FA Cup
AUBAMEYANG’S BRACE FIRES GUNNERS INTO FA CUP FINAL
Manchester City earned a momentous reprieve in one competition last week but in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley with only 90,000 empty seats as judge and jury, they could not escape their sentence.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport might have allowed them back into the Champions League for the next two seasons but Arsenal showed them no mercy here.
Their shock 2-0 victory was a triumph of uncharacteristic resilience in defence, led by a brilliant display from David Luiz, and of clinical finishing from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who scored goals in each half to dump City out of the competition they won last year by trouncing Watford in the final.
Arsenal will play either Manchester United or Chelsea in the final on August 1.
It was also the most significant victory yet for Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta, who has only been in charge at the Emirates since December but is already effecting improvements in attitude and style. This one was a victory for the apprentice over his old master as Arteta plotted a way past his former boss, Pep Guardiola.
Arsenal are languishing in ninth place in the Premier League but suddenly their season has new life. They beat champions Liverpool on Wednesday and this result stunned English football. City were widely expected to win this match and claim the FA Cup as their consolation prize for losing the Premier League but they spurned chance after chance and never looked at their best.
City will now be able to pour everything into their pursuit of the Champions League but if they show the same vulnerability at the back in the second leg of their second round match against Real Madrid as they did here against Arsenal, the Spanish champions will fancy their chances of overhauling their first leg deficit. Overwhelmed by Liverpool in the league, this defeat was a rude shock for Guardiola and his team.
The empty stadium seemed particularly stark here. FA Cup semi-final day is usually a riot of colour and a feast of fan expectation and nerves. It is a day out as much as a football match, a day to dream of the final and sing about putting the champagne on ice. Not this time. Not now. Here, there were groundsmen forking the pitch and music echoing around an empty Wembley. It is a necessary measure for now but that does not stop it feeling all wrong.
Even with nine substitutes, Arteta could not find any room for either Mesut Ozil or Matteo Guendouzi in his squad. It is starting to feel increasingly likely that neither will be at the club next season, although finding someone to pay Ozil’s wages has always been put forward as the biggest stumbling block to the Germany midfielder moving on.
Arteta stayed true to the same system he had used in Wednesday’s victory over champions Liverpool at the Emirates and lined up with Kieran Tierney on the left side of a back three. It is the system that seems to get the best out of David Luiz – or do most to protect him, depending on your point of view – and after some heart-stopping early exchanges, Arsenal used it well.
Arsenal nearly handed City an early lead in the ninth minute with the kind of comedy defending that has become one of their hallmarks. Luiz played the ball square across his own box to Shkodran Mustafi who tried to step inside Raheem Sterling as Sterling closed him down. It had trouble written all over it.
Sterling dispossessed Mustafi easily six yards out and it appeared Arsenal were about to be severely embarrassed. Sterling tried to play the ball inside to give Gabriel Jesus a tap-in but Mustafi’s blushes were spared when the pass was intercepted and the danger cleared. It felt already as if Arsenal were in for a long evening.
Arteta’s side were starved of possession and defending with a degree of desperation. Kevin de Bruyne floated a ball to the back post, Riyad Mahrez nodded it back across goal and it was hacked clear before City could apply the finishing touch. By then, Kieran Tierney had already had to make a separate last-ditch clearance.
But after quarter of an hour, Arsenal should have taken the lead. Luiz has been roundly criticised since the restart but he received a ringing endorsement from Pep Guardiola last week when the City manager said he laughed when he heard pundits dismissing his talent. On cue, Luiz intercepted a long ball forward, chested it down, and played a slide-rule pass through to Aubameyang. Aubameyang was clean through but he hit his shot straight at Ederson, who saved it easily.
City did not learn from their escape though. A minute later, at the end of an 18-pass move that had started in Arsenal’s area and included ten players, Nicolas Pepe curled a ball across the City box to the back post. Aubameyang drifted away from Kyle Walker and met the ball as it dropped, clipping a right-footed half-volley past Ederson from a difficult angle. The keeper had no chance and the ball went in off the far post.
It was a brilliant finish to a superb move. It is easy to mock Arsenal’s talent for self-destruction but the goal was crafted from the courage to stick to their plan of playing the ball out from the back and beating the City press. Even though they had nearly come unstuck earlier, this time they had the skill and the confidence to work it perfectly.
Manchester City F.C. completed a domestic cup double on Saturday after a late strike from Antoine Semenyo secured a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Chelsea F.C. in the FA Cup Final.
The decisive moment arrived in the 72nd minute when the Ghana international produced a clever finish from close range, turning sharply before back-heeling the ball beyond Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sánchez after an inviting cross from Erling Haaland.
Semenyo’s goal transformed what had been a tense and cautious contest into an entertaining finale as both sides pushed aggressively in search of goals during the closing stages.
City nearly doubled their advantage when Rayan Cherki forced an excellent save from Sánchez, while Matheus Nunes struck the post as Pep Guardiola’s side intensified the pressure.
Chelsea also searched desperately for an equaliser but were unable to break through City’s disciplined defence.
The triumph handed Manchester City their eighth FA Cup title and completed an impressive domestic cup double following their League Cup success earlier in March.
For Semenyo, the winning goal marked one of the biggest moments of his career, with the forward delivering when it mattered most on English football’s grandest domestic stage.
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Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick as Manchester City crushed Liverpool 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday to cruise into the FA Cup semi-finals.
Champions Liverpool played well in the opening half-hour with Mohamed Salah wasting an early chance, but once Haaland had scored from the spot in the 37th minute after a foul on Nico O’Reilly, their resistance crumbled.
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk conceded the penalty with a rash challenge, and there was little the Dutch defender could do as City played scintillating attacking football for the remainder of the game.
His blond hair swinging behind him in a ponytail, Haaland netted his second two minutes into first-half stoppage time with a well-placed header from an excellent Antoine Semenyo cross.
Semenyo got on the scoresheet himself five minutes after the break, latching on to a ball in behind from Rayan Cherki and chipping it beautifully past Giorgi Mamardashvili, and Haaland completed his treble with a shot off the underside of the crossbar in the 57th minute.
Liverpool’s woes continued when Mohamed Salah, who is set to leave the club at the end of the season, capped off a poor performance by having his penalty saved by James Trafford, snuffing out any faint hopes Liverpool might have had of a comeback
As the game turned into a victory parade, many Liverpool fans started heading for the exits, and City manager Pep Guardiola rang the changes, replacing Haaland with Omar Marmoush, the Norwegian striker receiving a standing ovation as he left the field.
In the other quarter-finals, Chelsea take on Port Vale and Southampton host Arsenal later on Saturday, with Leeds United travelling to West Ham United on Sunday.
The semi-finals will take place at Wembley, and Haaland is relishing a return to the stadium.
“First half, we struggled a bit, but then we after around 30 minutes we kept going and in the end it’s an amazing game. Another Wembley trip for us is amazing and important,” he told broadcaster TNT.
“I think (my form this season) has been a bit too much up and down, which is not good enough. I cannot keep on thinking about what I could have done differently or what didn’t happen, or what happened. I have to think about the next game.”
-Reuters
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Arsenal will be without injured England attacker Noni Madueke when they face Southampton in Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final, but Martin Odegaard and Jurrien Timber may return from injury, manager Mikel Arteta said.
Madueke was among the 11 Arsenal players who withdrew from international duty last month over injuries and fitness management, as the club eye their first Premier League title since 2004.
“When you have to communicate the state of every player, we are always honest and a medical decision had to be made. That was clear what the conclusion was,” Arteta told reporters on Friday.
“It makes us so proud that we had that many players in the national team. Players are desperate to play for their nation. I know how important it is to them. We are fully supportive of that and when we can do it, we do it.”
Madueke picked up a knee injury during England’s friendly with Uruguay, missing the game against Japan. But Arteta said his condition was not as bad as a knee injury that kept him out for six weeks.
Martin Zubimendi, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Timber, Leandro Trossard, Eberechi Eze, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice were unavailable for their countries.
Arteta did not disclose how many of them will be available for Saturday’s game, as Arsenal look to shake off last month’s League Cup final loss to Manchester City with a return to Wembley in the FA Cup semi-finals.
“We’re in a position right now where we need to make the strongest line-up we possibly can to win every competition,” he said. ” We are two or three games away from the FA Cup and we know how important that competition is for us.”
-Reuters
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