Norwich City 0-3 Manchester City

A sublime strike from Sergio Aguero opened the scoring before Kelechi Iheanacho and Kevin de Bruyne completed the scoring to underline the City’s progress.

There is a growing clamour among the club’s supporters for the Nigeria worldwide to play a more prominent role as their title bid under Pellegrini struggles for consistency, but Iheanacho is keen to do his talking on the field.

The home side are the 4/1 underdogs this week, while an away win for Man City is offered at 3/4.

But he had warned Norwich fans that Premier League survival is far more important that any trip down Wembley Way, having made seven changes from the team which had made it five unbeaten games at home against Southampton in their last match.

Norwich have no fresh injury concerns, but Matt Jarvis could see game-time, even if he starts the game from the bench.

They all want to play in all the games.

A quarter of an hour into the match City’s priceless striker picked up the ball in an innocuous midfield position but then pressed the accelerator, darted between Graham Dorrans and kept his feet as Russell Martin slid in to try and halt his run.

“For the moment I am very happy with the squad”, Pellegrini said.

The striker had already forced another save from Ruddy with a low volley, before making City’s second thanks to Norwich’s generous defending.

“If you ask me, I always prefer to play in all the competitions”, Pellegrini said.

Ruddy may feel he could have done better with the Citizens’ third, but the recalled keeper foiled Iheanacho, Aleksandar Kolarov and Bersant Celina.

According to BBC Sport, Manuel Pellegrini believed that his team’s performance was “very good and very aggressive from the beginning of the game”.

Only a superb Bennett tackle on the edge of the six-yard box denied Iheanacho his second goal of the afternoon. Jesus Navas hit the bar with a long-range shot from the right before De Bruyne, with a touch of sublime quality on the ball, sent defender Ryan Bennett one way and then the other before squeezing a shot past Ruddy to put the result beyond any doubt.