Omar Marmoush introduced himself as Manchester City’s own Egyptian king with a superb 14-minute first-half hat-trick against Newcastle to send Pep Guardiola’s side fourth in the Premier League.
Marmoush, who joined City for £59m from Eintracht Frankfurt last month, clearly has a long way to go before he can get close to the authentic Liverpool version – but broke his scoring duck in style after four matches without a goal.
Just 13 minutes and 54 seconds separated Marmoush’s opener – when he took advantage of Kieran Trippier’s failure to read a long ball downfield from City goalkeeper Ederson – and his third as he swept home first time from 10 yards.
In between, Marmoush applied a neat finish to Ilkay Gundogan’s defence-splitting pass into the penalty area. This was the fourth-quickest Premier League hat-trick by a City player – Sergio Aguero netted the fastest with a nine-minute treble in 2015.
Substitute James McAtee scored City’s fourth following a flick-on from stand-in skipper Erling Haaland.
Even with a side shorn of defensive trio Manuel Akanji, Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake, it was a throwback to the ‘old’ City of recent years and the perfect warm-up to Wednesday’s do-or-die Champions League return with Real Madrid.
Guardiola will hope the knock Haaland sustained four minutes from time which triggered his early exit from the game does not prove to be too serious.
Defeat was a familiar experience for Newcastle in this fixture – they have now lost 16 successive matches at Etihad Stadium and have not scored on their past six visits.
Savinho plays supporting role
City fans had waited a long time to see the kind of flowing football their side produced in the first half.
While Marmoush grabbed the headlines – and the match ball at the end of the game – the presence of fellow new arrival Nico Gonzalez in a midfield holding role helped City. Further forward, much of the credit went to Brazilian winger Savinho.
The 20-year-old has been cited by Guardiola as a major reason why Jack Grealish, who was ruled out through injury, has struggled to claim a regular starting spot this term.
From the first whistle, he attacked Newcastle left-back Lewis Hall with intent.
Although his manager repeatedly had to tell him to drop deeper when Ederson was preparing to play out of his six-yard box, once Savinho had the ball at his feet he repeatedly ran at Hall at pace and, at times, slalomed his way down the pitch to incisive effect.
His movement unhinged the visitors and created the space the likes of Phil Foden and Gundogan craved.
It was one of those direct runs and a cutback that allowed Marmoush to complete his hat-trick.
City have now collected 16 points from their past seven games, which is as good a return as they have managed all season – handy given Liverpool are the next visitors to this stadium on 23 February.
Magpies’ wings clipped with third defeat in four
After an excellent run that carried them to the verge of the Champions League places, into the FA Cup fifth round and within one win – against Liverpool in the EFL Cup final – of a long-awaited trophy, Eddie Howe’s side are stuttering.
Saturday’s defeat was their third league loss in four matches and Howe’s decision to bring on Tino Livramento and Lewis Miley for Trippier and Joe Willock at the break emphasised his displeasure at what he had seen in the first 45 minutes.
For once striker Alexander Isak was also ineffective, wasting his best chance in the first half when he fired wide from a decent position.
But the problems were further back, with neither Sandro Tonali nor skipper Bruno Guimaraes able to block up the central midfield areas which left full-backs Trippier and Hall exposed too often.
The half-time changes stemmed the flow of goals, but did little to sharpen up Newcastle’s blunt attack.
It could be argued the Magpies will have made a success of their season no matter what happens in the league if they win the EFL Cup at Wembley on 16 March.
However, with fellow top-five contenders Nottingham Forest and Liverpool up next and plenty of clubs jostling for position behind them, Howe needs to halt the slide quickly.
