Guangzhou E-Power swept aside Meizhou Hakka 5:1 in the 20th round of League One on 22 August. The visitors, already top of the table with 49 points, took the match by the scruff of the neck and never looked back. Meizhou, sitting 15th on 21 points, offered little resistance after the opening exchanges.
It was Nikao who set the tone, firing home in the 31st minute before adding two more within a minute of each other at 42 and 43. The home side had their first yellow card just before half-time when Yang Chaosheng went off with a booking. By then Guangzhou were camped in the final third, and Meizhou's defence simply could not contain the waves of attack.
The second half brought further reinforcement for the visitors. Nikao completed his hat-trick in the 66th minute, and O. Camara added a fourth in the 82nd before Zhang Enqi and Joao Carlos rounded off the scoring in stoppage time. Meizhou managed a consolation goal of their own, but it felt like a courtesy call rather than a response.
The statistics tell the story without embellishment. Guangzhou registered 10 shots on target with a 71 per cent accuracy rate, while Meizhou mustered just two on target at 22 per cent. Both sides played roughly equal possession—52 to 48—but the contrast in efficiency was stark. Big chances created stood at 2:1 in favour of the visitors.
Meizhou's recent run has been unkind. They lost 0:1 to Guangxi Hengchen on 15 August and had already dropped points against Suzhou Dongwu and Yanbian Longding. This result does little to shift them from the lower reaches of the table, and the gap to the leaders now stretches to 28 points.