Young Man City stars thrash Norwich in Carabao Cup
Debutants Floyd Samba and Allan were among the goals for Manchester City as it coasted into the fourth round of the Carabao Cup with a 5-0 rout of Norwich City.
Seventeen-year-old forward Samba netted twice at the Etihad Stadium, with Rayan Cherki, Ryan McAidoo and Allan – who joined from Palmeiras for a reported £34.2m last month – also on target for a much-changed City side.
Although the scoreline ended up being a handsome one for Enzo Maresca's men, they had to wait 29 minutes for the breakthrough. Allan retrieved an overhit cross on the right side of the box and helped the ball back into the danger zone, where Samba's deft diving header found the bottom-left corner.
City's second goal arrived after just three further minutes, though, with Morocco's World Cup breakout star Ayyoub Bouaddi – making just his second start for City – slipping in Cherki, who composed himself before slotting past Daniel Grimshaw.
Norwich avoided further punishment in the first half, but just three minutes into the second, Allan took in Rayan Ait-Nouri's pass, bamboozled Sam Field by checking back onto his left foot, then finished across Grimshaw into the far corner.
Kellen Fisher and Anthony Musaba tried in vain to get Norwich back into the tie, but in between their attempts, a poor giveaway from the Championship side led to Samba curling into the bottom-right corner for his brace, with 54 minutes on the clock.
There was to be no debut hat-trick for the England under-17 international, but after Norwich substitute Mohamed Toure had a potential consolation goal disallowed for offside, fellow academy graduate McAidoo capped the scoring, sweeping home after a clever dummy from Rico Lewis in the 90th minute.
