Manchester City will be playing in their seventh FA Cup semi final under Pep Guardiola and the Spanish manager has expressed excitement over the achievement.
While Manchester City will be unable to successfully defend their Premier League title which they won for a fourth-straight time last season, they could still not end the season trophyless. This will give the City fans something to celebrate in a season that has been a hit-and-miss.
City came back from one goal down at the Vitality Stadium against AFC Bournemouth to win their quarter final clash by two goals to one and set up a meeting with Nottingham Forest. Erling Haaland and Omar Marmoush got the turn-around goals to help City make it to their seventh FA Cup semi-final in a row, setting a new record after they had initially set it last season with their sixth-straight FA Cup semi-final appearance.
Guardiola Praises Team’s Consistency Amid Challenges
“It’s an incredible achievement because it’s every year, every year, every year,” the Man City boss said following their win on the south coast. “You know how difficult it is in the league to win a championship, but you can drop, you can lose.
“We play semi-finals coming two or three days before most of the times, playing away Champions League quarter-finals with a big disappointment being out or big success and no recovery, playing against Liverpool and Chelsea and so on.
“So it’s not easy to, you know, to cope sometimes for that. Even with that, all the time we were there, so we break our own record we had last season six in a row, so now seven.
“So it’s not easy, I’m sorry because this is what this club or this team, these legendary players have shown during a lot of time.
“This consistency, we were a machine, but this season we play more games like we play against Bournemouth the Premier League like today and that’s why we don’t deserve much more than we have now.
“But still we have this amazing competition ahead of us and we have, of course, qualification for the Champions League. That is incredible success its really, really important.”
“The most important thing is that players could realise the lesson that when we are like today, what we are like against one of the most physical teams, the players, the team with more transitions and quick and second balls,” he added.
“We coped with them. We were there and hopefully they can feel it. That is the way until the end of the season and the future of this club.”
