Pep Guardiola and Erling Haaland's campaign hasn't gone to plan
Pep Guardiola and Erling Haaland's campaign hasn't gone to plan
Pep Guardiola will be desperate to continue his self-confessed love affair with the FA Cup as he attempts to rescue Manchester City’s season.
Guardiola has admitted that the last nine games of the departing champions’ Premier League campaign will define his ninth season at the Etihad, given that City went into the international break in fifth place knowing that Newcastle will go above them if the newly-crowned Carabao Cup winners take three points from their game in hand. But while making sure City qualify for the Champions League for a 15th successive season remains the priority, the chance to wrap sky blue and white ribbons around the 19th trophy of his reign will also be focusing his mind.
“I was not born in this country,” said Guardiola last year. “But when I arrived I knew how important the competition is. You will not find one person in this club who doesn’t love it.”
Never has any manager who has dominated the Premier League devoted so much energy making sure his team also gone full steam for every other trophy. City are still the only club to have lifted the title, FA Cup, EFL Cup and Community Shield in the same season - an achievement Sir Alex Ferguson once described as “impossible.”
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They have also emulated Manchester United’s Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble. Between 2018 and 2021 they won four successive Carabao Cups. And last season, they became the first club in the 135-year history of English league football to be crowned champions in four successive seasons.
City have been FA Cup winners twice under the Catalan - and when they lifted the trophy in 2019, their 6-0 evisceration of Watford in the final equalled a record score set by Bury 116 years earlier. Yet deep down Guardiola will be disappointed that it hasn’t been even more considering his team have reached the semi-finals no fewer than seven times in eight seasons.
The only time they failed to make it to Wembley was in 2018, when Guardiola discovered that the oldest competition can still deliver a bloody nose to the very best when his 10-man team lost 1-0 at Wigan in the fifth round.
Pep Guardiola lifts the FA Cup at Wembley
Pep has led City to the FA Cup before - can he do so again?
Last year, City became the first club to reach the last four for six successive seasons on their way to suffering another shock of sorts when they were beaten by rivals Manchester United in the final.
When Guardiola and their players digested their achievements after that game, there was an admission that they had spent too much energy celebrating their historic fourth title and not enough preparing to face their biggest rivals.
This weekend, Bournemouth stand between Guardiola and another trip to Wembley. The Cherries tasted their first-ever win over City in November when they won 2-1 at the Vitality Stadium - and Andoni Iraola’s side will fancy their chances of beating the Blues again on Sunday.
Bournemouth have never gone beyond the last eight. Their most famous FA Cup victory was arguably when Harry Redknapp’s third division side knocked holders Manchester United out in the third round in 1984.
Champions League commitments saw Guardiola pick under-strength teams for semi-final meetings with Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal in recent years. This time there are no such concerns.
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