous 14 games this season, a 2-1 defeat at Bayern Munich last month.
However, the visitors were undone by City’s quality in the final third to continue the trend of Premier League domination so far in this season’s Champions League.
For the first time one nation has six sides in Europe’s elite competition and all of City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle, Tottenham and Chelsea are among the top 12 halfway through the league phase.
Guardiola has repeatedly called on his other forward players to ease the goalscoring burden on Haaland.
No other City player has scored more than once in the Premier League yet this term but Foden has shown flickers of the form that saw him win player of the year awards two seasons ago.
“You learn a lot when you’re going through a tough patch,” said Foden, whose individual drop off came during a collective collapse from City last season.
“It’s just about speaking how we can get back on track and try and be the team that we used to be and I think this season we’re seeing glimpses of that.”
