Manchester City have lost three matches in a row for the first time in six years having been blown away by Ruben Amorim’s Sporting Lisbon.
Viktor Gyokeres showed why he is so highly rated after banging in a hat-trick to a seal a famous 4-1 victory for the Portuguese giants, which has also put an end to City’s 26-game unbeaten run in the Champions League.
It was a dream send-off for the outgoing Amorim in his final match in charge at the Estadio Jose Alvalade before he links up with Manchester United.
But he wouldn’t have predicted the drubbing he would have inflicted on the Citizens after Sporting fell behind to an early goal.
After back-to-back defeats against Tottenham and Bournemouth, City got off to a dream start with Phil Foden‘s fourth minute strike.
But they then became the latest victim of in-form striker Gyokeres, who outmuscled Nathan Ake before slotting past Stefan Ortega in the 38th minute.
And just seconds into the second half, the hosts took the lead through Maximiliano Araujo.
It was then 3-1 in the 49th minute when Gyokeres slotted home into the bottom right corner from the penalty spot.
Erling Haaland then had the perfect chance to halve the deficit – and create Champions League history – with a penalty of his own in the 69th minute.
If he had scored – or assisted in what was his 43rd appearance in Europe’s premier competition – he would have hit 50 goal contributions in the quickest time.
But he crashed his effort against the crossbar, with things then going from bad to worse for Pep Guardiola‘s men.
Just 11 minutes later, Gyokeres completed his hat-trick – again from the spot – as he arrowed his effort into the bottom left corner.
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In doing so, he has become the third player after Lionel Messi [2016] and Christopher Nkunku [2021] to score a Champions League hat-trick against City.
Incredibly, Gyokeres – believed to be admired by Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United – now has 23 goals in all competitions this term.
The result means that City have now lost three competitive matches in a row for the first time since April 2018 ahead of Saturday’s trip to Brighton.
They have also lost their first match in the league stage of the revamped Champions League in their fourth fixture.
Meanwhile Sporting have moved up to second, with Liverpool leading the 36-team league table following their 4-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen.
Amorim will hoping to replicate his stunning victory over City next month when he officially takes over at United.
The Red Devils face City at the Etihad on December 15 with United fans left fawning over his attractive style of play.
Having joked that he would be labelled as the ‘new Sir Alex Ferguson‘ if his Sporting side beat City, many may now believe Amorim is the manager to bring the good times back.
Could it be the effect of Rodri’s absence? This is too much for mancity.