Team rallies around a Khus during difficult debut

IT was a slightly sheepish Abdukodir Khusanov that waved to the Etihad at full-time, but he left a difficult debut behind with three points and hearty hugs from his teammates.

- SIMON BAJKOWSKI

The first player from Uzbekistan to play in the Premier League had a night-mare start and was substituted after 55 minutes, yet the records will say his first game was a win.

As the new recruit struggled, the rest of the team rallied round him and then did what they needed to beat Chelsea and end another tough week with an important result.

Khusanov and Vitor Reis, on the bench, will bring the average age of an old team down but City's goalscorers were 23, 24 and 24 as they beat Chelsea 3-1. More importantly, they are all fully fluent in the language Pep Guardiola demands with Phil Foden edu-cated in it since before the manager even arrived at the club.

As City built their pressure to try and recover from going behind, Robert Sanchez spilled Ilkay Gundogan's shot from the edge of the box and there was Omar Marmoush to tap it home. Except he was offside, for the third time in the game, and to make matters worse he only just beat Bernardo Silva - who wasn't offside - to the tap-in.

For all the flak Silva has had this sea-son, and for all the excitement of a new signing, it was a reminder that it is going to take time even for the experienced ones to get used to the rhythm of this team. The January recruits were never going to be an instant antidote to months of problems and they shouldn't take the burden.