Manchester City’s hopes of securing a first ever quadruple in English football were dashed as Chelsea beat them to advance to the FA Cup final.
Pep Guardiola was criticised after the game for rotating his squad, however this was still a very strong side.
“What can I say? When you have two and half days to recover and you play away and you have to travel on the train for three hours,” he said. “But don’t say we don’t pay attention. A team that arrives in the final stages of this competition couldn’t say that. This team won four Carabao Cups so just say we lost the game. But it’s a poor argument. You wouldn’t get to semi-finals of the FA Cup and Carabao Cup if we’re not paying attention. We always play to win and congratulations to Chelsea.”
Guardiola added: “These guys in 10 months have fought in every game like never I’ve seen before. We lose a game against a top side and now we don’t pay attention. We respect a lot the FA Cup.”
From the starting eleven, only Zack Steffen was signed for less than double digits and their supposedly weakened team still cost more than their opponent’s, so even if Guardiola could have picked a stronger line-up, they weren’t exactly rolling over for Chelsea.
Instead, Chelsea simply outplayed them. City had more of the ball, but Chelsea did more when they did have it, with City struggling to effectively shut the Londoners down. In this video, we take a look at what went wrong for City.
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