Swansea 1-3 Man City: Ugly, sluggish Premier League side fail to shake off one-man team tag as Pep Guardiola's side avoid Carabao Cup scare in Wales

If Pep Guardiola was hoping to ease the sense that his side is too reliant on Erling Haaland, then Manchester City's trip to Swansea would only be viewed as a success through squinted eyes.

For the better part of an hour, this performance was ugly, sluggish and unconvincing, all of which is entirely irrelevant in the light of progress to the Carabao Cup quarter-finals but perhaps a concern for those with vested interests in City.

For make no mistake, Guardiola invited embarrassment by making 10 changes to the team most recently used in the Premier League and might have suffered one, too, had the inertia of the first half here persisted into the second. 

It didn't and City avoided the fate of Nottingham Forest in the previous round through late goals from Omar Marmoush and Rayan Cherki.

But it was a scare and at this point, we should discuss Swansea City. Placed 13th in the Championship and fending off local grumbles about lost identities from when we knew them as a top-flight outfit, they were superb until they ran out of steam.

In fact, they led early through a screamer, scored by Goncalo Franco, missed a great chance for 2-0 after the umpteenth careless pass from City's defence, and then gradually succumbed to gravity. Jeremy Doku levelled late in the half, before Marmoush and Cherki removed the jeopardy altogether.

The scoreline was ultimately comfortable but, for Guardiola, any satisfaction will be balanced by questions about complacency. They are as applicable to him as those limp souls who contested the first half.

The manager's culpability was self-explanatory – of those who started the defeat against Villa, only Oscar Bobb was retained, so clearly this was designated a task for the second and third strings or men feeling their way towards full fitness.

In the case of the latter, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov and Rayan Cherki all began a game for the first time since the September international break and none looked sharp.

Ait-Nouri's bleakest point came in the creation of the first goal when he was easily beaten on the fly by Josh Key, and that blemish rolled into the combined carelessness of Cherki and Bobb, who each had Franco in clear view and neither tracked his run.

Franco's finish from the edge of the City area was sublime, but Guardiola will seethe at the footage - as with Matty Cash's winner for Villa at the weekend, when Bernardo Silva was so slow to close him down, it reeked of an unforced error.

The greater irritation here will come from knowing Franco's goal was not a blip in isolation on the night. Both before and after he scored, countless City passes had already been swallowed up by a mid-table Championship side.

All credit to Swansea on that front – they worked like dogs. They chased, squeezed, pressed and repeatedly killed the lines to Omar Marmoush. In Ethan Galbraith, once of Manchester United's academy and more recently Leyton Orient, they also had the best player of the first half.

But City also made it easy for them. Look no further than a golden chance for 2-0 when Khusanov, under limited pressure, rolled directly into the path of Melker Widell. 

Only James Trafford's fingertips kept the drama from becoming a crisis, with the benefit amplified by the subsequent upturn.

First, Cherki hit the post on 37 minutes and then Doku got the leveller, after cutting in from the byline and using his ingenuity to beat Key on the run. His finish was helped significantly by a large deflection off Cameron Burgess.

While that eased some tension, Guardiola still felt compelled to make a triple change shortly after the hour. That meant removing Ait-Nouri and Khusanov, as well as 18-year-old Divine Mukasa, who is forecast to be star but had only a limited impact in his second senior appearance of the season.

With Phil Foden, John Stones and Josko Gvardiol introduced, City's tempo increased. Their control of the second half had already been established by then, but it was punctuated when Marmoush was finally given something to chase by Cherki after a five-pass, four-man blitz on the fringe of Swansea's box. 

The touch to lose Ishe Samuels-Smith was crafty and the strike to beat Andy Fisher at his near post was better.

Cherki, who improved as the game went on, made it 3-1 in stoppage time with a low roller past Fisher.