MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) -Manchester City survived an FA Cup scare for the second round in succession as they beat Championship strugglers Plymouth Argyle 3-1 to reach the quarter-finals on Saturday.
Teenager Nico O’Reilly saved City’s blushes with two headed goals after Ukrainian Maksym Talovierov had sent thousands of visiting fans into delirium by heading Plymouth into the lead.
Both his goals were set up by Kevin de Bruyne, who added a late third goal to finish off the south-coast side.
While Plymouth were unable to emulate their shock victory over Premier League leaders Liverpool in the fourth round, City will now be big favourites to win the Cup for the third time under Pep Guardiola and salvage something from the season.
City also had to come from behind to beat third-tier Leyton Orient in the previous round.
“We know how important it is. Now we are going to fight, and we’re going to see what happens,” Guardiola said.
O’Reilly headed home a De Bruyne delivery in first-half stoppage time and City laid siege to Plymouth’s goal in the second period before O’Reilly again was in the right place to head De Bruyne’s corner into the net in the 76th minute.
“Two goals from left back, I wasn’t really expecting that,” 19-year-old O’Reilly, who also scored in the 8-0 win over Salford City in the third round, told the BBC.
“Going into halftime 1-0 down would have been tough but (the first goal) lifted the spirits.”
De Bruyne rounded off an impressive display by making absolutely sure of City’s progress in the final minute with a tap-in after Erling Haaland had been denied.
The FA Cup is Premier League champions City’s last chance for silverware this season after stumbling badly in the domestic league and crashing out of the Champions League to Real Madrid.
Plymouth are second-from-bottom of the second-tier Championship but held their own against City with a display every bit as gritty as in their stunning victory over Liverpool.
“We can only be disappointed with the result, but proud of the performance,” Miron Muslic, who replaced Wayne Rooney as Plymouth’s manager this season, said.
“We deserved the lead, we used our chances. We concede with the last action of the first half, but that’s just how it is. We tried right until the end.”
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Ken Ferris)
