Erling Haaland\u2019s 18-minute hat trick powered Manchester City to a 4-0 win over Liverpool and into the FA Cup semifinals for a record eighth straight season on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Mohamed Salah\u2019s failure from the penalty spot added to the woes of Liverpool, whose meltdown at Etihad Stadium will put more heat on under-pressure manager Arne Slot.<\/p>\n
Haaland converted a penalty in the 39th minute, headed home a cross from Antoine Semenyo in first-half stoppage time, and then swept in a finish off the crossbar in the 57th to score his first hat trick of the season for City and 12th since he joined the club in 2022.<\/p>\n
Semenyo scored the other goal in the 50th for City, which was playing its first match since winning the English League Cup two weeks ago by beating Arsenal in the final at Wembley Stadium. City will be heading back there later this month for the FA Cup semis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis club has to win trophies,\u201d said Haaland, who was described after the game as a \u201cmachine\u201d by City assistant coach Pep Lijnders \u2014 deputizing in the dugout while Pep Guardiola served a touchline suspension.<\/p>\n
Salah, who announced during the recent international break that he\u2019d be leaving Liverpool after nine trophy-filled seasons, was beginning his long goodbye to the Reds but couldn\u2019t mark it with a goal. The best of the many chances he spurned came from a penalty, which City goalkeeper James Trafford palmed away in the 64th.<\/p>\n
It was a record 18th straight home win for City in the FA Cup, dating to 2017. Pep Guardiola’s team shared a record with Clapham Rovers for reaching seven consecutive FA Cup finals, but now holds it outright.<\/p>\n
Many Liverpool fans were seen leaving the stadium after the fourth City goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fighting spirit wasn\u2019t there enough, the mentality wasn\u2019t there enough,” Liverpool midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai said. “None of us were there to be honest as much as we could.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a hard time but we have to stick together.”<\/p>\n
Arsenal and Chelsea also in action in quarterfinals<\/p>\n
Later Saturday, Chelsea hosts third-tier Port Vale before Arsenal visits second-tier Southampton.<\/p>\n
The draw for the semifinals takes place Sunday after West Ham hosts Leeds in the final match in the last eight.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/p>\n
Steve Douglas, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erling Haaland\u2019s 18-minute hat trick powered Manchester City to a 4-0 win over Liverpool and into the FA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-581871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}