Manchester City and Chelsea meet in this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final as they battle it out for a likely final clash against rivals Manchester United at Wembley.
Kick-off time and TV channel
Man City vs Chelsea will kick off at 5.15pm BST on Saturday the 20th of April, with live coverage available on BBC One.
The coverage will include pre and post-match analysis from the BBC Sports punditry team, with the 90 minutes from Wembley sandwiched in between.
Read on for our look ahead to this big game…
Man City team news
With Pep Guardiola chasing a treble for the second successive year, the games are coming thick and fast in all competitions at the moment, so could the City manager be tempted to rotate just a little for the FA Cup?
We’ve seen Guardiola try this before and it came back to haunt him when Liverpool beat City in the 2022 FA Cup semi-final on their way to winning the competition, so Pep might perhaps do well not to take Chelsea lightly here.
City have had some injury concerns lately, most notably with Kyle Walker, but it now looks like Guardiola has a fully fit squad to choose from, which perhaps gives the Spanish tactician a bit more room to rotate and keep his players fresh for this season’s run-in.
Possible Man City XI: Ederson; Walker, Stones, Dias, Gvardiol, Rodri, Kovacic; Foden, De Bruyne, Silva, Haaland
Chelsea team news
Chelsea will go into this game full of confidence after thrashing Everton 6-0 on Monday, but what kind of line up will we see from Mauricio Pochettino?
Raheem Sterling has been out with illness, and was alongside other big names like Enzo Fernandez and Robert Sanchez in missing the Everton game, while there remain numerous long-term absentees like Romeo Lavia as well.
Ben Chilwell returned against Everton from the bench, and Pochettino will surely be hoping he can start at the weekend.
Possible Chelsea XI: Petrovic; Gusto, Chalobah, Silva, Chilwell; Fernandez, Caicedo; Palmer, Mudryk, Madueke; Jackson
H2H: City in form but we’ve seen Chelsea upsets before
Recent history favours Man City as they haven’t lost to Chelsea since the Champions League final of 2021, but that was an upset at the time, and it followed the Blues also beating Guardiola’s side in the FA Cup semi-final that season.
Both Premier League games between these teams this season have ended in a draw, but of course this cup semi-final would require a winner on the day, even if that means going all the way to a dreaded penalty shoot-out.
It’s not been the best season from Chelsea, but there may perhaps be signs of them picking up now, with Cole Palmer in particularly devastating form, so don’t rule them out of this big cup tie that their season rests on, while City may have an eye on other upcoming games.
Man City vs Chelsea prediction
This seems like a very hard one to call, but ultimately if we see City turn up with a full-strength XI and really in the mood, then there’ll surely be no stopping them. Chelsea will be no pushovers, but there are still too many weaknesses in Pochettino’s young squad overall, so this seems perhaps like a narrow City victory.
Prediction: City to edge it by one goal.