Manchester City ended a mixed week by scraping through to the FA Cup final.
Having seen title rivals Arsenal and Liverpool both drop Premier League points on Sunday, City were then dumped out of the Champions League by Real Madrid on Wednesday.
But thanks to a late Bernardo Silva goal — and some wastefulness by their opponents — a tired-looking City still have a shot at a domestic double.
The Athletic’s Sam Lee and Liam Twomey run through the key talking points…
Rooting for Nicolas Jackson has been an emotional rollercoaster for Chelsea supporters all season, and this day of individual ups, downs, twists and turns at Wembley encapsulated the exhilaration and exasperation of it all better than most.
In many respects, Jackson provided exactly what head coach Mauricio Pochettino was looking for at the tip of his 4-2-3-1 system. He led the press with intelligence and intensity, playing his part in forcing valuable turnovers in City’s defensive third. His direct runs in behind repeatedly stressed Pep Guardiola’s high line. Most of all, the bulk of his hold-up and link-up play — spinning defenders, laying the ball off for midfield runners — was absolutely exceptional.
But when the video highlight packages of this semi-final are compiled, those things are unlikely to survive the edit. More prominent will be his bizarre decision not to shoot after rounding Stefan Ortega, a low shot and far-post header that were both relatively tame in good scoring positions, and his meek fall in search of a penalty when running into the box with Kyle Walker.
Jackson has produced plenty in his debut season in English football to suggest he is well worth Chelsea persisting with in the long term, and mark him out as one of the better-value signings of the Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital recruitment drive.
But on days like this, you often live or die by the ruthlessness of your strikers and Jackson’s wastefulness cost Chelsea dearly.
(Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
Liam Twomey
Result all that matters for City today
You would have to say that City got away with one here. They probably did enough to win the previous two league games against Chelsea, even if the Londoners played some of their best football of the season in 4-4 and 1-1 draws. Here, though, Chelsea can feel very sorry for themselves because they had the chances to win this by some margin, with City below their best.
City, though, should surely not be too worried. The most important thing by far today was progressing to the final, when the tired Champions League legs will be a million miles away. They would not have wanted to go out of two competitions in a week by any means, even if Wednesday night was decided by a penalty shoot-out, and this game was surely marked by the physical and mental knock-on effects. It was not pretty for City but they will feel a lot better about themselves on the way back north tonight.
Sam Lee
City look like having not much in the tank
“We travel and try to smell who feels better,” Guardiola said on Friday, “who recovers better from Madrid, because you talk with them (and they say), ‘No I’m fine Pep, I’m fine’, but at the end you never know. Sometimes you recover better than others, and everyone is ready to battle again.” City, of course, played 120 minutes against Real Madrid on Wednesday night, so the Saturday scheduling here did them no favours.
The FA Cup semi-final has traditionally been the time when City’s quest for all three trophies catches up with them: three years ago they lost to Chelsea after beating Borussia Dortmund in Europe, two years ago they lost to Liverpool after a battle with Atletico Madrid. Last year they faced Sheffield United, then a Championship side, affording them a bit more wiggle room for Guardiola to make changes and give rest to those who needed it.
Here, though, he went very strong, surely because Kyle Walker, John Stones, Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden did not start last weekend against Luton, affording them a little more energy in the tank, in theory. City did look off their best for a lot of the game, though, with several unforced errors during the build-up, and errant passes in the final third, disrupting their game. The fact that City don’t play again until Thursday night, when it’s Brighton away in the league, means that they should look a bit fresher next time they are in action.
Without having to plan for a Champions League semi against Bayern Munich, they can focus on that Brighton trip and then Nottingham Forest on the Sunday, with a free week in the run-up to Wolves at home. So there is respite in the calendar on the horizon but this was the last push of a block of games focused around progressing on all three fronts.
Sam Lee
Chelsea got the best-case scenario… and still lost
Almost everything that Chelsea hoped to see in City’s performance at Wembley came to pass. They were uncharacteristically sloppy in possession, inconsistent in their pressing intensity and gave off the general air of a team still slightly preoccupied by their heartbreaking Champions League exit at the hands of Real Madrid in midweek.
Kevin De Bruyne in particular looked almost nothing like Kevin De Bruyne in imagination or execution, and there were real signs of fatigue from Guardiola’s team in the second half.
For their part, Chelsea enacted their game plan about as well as anyone could have expected. They pressed City into mistakes and were aggressive advancing the ball on the turnover, breaking their opponents’ offside trap more than enough times to score several goals. Their defensive structure largely held firm and they did not wilt from the challenge.
And yet because of all those things, this type of match arguably exposed the gulf between these clubs even more brutally than most. Chelsea performed close to their best (at least until the final third), City performed much closer to their worst, and Guardiola’s men still had a little too much.
Mainly it was about composure, and not just from Jackson. Chelsea broke behind City in crossing positions on too many occasions to keep track, but the final ball was invariably too slow or too wayward to reach its target.
Chelsea needed absolutely everything to go their way at Wembley. City needed only to do what great teams do when well below their best: enough.
Liam Twomey
What did the managers say?
“It is unacceptable, really unacceptable,” Man City boss Pep Guardiola said on the BBC after his team’s win, clearly unhappy with the scheduling of the match. “Coventry, United and Chelsea don’t play in the week and let us play today. Next week on Friday would have been better, instead of putting it on Saturday to have less recovery.
“It’s impossible. For the health of the players. It is not normal, it’s not normal. Because we won I have the courage to tell you, it’s not possible. To go 120 minutes… the emotion from Madrid, the way we lost and everything. I know in this country (the FA Cup) is special for many things but it’s the health of the players. I don’t understand how we survived today.”
What next for City?
Thursday, April 25: Brighton & Hove Albion (A), Premier League, 8pm BST, 3pm ET
Back to the Premier League bread and butter for City after almost two weeks of Champions League and FA Cup matters, and a trip to face a Brighton side they are unbeaten against in five meetings, including a 2-1 win in October’s reverse fixture.
What next for Chelsea?
Tuesday, April 23: Arsenal (A), Premier League, 8pm BST, 3pm ET
Chelsea ended a run of three defeats in a row to cross-London rivals Arsenal with a 2-2 draw in October’s reverse fixture — although it could have been so much better as they were two goals up with 14 minutes of the 90 to go.
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(Top photo: Rob Newell – CameraSport via Getty Images)
