With a place in the final sealed, Pep Guardiola was more than happy to end their three consecutive semi-final defeats in the FA Cup.
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Manchester City comfortably got past Sheffield United 3-0 in a one-sided FA Cup semi-final. This result will mean a lot for the blue half of Manchester after ending a streak of three successive FA Cup semi-final losses. They will face either local city rivals Manchester United or Brighton in the final. Even though the end result seemed comfortable on Saturday, there were times in the first half when Man City had to dig deep to go ahead. In the second half, however, they ran the show as Riyad Mahrez went on to complete an impress hat-trick.
With a place in the final sealed, Pep Guardiola was more than happy to end their three consecutive semi-final defeats in the FA Cup. “It’s the fourth time in a row we are here and the last three against Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool we could not do it,” Guardiola, as quoted by their club’s website, said after the match. “Today we performed. Like I said in the press conference, this game is coming on the back of Bayern Munich, and we talked about how we have to try again and perform well – and they did really well with all the guys, the ones that came from the bench… everyone was perfect. I’m happy and really satisfied for all the Club to be after many years in the FA Cup final.”
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Guardiola then went on to praise the hero of the day Riyad Mahrez for his impressive outing. The Manchester City manager also revealed that Riyad Mahrez is “grumpy” when he is not on the pitch. “Always he’s grumpy with me when he doesn’t play,” joked Guardiola. “All the time, he makes me notice he’s grumpy. Today, no. He’s an exceptional player and his play was exceptional.”
“A biggest stage player who has the mentality to score goals. His composure for the penalty was important so we finished the first half 1-0 and the second and third were brilliant. It’s really good to be in the final. I’m so satisfied with Riyad because he loves to play football and he has given many things in these years and hopefully more in the future.”
Despite registering a comfortable 3-0 win, Pep Guardiola praised Sheffield United and informed how difficult it was to play them. “They had a chance in the first minute and in these types of games and against these types of opponents, we cannot press because always it’s longer balls. It’s important to be solid and not concede a goal. They are masters of the crosses and set-pieces; they are dangerous. We struggled for the first 15 to 20 minutes. In the first half we didn’t win one second ball,” he explained.
“At half-time, we adjusted some positions, and we won second balls when they played long balls, especially when McBurnie came on. We moved them well. We lacked a little bit to find Julian and Erling and they had to move behind a little bit to find the ball going into central positions. In general, it was a really good performance knowing where we came from three days ago.”
Manchester City headed into this game on the back of sealing their passage through to the semi-finals of the Champions League at the expense of German giants Bayern Munich. “The adrenaline we spent in that game (Bayern) was massive in all concepts and today from the first minute – even in the locker room – we saw it and it was ‘okay,, the guys are here’. Three years in a row, semi-finals we were out, out, out so to be the final is doubly satisfying,” the manager added.
