RYAN Christie described as “pretty mental” the spell which saw Manchester City score three times in seven first-half minutes.

Cherries had kept the Premier League and European champions at bay, until Jeremy Doku broke the deadlock after a neat give-and-go just before the half-hour mark.

By half-time, it was 3-0 as both Bernardo Silva and Manuel Akanji got on the scoresheet.

That is how it stayed until 64 minutes, when substitute Phil Foden netted, only for Luis Sinisterra to hit back for Cherries.

City added further gloss in the closing stages through Silva and Nathan Ake, to run out 6-1 winners. It extends their staggering winning run at Etihad Stadium to 22 matches, since the start of 2023.

Bournemouth Echo: Jeremy Doku put Man City aheadJeremy Doku put Man City ahead (Image: PA)

Reflecting on the defeat, Christie, who played the full 90 minutes, told the Daily Echo: “I think for the first half an hour, for the most part, we did quite well.

“You know you’re going to come here and concede chances, just because of how good they are as players.

“But for the most part, I think we did alright, the first half an hour.

“Then you blink and you’re 3-0 down, it’s pretty mental.

“But that’s maybe the frustrating thing, because we concede one which is hard to stop, but is kind of a cheap goal with the bodies we’ve got around the ball.

“Then as soon as you concede one here, you also need to lock up shop and try to get to half-time 1-0 down, whereas it goes two and three very quickly.

“Then it’s near impossible to get back into the game.

“In the second half we went to go man-to-man. Obviously they’re good, so they’re going to punish you.

“But I thought second half was better and we kind of matched them definitely in certain spells.”

Speaking after the game, boss Andoni Iraola felt Cherries became too comfortable defending deep with the game goalless.

“You come here and try and dodge falling into a really deep block,” explained Christie.

“You want to try and have some sort of period in possession.

“I think we did that at times. We knew when we won the ball back, you need to be ultra composed to try and keep it. You know if you just give it back to them straightaway it’s going to be a long day.

“We did that for the most part. But it’s very, very hard not to fall into that low block, with how they move their players about and how clever they are.

“Even if you have 10 minute spells where you think it’s working and they’re very clever where they just change something and you need to adapt again.

“It’s tough, but for me they’re the best team in the world right now, so it’s a learning curve.”

Doku, a summer signing from Rennes, shone for City, providing a goal and four assists.

“He’s a sharp player,” said Christie.

“It just shows you, they win the treble last year and then they’ve still got the ability to go out and get a player like that. It sums up the power they have a club to go and get the best players in the world.

“Obviously from a winger’s point of view, he is lightning quick and caused us problems all day.

“We knew that’s what we were going to come up against. They’ve got that all over the park.

“I think they’ve only conceded one draw here in about a year, it just shows how lethal they are at home.”