Manchester City vs Chelsea Preview

After crashing out of the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday, Manchester City will turn their attention to qualifying for the FA Cup final when they take on Chelsea at Wembley this Saturday.

The Cityzens were on course for another unprecedented treble when they faced Real Madrid in midweek but the penalty shootout heroics of Madrid goalkeeper Andriy Lunin means the best City can look forward to this season is the Premier League and FA Cup titles.

Saturday’s meeting will be the sixth consecutive season in which Pep Guardiola’s side have played in the last four of this competition and they are the first team to ever achieve that. However, City have been far from flawless at this stage throughout that streak (W2, L3), with one of those three defeats coming against Chelsea in 2020/21.

They can at least take heart from an ongoing eight-match unbeaten run in H2Hs (W6, D2) but with both draws coming this season they’ll have to work hard to avoid a European hangover to reach back-to-back FA Cup finals for just the third time in their history.

Meanwhile, Chelsea will look to continue their impressive run of form when they face City on Saturday. Mauricio Pochettino’s men made it eight games without defeat (W5, D3) last Monday when they beat Everton 6-0.

However, that run began after they lost the League Cup final on Wembley’s hallowed turf to Liverpool in February. That defeat perhaps acted as a turning point for manager Mauricio Pochettino and his expensively assembled squad. So banishing the demons of that defeat is next on the agenda for the Blues as they look to reach the FA Cup final.

They’re bound to be quietly confident of getting a result against City having won five consecutive semi-finals in this competition. Ironically, their last such defeat at this stage came back in 2012/13 against Manchester City. This defeat was part of an alarming run of losing five of the last seven H2Hs in this competition, including being knocked out by Guardiola’s side last year.