Manchester City 4-0 Liverpool: Haaland hat-trick sends City back to Wembley

The second half started in the same way as the first, with Semenyo scoring a lovely dink, before Haaland fired home his hat-trick to confirm a quick return to Wembley for Manchester City. A terrible day for Liverpool was only made worse after Mohamed Salah missed a penalty in his first game since announcing his departure in the Summer. As it happened Liverpool started the brighter of the two teams, and had a few early sights of the Manchester City goal.

Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike were combining well and both had early efforts that they failed to make the most of. The best chance of the opening period of the game fell to Mohamed Salah. He latched onto a long ball from Giorgi Mamardashvili and looked set to fire home but the Egyptian dallied on the ball and allowed Abdukodir Khusanov to use his incredible pace to recover and get a challenge in.

At the other end, Rayan Cherki then had a huge chance of his own. The usual supreme technician failed to control a lovely threaded pass from Bernardo Silva and Mamardashvili was able to come out and smother the ball. The chances continued to fall Liverpool’s way, as Ekitike passed up another decent opportunity.

Rodri was unable to get the ball under control in his own penalty area and the ball landed at the Frenchman’s feet, whose powerful effort blazed over the bar. On 36 minutes, the game had its first huge moment, as Nico O’Reilly, fresh off the back of his double in the Carabao Cup final two weeks ago, was brought down in the Liverpool box by Virgil Van Dijk, and Michael Oliver pointed to the spot to award the hosts a penalty. Up stepped Erling Haaland from 12 yards and he sent the goalkeeper the wrong way to give Manchester City the lead in the first FA Cup quarter-final of the weekend.