Phil Foden still has plenty of room for improvement, says Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola.
Foden's long-range strike against Birmingham City in the third round of the FA Cup was his seventh goal of the season in all competitions - making him City's joint top scorer alongside Raheem Sterling.
The 20-year-old also made his England senior breakthrough this season, netting twice in the 4-0 Nations League thrashing of Iceland in November.
At club level, Foden has amassed his impressive return - he also has five assists - despite not being an automatic choice in Guardiola's first XI.
The circumstances of a coronavirus outbreak at the club is a contributing factor to an unbroken run of three successive first-team starts, although a goal at Chelsea in the Premier League and an assist for John Stones in the EFL Cup semi-final at Manchester United have made a strong case for him to remain.
"He is playing like he played always, high standards in all departments," Guardiola told a news conference ahead of Wednesday's match against Brighton and Hove Albion.
"He still has big margins to improve because it would be bad news if he could not improve at the age he is.
"But from day one I have been delighted, especially with his behaviour. The quality will do the rest.
City have three consecutive home games in the space of eight days on their immediate agenda - a chance to bolster their title challenge even before considering Liverpool and Manchester United are set to take points off one another this weekend.
Even though his team appear to be back to their swashbuckling best despite trying circumstances, Guardiola remains wary of the challenges at hand.
"Brighton are a joy to watch, a joy to analyse," he said, before underlining his admiration for Seagulls boss Graham Potter.
"At the same time, when you see them you are concerned about the quality. I said to the players that we will have to be in the highest standards to complete against them. They have better stats [than their league position] in all the departments except the final third.
"I am a big fan of Graham Potter. We faced him for the first time with Swansea. Everyone [in Potter's teams] plays in his position and the ball comes to them.
"They have the courage to play. I like a lot how they play and it will be a good test after this amount of games."
Considering a 13-match unbeaten run on all fronts, Guardiola added: "The momentum can arrive and disappear in one instant.
"We cannot forget the teams we beat recently especially in Premier League and Carabao Cup - two strong teams away and we did well.
"But the momentum can disappear, we have to do it again. Especially for the way we are playing."
City remain without injured defenders Aymeric Laporte and Nathan Ake, while Sergio Aguero will continue to self-isolate, with youngsters Cole Palmer, Eric Garcia and Adrien Bernabe, and third-choice goalkeeper Scott Carson in the same situation.
Ederson, Ferran Torres and Tommy Doyle should be available to return following their own COVID-related absences.
Steven Naismith hails Hearts match-winner Alex Lowry
Steven Naismith hailed match-winner Alex Lowry as a special talent after the on-loan Rangers player’s late goal sent Hearts into the Viaplay Cup semi-finals.
Kilmarnock were in the ascendancy as the match edged closer to extra time, only for Lowry to strike in time added on to the regulation 90 minutes.
Brad Lyons had earlier cancelled out Jorge Grant’s opener before Lowry claimed his first goal since moving on loan to Tynecastle last month to seal the victory.
Naismith praised Lowry as one of the best young Scottish talents in the game but said he wanted to see more from the 20-year-old on a consistent basis.
The Hearts manager said: “Alex has got brilliant ability.
“I’m not sure I’ve seen in my whole footballing career a young Scottish player that I have been working with that has got such good … he can do things with a ball that a lot of others can’t.
“I’ve challenged him to see more moments like that.
“He’s been frustrated at not getting more game time but I said to him, you need to show moments and when you are on the park, you need to do more.”
Naismith was pleased to have a Hampden Park semi-final to look forward to but warned that his team would need to follow up that result, starting with a trip to play Ross County this weekend.
He added: “I was delighted to get through. It was the next step we needed to take.
“At this club there’s a demand to get to semi-finals and finals and ultimately win silverware.
“It’s a big win and everybody’s delighted but we do need to back that up.
“Over the past few seasons we haven’t had good performances at Kilmarnock, and Ross County has been the same.”
Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes admitted he was frustrated that his players had unnecessarily chased a winning goal rather than waiting for extra time.
He said: “I was angry [at full-time] that we’ve allowed that type of goal to decide the cup tie. We had Hearts where we wanted them. We were in charge of that tie in the second half.
“We played the last phase of play as if we needed a goal to get back in the tie. We were guilty of trying to win it then. We were too excitable, too gung-ho to win a game of football in 90 minutes when we could have won the game in extra time.
“It was all last-gasp and unnecessary, almost as if we were chasing a game to win it in 90 minutes when we didn’t need to. We could – and should – have won it in extra time. But we allowed an opportunity for Hearts and they took it.”
Manchester City hit by travel headache ahead of hectic fortnight
Pep Guardiola has revealed Manchester City are affected by travel problems during one of their most hectic periods of the season.
City have four away games in less than a fortnight, with Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup trip to Newcastle followed by a Premier League clash with Wolves, a Champions League outing to Leipzig and then another league game against Arsenal.
Guardiola’s men would normally travel back by train or plane to minimise time on the road but neither is available on Wednesday.
“We cannot come back by plane because we don’t have planes to travel back so we have to take a bus, it’s two, three hours later, we arrive here so, so late,” said the Catalan.
“Then Friday we have to travel to Wolves. We go to Germany to play Champions League, it’s a really, really important game for us because we know what it means to be able to win there for qualification for the next stage. This is what we have to do.”
Guardiola admits he will have to play several players he would rather rest because of injury and suspension issues in midfield, while he does not feel he can call on academy products.
“We cannot take a few of them because we sell a lot of them and still they are not ready to play with us,” he said. “That’s why I have to give time to them to develop. They are still so young to play Newcastle away.”
One player who will start is Kalvin Phillips, who impressed Guardiola after coming on against Nottingham Forest last weekend.
It will be just a fifth start for the midfielder since his move from Leeds last summer, where his performances under Marcelo Bielsa persuaded City to sign him.
“I think Marcelo gave Kalvin the best of Kalvin in his career,” said Guardiola. “I would love to have done with Kalvin what Marcelo has done to him. But it’s where he is.
“We have a specific way to play. Sometimes he struggles with a few things, but the previous game was perfect. He’s open-minded, he always wants to learn, always wants to help and this is what I try to do.”
Guardiola named “exhausted” Kyle Walker as one player he will rest but, whatever team he puts out, he expects a better performance than the one that saw City dumped out of the competition by Southampton in the quarter-finals last season.
“What we don’t want to do is perform not who we are in terms of the principles and who we are as a team, which happened last season against Southampton,” he said.
“That’s the worst game I’ve had as manager of Man City, by far. I didn’t recognise anything about that. You can lose, of course, credit to Southampton in that game, but you have to meet a minimum and this is what I want from my team in every single game, every single competition.
“And tomorrow it’s going to happen, I’m pretty sure of that.”
Sam Bowen earns overdue win for Wealdstone
Sam Bowen’s fine strike proved to be the difference as Wealdstone beat Woking in the Vanarama National League.
The hosts had won just one of their previous seven games before Bowen struck from the edge of the box to seal a 1-0 victory.
Bowen’s goal came just after the 15-minute mark and he almost repeated the feat five minutes later but this time shot wide.
Goalkeeper Jed Ward made a number of crucial saves to keep Woking at bay as the home side secured the points.
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