Chelsea vs Manchester City
Chelsea and Manchester City meet in the FA Cup semifinals at Wembley on Saturday in a clash of two teams fit to grace any final.
Both clubs are through to the Champions League semifinals and coasted through to the last four in the FA Cup with City beating Everton 2-0 while Chelsea dispatched Sheffield United by the same scoreline.
Now, Manchester City are at odds of 1.45 to progress through to the final, with Chelsea at 2.75.
There will be no fans at the game as the FA decided to allocate the Leicester City vs Southampton semifinal as the fixture to allow 4,000 fans in, but there will be no lack of passion on the pitch as Chelsea will try to dump the Sky Blues out of the first of their four target competitions.
Talking Points
Chelsea’s young guns have a point to prove
The Blues are up against the hot favourites to lift the trophy with the latest FA Cup 2021 betting odds here at SBOTOP offering 1.80 on Manchester City to win the Cup, while Chelsea are at 5.00.
But it’s fair to say that the winner of this tie is likely to start the final against the victors of Leicester City vs Southampton as the favourites.
Chelsea recovered from a shock reversal to West Brom two weeks ago by qualifying for the Champions League semifinals in a victory over Porto. And last week they put in a superb performance to pick Crystal Palace apart with a 4-1 victory.
And now as they’re turning their attention to the FA Cup, Blues fans will hope to see their young players perform as they did against the Eagles.
Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech, and Kai Havertz arrived at Stamford Bridge in a blaze of publicity last summer when former head coach Frank Lampard splashed the cash and they started well as Chelsea joined the early pace-setters.
But a slump in form led to the departure of Lampard and the pressure of big fees weighed heavily on the new recruits’ shoulders.
Havertz in particular struggled, but he put in a fantastic performance against Palace by scoring one goal. He could have had a hat-trick as he ran the Eagles’ defence ragged, showing a brilliant first touch and the confidence he had in the Bundesliga at Bayer Leverkusen.
Former BVB star Christian Pulisic was at his best against Palace too as he scored a brace. And alongside Hakim Ziyech and a young Mason Mount, these two could give the Manchester City defence plenty to think about.
Every game counts for the Sky Blues
As the weeks go by, the games get ticked off and Manchester City are inching ever closer to an historic quadruple.
A shock defeat to Leeds United last week cut their lead at the top of the Premier League to 11 points, but surely there won’t be another three slip-ups in their final six league games.
On Wednesday, Phil Foden scored the second leg winner as Manchester City swept Borussia Dortmund aside in the Champions League quarterfinal so they are two games away from the major European prize which has evaded Pep Guardiola since his arrival at the Etihad.
The Sky Blues have a Carabao Cup final date with Tottenham where Pep will come up against his old rival Jose Mourinho – and that leaves the FA Cup.
The next game for any football club is always the biggest, but there is no denying that this tie against Chelsea will have been on the radar of those Sky Blues fans daring to dream and looking for the potential pitfalls.
They can have full confidence in their stars though as Kevin de Bruyne is at his imperious best and the signing of Ruben Dias has made the City defence look at its safest since the retirement of Vincent Kompany. The arrival of Dias seems to have given John Stones a new lease of life.
Up front with De Bruyne pulling the strings, the goals come from here, there, and everywhere. A front six featuring the Belgian alongside the likes of Sergio Aguero, Riyad Mahrez, Phil Foden, Ilkay Gundogan, and Bernardo Silva would give any defence the shivers!
History
Manchester City are six times winners of the FA Cup. The last triumph was in 2019 when they destroyed Watford 6-0 as Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling both scored twice.
Chelsea are eight times winners, with the last in 2018 when Eden Hazard’s penalty was enough to beat Manchester United.
The two teams last met in January when Gundogan, Foden, and de Bruyne all scored before halftime in a 3-1 win for Manchester City.
Betting Tip
 |
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Chelsea vs Manchester City | Over 2.50 @ 2.04 |
| April 18, 00:30 (GMT+8) |
The Sky Blues are at 1.77 to win this tie in 90 minutes while Chelsea are at 4.17 and the draw is at 3.30.
I expect the Chelsea youngsters to put on a show and if Havertz can recapture his form of last week, then he could be the man to puncture City’s superb defence. But I suspect that the Chelsea backline will have greater problems.
A correct scoreline of 2-1 to City at odds of 6.76 won’t be far away and we’ll be back on Saturday evening with all the best FA Cup 2021 highlights.
It’s sure to be a cracker and we could easily be watching the eventual trophy winners.
A SHORT EXPLANATION ON HOW OUR ( ) BETS ARE WORTH: |
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 = €20 (Highly confident) |
= €10 (CONFIDENT) |
= €5 (SOMEWHAT CONFIDENT) |
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Disclaimer: Odds are correct at time of publish.
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