Bearing in mind they are trailing 5-0 from the first leg of this Champions League qualifying tie to say they were playing for pride is probably an understatement.
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Guardiola has benched 29-year-old England global Hart, citing concerns about his passing ability, and selected Argentine Willy Caballero for City’s first three games of the season.
Pep Guardiola’s decision to move for Barcelona shot-stopper Claudio Bravo, who is said to be in Manchester for a medical with the club, has only fueled rumours that Hart is on his way. Davy Klaassen netted the Dutch side’s only goal late in the contest once proceedings had already been wrapped up.
City’s longest serving player, who made his first appearance at this ground in 2006, had enough poise to save well from Nicolae Stanciu and Alexandru Tudorie before waving and blowing kisses to the crowd amid poignant moments at full-time.
But it’s also an end of an era for City with goalkeeper Joe Hart set to depart.
Cojocaru made further routine saves from Nolito and Delph as the match ambled towards half-time. At one stage as City prepared to take a corner he called John Stones over and had a heated debate with his centre back as to what should be happening.
Manchester City advanced to the group stage of the Champions League with a 6-0 aggregate defeat of Steaua Bucharest after winning 1-0 in their second-leg playoff match on Wednesday.
– Joe Hart completed all of his 16 passes against Steaua Bucharest, the only starting player to have a 100 per cent passing accuracy.
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The only blip on an otherwise smooth night was what looked like a hamstring injury to rising star Kelechi Iheanacho.
