Courtesy: FA Cup/X
On Sunday, April 27, Manchester City defeated Nottingham Forest in the second semi-final of the FA Cup with a 2-0 scoreline at the Wembley Stadium in London. Rico Lewis and Josko Gvardiol found their names on the scoresheet either side of the half, to help Manchester City reach yet another FA Cup final, and in the title clash, they will be facing Crystal Palace next month.
In the FA Cup semi-final, Manchester City couldn’t have gotten a better start as Rico Lewis opened the scoring in just the 2nd minute, thanks to an exceptional 20-yard pass from Mateo Kovacic. While City didn’t create any other clear cut chances in the first half, they were quite dominant in possession, not allowing Forest defence to have much breathing space, while their attack was literally non-existent.
The start of the second half saw Manchester City make the scoreline 2-0 after Josko Gvardiol powered a header into the back of the net in the 51st minute from Omar Marmoush’s inswinging corner. After going down by two goals, Nottingham Forest sprung into action in their pursuit of goals, but they could only hit the woodwork three times, twice via Morgan Gibbs-White, which meant that Ederson and Manchester City managed to keep a clean sheet on the night, and win the FA Cup semi-finals.
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I said many times the season hasn't been good: Pep Guardiola
Despite reaching the FA Cup final, and finding themselves quite close to UEFA Champions League qualification, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola stated that their season is a disappointing one regardless of what happens in the next month. He was quoted as saying, as per BBC Sport, “The damage would be minimum. It's not going to confuse [that] the season has been good. The club has to take the decision, the right ones, so next season will be better.”
“We are a thousand million points behind Liverpool. I said many times the season hasn't been good because we define if the season is good or not with the Premier League. This season it could not happen, at the same time we tried to avoid the damage. We have to be calm now and recover,” he added.
