City Watch: Blues through to the FA Cup final

Manchester City are into the FA Cup final. 

Apologies, spoiler alert… I never thought I’d be saying this towards the end of 2024, I think a lot of City fans were gearing themselves up for a tough season with no trophies at the end of the season, which to be honest, I wouldn’t have been unhappy with considering our success in recent years, but it is nice to know we’ve got a chance to win something this season.

So now I’ve spoiled the whole column by summing it up in one paragraph, let’s talk about the game on Saturday.

The Blues played Nottingham Forest on Sunday afternoon in what was the team’s seventh consecutive FA Cup Semi-Final. 

Having beaten us 1-0 at The City ground just a few weeks ago, I was quite nervous for this game, just because I knew the success of our season rather depended on the result.

I have to give credit to the Forest fans, they were absolutely exceptional, until about two minutes in when Rico Lewis buried the ball into the bottom left corner to quieten them down a bit. 

It was an incredibly well worked goal, and probably one of our best moves of the season. 

Going in at half-time, I was worried that it was only a one goal lead, I knew that our opponents would come out quickly in the second half.

Low and behold, just a minute into the second half, substitute Anthony Elanga missed a glaring opportunity to equalise. 

Despite Forest hitting the woodwork three times, City extended their lead through Josko Gvardiol from a corner, an uncommon route to goal for us.

On another day, Forest would have beaten us 3-2 from the missed chances, especially as Morgan Gibbs-White missed an open goal too, however, it just didn’t seem to be their day. 

On the way back home from the game, I spotted a few Forest fans with their heads in their hands at the station, and couldn’t help but relate to them for all the times we’ve fallen short.

It wasn’t our day to blow our chance though, as we now play Crystal Palace in the final on 17th May, our only chance at silverware this season. 

Palace will be a tough game though, they looked absolutely incredible against Aston Villa on Saturday, so fingers crossed it’s not a chance for Pep to overthink another final!

Meanwhile, in the league, the Blues play Wolves on Friday in a relatively simple run in comparison to our rivals fighting for top four.