Abdukodir Khusanov threatened to make headlines for all the wrong reasons on his Manchester City debut but only an offside flag denied Omar Marmoush a dream beginning with the club in an entertaining 3-1 Premier League win over Chelsea.
Pep Guardiola handed two of his three new players starts at the Etihad Stadium, with fellow new boy Victor Reis an unused substitute.
Here, the PA news agency looks at how the latest arrivals got on.
Abdukodir Khusanov
The 20-year-old had a horrible start as he gifted Chelsea a goal and got booked inside the opening four minutes. Trevor Chalobah’s long ball should have been routine to deal with. Instead, having waved Manuel Akanji off, Khusanov tried to head the ball back to Ederson but a terrible connection allowed Nicolas Jackson to square for Noni Madueke to score an easy goal. Seconds later, Khusanov lost the ball and was booked for fouling Cole Palmer as he tried to win it back. Khusanov, who cost City £33.6million – 18 months after Lens paid £84,000 to bring him from Belarusian side Energetik-BGU – barely speaks English and has only had a couple of training sessions with his new team-mates, and certainly looked like a man thrown in at the deep end before gradually settling down. Khusanov started the second half but was replaced by John Stones in the 52nd minute, receiving an embrace from Guardiola.
Omar Marmoush
The Egypt forward almost had a dream start to his City debut as, seconds in, he ran through on goal to bring a save out of Robert Sanchez, although the flag then went up as he was offside when he ran on to Matheus Nunes’s pass. That flag would become a theme in the first half. When Marmoush had the ball in the net in the 34th minute he was offside as he followed up Ilkay Gundogan’s shot. If he had left it for Bernardo Silva, City would surely have been level. But the 25-year-old, who scored 20 goals in 26 for Eintracht Frankfurt before making his £59million switch, looked lively and offered City something different from the wider positions with his direct running. Marmoush went close to putting City ahead in the 67th minute, angling a shot narrowly wide from the edge of the box. Soon after he was replaced by Kevin De Bruyne.
