Phil Foden justifies Pep Guardiola's bold call to bench Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne with stunning hat-trick, writes JACK GAUGHAN as Man City's 4-1 win against Aston Villa keeps them in touch with title rivals

As they trundled away from Villa Park in the bitterness of December, bruised and well beaten, nobody at Manchester City would have really thought a 24-match unbeaten run was on its way.

Equally, nobody would have really thought that after such a long stretch without defeat in all competitions, City might find themselves third in a three-horse race for the Premier League title.

But here they are. A funny season, where Liverpool and Arsenal have made sizeable gains on the perennial champions, who themselves have threatened to motor and then accidentally eased on the brakes.

A season where Pep Guardiola saw fit to bench not only Erling Haaland but Kevin De Bruyne against opposition who had undoubtedly caused his team the most problems in any individual game. A big call or the last roll of the dice. The dice were hot; so too was Phil Foden.

Just after the hour on Wednesday night, Foden was running to the corner where both Guardiola’s creative genius and goalscoring behemoth stood warming up in florescent tangerine bibs. He was running over because his second of the evening had just nestled calmly into Villa’s far corner, City were two goals clear, and any nervousness had subsided.

Foden, more productive when he is the main protagonist, has hit 20 goals in a campaign for the first time in his career. Foden, another hat-trick to his name. The third of his career and second in the space of two months after rifling in City’s fourth.

Twenty-one now. Not bad at all and it will not be the last time Foden surpasses that milestone but the bigger picture here was that City didn’t cede any further ground to their rivals in possibly their trickiest fixture of the dash to the finish.

‘Better than Villa Park, that’s for sure,’ Guardiola said. ‘We brought incredible energy. We were (apparently) out of the title race three or four days ago and the team wasn’t playing good? Now we are in the best form of the league?’

And it felt strange, not seeing either he or Haaland line up for a night that came as close to a must-win as you can get. Even more so given Arsenal were already two goals up by the time City even kicked off. Guardiola ended up resting them for a whole night and had his victory.

Points to prove everywhere and Guardiola knew it. To Foden: go and dominate the central area with Bernardo Silva. To Rico Lewis: stand up to Nicolo Zaniolo, one of the league’s more beguiling attackers. To Julian Alvarez, to Jack Grealish.

Then there is the man who can do no wrong, the constant heartbeat. City really needed an early goal to settle this down, to stir a crowd in danger of disbelieving, and so Rodri provided it. As he so often has in the big moments down the years.

Eleven minutes in and Foden dashed into a half space, looking at Jeremy Doku outside him, slipping the Belgian into an acre. It was a pass that relied upon the recipient and Doku – whose decision-making can be slack – carefully cut back for Rodri, taking up that familiar space just inside the penalty area. He passed high into Robin Olsen’s net.

Olsen had been a late change. Emiliano Martinez pulled out an hour beforehand through illness and, with no Ollie Watkins either, the task for Unai Emery grew that bit harder in their own battle for a guaranteed Champions League place, one aided by Tottenham’s draw on Tuesday. And with two starters in Jhon Duran and Tim Iroegbunam who had done so only once before in the league.

Duran, though, was sauntering off into a corner nine minutes after the opener, helping himself to an equaliser and first goal in any competition since September. The counter was slick, the sort that can always hurt City with their high line, although did owe a fair amount to Alvarez conceding possession on the edge of Villa’s box.

He’d tried to burrow through them all instead of popping an easy ball off and City were punished, loads ahead of the play and Villa progressed at a rate. Suddenly, after a handful of passes, Morgan Rogers was completing a one-two with Duran, who’d run off Ruben Dias and Stefan Ortega could only admire the finish into his far corner.

Alvarez couldn’t redeem himself, striking at Olsen when clean through. And he’d messed up a presentable free-kick too, so when another came 20 yards out – when Douglas Luiz was very fortunate not to receive a second yellow – Foden took control.

Zaniolo jumped out of the way as Foden curled into the wall, deceiving Olsen, and City went in ahead.

Foden put the game to bed 17 minutes after the restart, owing much to Rodri’s twinkling feet opening up room. The academy graduate didn’t appear to even look as he swept into Olsen’s bottom right-hand corner.

How different this might have all been had Ortega not stood tall shortly beforehand. 

He might be No 2 to the injured Ederson here but there is a queue of clubs ready to snap the German up, for his composure as much as the shot stopping. 

The shot stopping isn’t bad, flinging an arm at Douglas Luiz’s effort when Villa were within a goal. A huge moment in the game.

‘We were close to scoring but they were pushing us a lot and showed their potential, power,’ 

Emery said. We needed to make changes because of injuries.’ The save acted as the foundation for what would follow. Foden followed his second up with a quite stunning fizz. Olsen blinked so he missed it.