As Man City swat aside Fulham in a dramatic FA Cup weekend, “Typical City” is redefined

MANCHESTER, England — Manchester City don’t do cup upsets. Not recently, anyway.

And so, while Manchester United were dumped out of the FA Cup by Middlesbrough and both Chelsea and West Ham were made to struggle past Plymouth Argyle and Kidderminster Harriers, Pep Guardiola’s team allowed Fulham to dream for all of 92 seconds.

That was the time it took for Ilkay Gundogan to equalise after Fabio Carvalho, so close to joining Liverpool on deadline day, had put the Championship leaders ahead in the fourth minute at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday. John Stones scored with a header soon afterwards before a double from Riyad Mahrez in the second half, one a penalty, completed a comfortable 4-1 victory.

“If you don’t want to believe me, don’t believe me, but I know which team we faced and which team we beat,” Guardiola said after the match. “They are one of the most scoring teams in Europe. A top side, incredible team and if they continue playing that way they will play in the Premier League next season.

“We had to fight and run and defend well. After two weeks off, it’s always a mystery what you find but I’m very pleased to be in the next round because this round showed us how difficult the FA Cup is — many surprises.”

There was a time not so long ago when a cup draw against lower league opposition would have had some City fans fearing the worst.

The “Typical City” tag — a moniker used through the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s to describe their knack of always finding a way of disappointing their supporters — is long gone, replaced by a ruthlessly efficient winning machine built by Abu Dhabi and fine-tuned by Guardiola.

Typical City means something different now, and in swatting aside Fulham they were Guardiola’s version of of the nickname. Fulham couldn’t cope with the movement and intricate passing of Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish and Mahrez, and by the end they were reduced to dutifully lining up in their rows of…