AFP, Lisbon :
Manchester City are on course for the Champions League quarter-finals after Bernardo Silva’s brace inspired a masterful 5-0 rout of Sporting Lisbon in the last 16 first leg on Tuesday.
Pep Guardiola’s side produced a swaggering display at the Jose Alvalade Stadium to kill off Sporting before the second leg in Manchester on March 9.
Riyad Mahrez opened the scoring and Silva bagged the second before Phil Foden made it three by the 32nd minute.
With City at their imperious best, Portugal forward Silva struck again on his return to his homeland and Raheem Sterling’s gem rounded off the demolition after the interval.
City are unbeaten in their last 13 games in all competition, a hot streak that now includes 12 wins.
Sterner tests will await City later in the competition but this was a significant statement of intent that will have been heard all around Europe.
With City nine points clear at the top of the Premier League in their pursuit of a fourth title in five years, there is no questioning Guardiola’s domestic preeminence.
But Champions League success has been harder to come by.
Guardiola insisted this week that critics of his flawed European record over the last decade are “jealous” of his achievements.
Yet the Spaniard hasn’t won the Champions League since 2011 with Barcelona, while City are still waiting to lift the trophy for the first time.
City’s Champions League history is littered with unexpectedly premature exits, but they came painfully close last season, losing 1-0 to Chelsea in the final in Porto.
Back on Portuguese soil to launch a knockout stage campaign they hope will climax with silverware in the final in Saint Peterburg, City’s sublime performance underlined their desire to go one better this time.
City were originally due to face Villarreal before a UEFA error forced a re-draw that pitted them against Sporting instead.
It looked an easier tie on paper and so it proved as Sporting, in the last 16 for only the second time, were out-classed from start to finish.
Sporting’s fans did their best to make it a hostile evening, loudly jeering Silva, Ruben Dias and Joao Cancelo for their spells with arch rivals Benfica.
But City took just seven minutes to silence the ear-splitting din with a sumptuous move.
