FA Cup: Liverpool to face Manchester City in the Semi-Finals

The FA Cup Semi-Finals were decided this weekend, with four teams booking their place at Wembley. In this year’s Quarter-Final’s, Chelsea travelled to Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace hosted Everton, Southampton took on Manchester City and Nottingham Forest went for another giant killing against Liverpool.

In the weekend’s first tie, turmoiled Chelsea headed to Middlesbrough, a team that had already knocked out two Premier League teams so far in this year’s competition. Unfortunately for the Tyneside team, the current Club World Cup Champion’s came out the blocks firing with Romelu Lukaku and Hakim Ziyech putting the Blues two up within half an hour, and those two goals ended up being the difference, with Chelsea being the first team in the Semi’s.

Crystal Palace hosted strugglers Everton in the first game of Sunday, and the Toffee’s poor league form certainly carried into the Cup. Marc Guehi opened the scoring heading in on 25 mins, before Jean-Philippe Mateta doubled the Eagles lead before half-time. Things got worse for the blue side of Merseyside in the second half as Wilfried Zaha and Will Hughes made it 4-0, as Palace booked their place at Wembley.

Six-times FA Cup winners, Manchester City travelled down the south coast, where they faced Southampton. Despite a strong start from the Saints, City began to flow into the game, and it became all them. Raheem Sterling bagged a goal early on before Southampton got back into it through a Aymeric Laporte own-goal. That goal would end up being nothing more than a consolation, as Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez all scored in the second half to give them a 4-0 win.

In the final game of the round, Nottingham Forest, another Championship side who had knocked out two Premier League side’s to get here, hosted high-flyers Liverpool. Liverpool would dominate possesion, but it was Forest who held their own and would have the majority of the chances. In the end, quality made up the difference, with a Diogo Jota goal the only thing splitting the sides, and sending the Red’s to Wembley.

The Semi-Finals of the FA Cup were confirmed as Liverpool vs Manchester City and Chelsea vs Crystal Palace, the games will take place in the capital weekend of 16-17 April.