City beat Brighton at Wembley; now 12 games from taking four trophies
Sunday 7 April 2019 07:29, UK
Manchester City took a step closer to an unprecedented quadruple on Saturday, edging past Brighton and into the FA Cup final with a 1-0 win at Wembley.
Gabriel Jesus scored the semi-final's only goal, heading home in the third minute.
City were not at their flowing best and had Aymeric Laporte to thank for a vital clearance from under his own bar in the second half. However, they found a way to clinch their 22nd win in their last 23 matches across all competitions and book a spot in the showpiece final on May 18.
"I am happy to be in the final," said City boss Pep Guardiola afterwards. "We extend our season by one more week and we are happy for that."
Report: Jesus fires City into FA Cup final
Man City 1-0 Brighton - how it happened
There will be little time for celebration, though, with the League Cup winners immediately turning attentions to battles on two other fronts.
City will be staying in London to prepare for their Tuesday night trip to Tottenham's new stadium for the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final.
Guardiola's side beat Spurs 1-0 at Wembley in a Premier League away game earlier this season and will be aiming to take a positive result back to the Etihad Stadium - having crashed out to Liverpool at the same stage of the competition last year after losing the first leg of that tie 3-0 at Anfield.
City will then return to the capital at the weekend for Sunday's Sky Live Premier League game away at Crystal Palace, where they will be looking to reclaim top spot from title rivals Liverpool, who host Chelsea on Sky Sports later that afternoon.
The hectic schedule doesn't let up, with back-to-back Premier League and Champions League clashes with Tottenham followed by a Premier League Manchester derby at Old Trafford.
City's win over Brighton was their 52nd match of 2018/19 and, although fatigue will be a concern for Guardiola during the run-in, he can at least be relieved to call on a near-fully-fit squad for the upcoming crunch contests.
There are concerns over Kyle Walker, who limped out of the FA Cup semi-final with what looked like a hamstring problem, while Sergio Aguero was again absent from the squad completely due to a tight leg muscle.
[Sergio Aguero] is much, much better. He hasn’t trained but we will see tomorrow about Tuesday (against Tottenham) or Crystal Palace.
But Guardiola said after the match his star striker is nearing a return and could be ready for Tuesday or Sunday, while left-back Benjamin Mendy is now back from his long-term knee problem and impressed during his 79-minute run-out on Saturday.
Fabian Delph (knock) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (hamstring) are the only other players in the treatment room.
So will they pull off the quadruple?
There are now 12 games standing between Manchester City and glory in all four competitions open to them. But still, Guardiola is refusing to look beyond his team's next challenge.
"It's almost impossible to win the quadruple. Surviving is a miracle and it's nice to be there," he said after the FA Cup win. "My opinion is that nobody has done it so why can we do it? It is almost impossible to achieve everything - that is the truth.
My opinion is that nobody has done it so why can we do it? It is almost impossible to achieve everything - that is the truth.
"We are losing players every game with tiredness or injuries but still we will try to do it. It's incredible what these players have done so far, and we are going to try and win every game until the end."
History and the odds of probability may still be stacked against them but with every victory Manchester City take a step closer to a place in history. On this run-in, though, as Guardiola is aware, any slip-up at this stage of the season could be decisive...
