Manchester City cruised into the fourth round of the FA Cup with a 3-0 win against Birmingham City on Sunday afternoon.

Two goals from Bernardo Silva and one from Phil Foden in the first-half did the damage for the Citizens, who were rarely troubled by the Championship strugglers.

Whilst the Portuguese winger will pick up a lot of the plaudits for his display, and two goals, against Aitor Karanka's side, the performance of Kyle Walker should not go unnoticed.

The Englishman was playing for the first time since recovering from the current viral outbreak and featured in an unfamiliar centre-back role in the first-half, but he was superb throughout the game.

As per SofaScore, the former Tottenham Hotspur man picked up a 7.5 rating for his display, with only Kevin De Bruyne, Silva and Foden rated higher.

The 30-year-old also enjoyed a staggering 133 touches during the game, completing 111/117 passes, which resulted in a hugely impressive 95% pass accuracy.

He also contributed one key pass, whilst five of his seven long balls found a Manchester City shirt.

Therefore, whilst Pep Guardiola has a plethora of options available to him at centre-back, with John Stones and Ruben Dias in particularly good form as of late, he is safe in the knowledge that Walker, who earns £110k per week at City, can do an excellent job there when relied upon.

It may also give the Spanish manager a selection headache ahead of the midweek game against Brighton when selecting a right-back, so perhaps we will see the in-form Joao Cancelo switch back to left-back as he did earlier in the season, in order to accommodate Walker against Graham Potter's side.

Either way, Walker's performance against Birmingham was extremely impressive and he deserves a lot of credit for his versatility in defence.

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