Doku dazzler lights up City to flummox 10-man Napoli

Pep Guardiola said of drawing Napoli and having Kevin De Bruyne return: “It was always going to happen, right?”

- Jamie Jackson

But he might have spoken of his No 9’s ruthlessness, as Erling Haaland broke this game open with Champions League goal No 50 in a record 49 matches, a feat that handsomely beats Ruud van Nistelrooy’s previous 62-appearance mark.

Last night’s strike was a seventh in five for Manchester City - form as ominous as the Norwegian’s in the immortal 2022-3 treble season.

Once Napoli had Giovanni Di Lorenzo sent off on 21 minutes it was the longest of nights for an XI containing all the returning-to-Manchester three - Scott McTominay, Rasmus Højlund and De Bruyne - before the last’s sacrifice when his captain saw red.

“One A Blue Always A Blue” was one banner greeting Super Kev though Napoli’s star turn was Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, a goalkeeper defiant until the second-half intervention of Haaland and Jérémy Doku, whose solo effort had shades of Ricky Villa’s 1981 FA Cup final barnburner.

On a temperate night more akin to a venue somewhere in southern Europe a Tijjani Reijnders stinger was beaten out by Milinkovic-Savic for a first corner. Napoli’s response came via a raking 45-yard De Bruyne diagonal that dropped sweetly on to Leonardo Spinazzola’s boot: he turned Abdukodir Khusanov inside, then out, so the makeshift right-back did well to recover.