Manchester City 5 Huddersfield Town 0: Town go down with Terrier spirit and promise from January signings

You could not possibly criticise an injury-hit side engulfed in a Championship relegation battle for putting the barricades up at Eastlands but when you are being attacked relentlessly by a team of City's quality you need luck as well as skill and in the end the Terriers did not have enough of either.

It was nothing to be ashamed of. City's first three goals all owed something to lucky bounces they earnt by laying siege to Lee Nicholls' net and in Alex Matos, they have borrowed a gem whose qualities should be more effective at home to Plymouth Argyle in a match that matters far more next Saturday.

And whilst Huddersfield saw only 16 per cent of the ball, they still managed to carry an admittedly very fleeting threat through the impressive Sorba Thomas and, in the latter stages, Bojan Radulovic.

It was not that the Terriers completely parked the bus, more it was blocked in by the weight of traffic around their goal.

Matos had not needed much more than a minute to signal some intent, the Chelsea loanee breaking from his holding midfield position to pop up briefly on the left wing."We got up the pitch in the very early stage of the game and you've got to try and disrupt their passing rhythm,” said Darren Moore.

City felt comfortable enough to just keep Ruben Dias back when they had the ball, right-back Manuel Akanji, midfield holder Mateo Kovacic and left-sided centre-back Josko Gvardiol forming a first midfield line in front.

Moore had opted for the pace of Thomas as his sole striker and when Ben Jackson released him with an excellent right-footed pass, he forced a Stefan Ortega save. When the ball went out the flag finally – and correctly – went up for offside but it showed what Huddersfield could do and Gvardiol was soon keeping Dias company as insurance.

Of course it was more about what City could do and as the half went on, they turned up the heat.

All the while Town kept their 5-4-1 shape but were gradually pushed back to the point where when attempts to ram the ball through the chinks of light between them failed, the ricochets became shooting opportunities if they fell badly.

Kovacic's clever reverse pass found Alvarez but his shot bounced to Phil Foden, who scored from a tight angle in the 33rd minute.

Four minutes later Rico Lewis' touch on a Matheus Nunes cross was going well wide but fell to Julian Alvarez, who scored through Tom Lees' legs.

"We want 10!" chanted a few home fans feeling nostalgic for their club's historic 1987 victory over the Terriers but it seemed impossible the 2024 vintage would leave themselves open to that.

Matos did a passable impression of his hero, Ngolo Kante, showing some of his logic-defying energy and often putting himself in the line of fire when City shot. A 13th-minute booking for getting both the ball and Manuel Akanji will have done nothing to put the travelling fans off.

Even with a 15-minute breather, Town batteries were starting to run down after all that first-half chasing.

With City camped in their final third again, Rarmani Edmonds-Green blocked a Lewis effort and Oscar Bobb dragged one wide. One from Dias hit the wall of black shirts between him and the goal.

Bobb looked embarrassed to score the third, his chip taking a big deflection off Jackson.

When two minutes later Thomas ran past Bobb but telegraphed his shot enough for Ortega to win the one-on-one, you knew it would be a very long final half-hour – the more so as City had just brought on a substitute called Kevin de Bruyne.

Foden scored his fourth goal in as many games and Jeremy Doku scored a fifth with what turned out to be 20 minutes left.

Michal Helik had done brilliantly to cut out a pull-back but the corner was worked to Foden in the D and his finish could not have been better measured. Then, when Town lost the ball in midfield, de Bruyne pulled it back from the byline for fellow substitute Doku to half-volley in.

Thomas, switched to the right of midfield seconds after his miss so Radulovic could debut at centre-forward, continued to run onto long balls and it was his reverse pass that gave the January signin an 87th-minute opportunity from a similar patch of grass to where Foden started the scoring from. Ortega needed a good one-handed save.

A goal would have been justified reward for Huddersfield's heart. In Matos and Radulovic they look to have upped their skill levels too.

Manchester City: Ortega; Akanji (Nunes 18), Dias, Gvardiol, Gomez; Lewis, Kovacic (Wright 75); Bobb, Foden (Hamilton 75), Grealish (Doku 57); Alvarez (de Bruyne 57). Unused substitutes: Ederson, Walker, Ake, Rodri.

Huddersfield Town: Nicholls; Spencer, Edmonds-Green, Lees, Helik, Jackson; Rudoni, Matos (Radulovic 62), Wiles (Iorpenda 88), Koroma (Diarra 81); Thomas. Unused substitutes: Bellagambi, Ayina, Edwards, Austerfield, Stone, Hudlin.

Referee: M Salisbury (Lancashire).