NEW YORK CITY FC 2, ST MIRREN 0
Goals by David Villa and Tony Taylor ensured that Jason Kreis’ side started their pre-season campaign in Manchester with a comfortable win against St Mirren.
This was New York City’s first official game, played at the Manchester City Football Academy against Scottish Premier League strugglers St Mirren who included James Dayton, an on-loan Oldham Athletic winger, in their starting line-up.
A big round of applause was reserved for David Villa as New York City captain who tried his luck within the first five minutes.
Sebastien Velasquez tested Marian Kello in the St Mirren goal as City mixed it with their SPL opposition.
Villa wasn’t to be denied, though, and he showed his quality while opened the scoring in the 33rd minute after stroking home a cross from the left.
The City captain was one of nine changes at half time as Kreis rang the changes ahead of their second game on Sunday against Brondby.
Second half sub Tony Taylor doubled City’s lead in the 69th minute after latching onto a long ball from Kwame Watson-Siriboe and he could have helped himself to a second goal two minutes later but shot straight at Kello.
Taylor remained a danger to St Mirren, with another late shot that went wide and he failed to cleanly connect with a Pablo Alvarez cross late on as City ran out easy winners of their first pre-season test.
City will play their second pre-season game at the Manchester City Football Academy on Sunday against Brondby with a 12pm kick-off.