Omar Marmoush announced his arrival as Manchester City’s “Egyptian King” with a brilliant 14-minute hat-trick in the first half against Newcastle, lifting Pep Guardiola’s side to fourth place in the Premier League.
Marmoush, who joined City for £59m from Eintracht Frankfurt last month, still has a long way to go before matching the legacy of his Liverpool counterpart, but he made an impressive start by ending a four-match goal drought in spectacular fashion.
His first goal came when he capitalized on Kieran Trippier’s failure to deal with a long ball from City goalkeeper Ederson. Just 13 minutes and 54 seconds later, he completed his hat-trick with a composed first-time strike from 10 yards out.
In between, Marmoush tucked away a smart finish after Ilkay Gundogan’s perfectly weighted pass sliced through the Newcastle defense.
His rapid-fire treble is now the fourth-quickest in Premier League history for a City player, with Sergio Agüero holding the record for the fastest, scoring in just nine minutes in 2015.
Substitute James McAtee added a fourth goal for City, finishing a flick-on from makeshift captain Erling Haaland.
Despite missing key defenders Manuel Akanji, Ruben Dias, and Nathan Ake, the performance harked back to the dominant City of recent years, providing the ideal preparation for Wednesday’s crucial Champions League clash with Real Madrid.
Guardiola will be hoping that the knock Haaland suffered four minutes from time, which forced him to leave the pitch early, won’t turn out to be serious.
For Newcastle, defeat at the Etihad was all too familiar – they have now lost 16 consecutive matches at the stadium and have failed to score on their last six visits.
