Wait, come back!
See the full draw for the quarter finals here:
Updated
Full time: Chelsea 5-1 Manchester City
This match was decided at 3pm, when the teams were announced, but the formality of the actual football was fun. There were some fine goals, some lovely passing and movement from Fabregas, Hazard, and everyone goes home happy. Goodnight!
Updated
90+1 min The excellent Barker wins a corner for City. It almost leads to a goal - for Chelsea. Oscar and Hazard break two on one, but Hazard’s pass isn’t great and then Oscar welts one high and wide from 20 yards.
Oscar’s cross from the left was backheaded towards the far post by Traore, and it looped in off the far post as Caballero leered at it in confusion. He probably should have saved it, though it was a smart, speculative header from Traore.
GOAL! Chelsea 5-1 Manchester City (Traore 89)
Oh, Willy.
Updated
88 min Barker has looked good on the left wing since coming on. City can be pleased with the performance of their youngsters. It’s the geriatricos, Caballero and Demichelis, who haven’t been so good. In other news, Courtois makes a good diving save from Kolarov’s low shot.
86 min “Almost a hundred years on since William Carlos Williams dedicated this poem to all members of the MBM community,” begins Ian Copestake.
Danse Russe
“If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,--
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
again the yellow drawn shades,--
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?”
83 min Nemanja Matic replaces Jon Obi Mikel, who is giving a rousing send-off by the Chelsea fans.
81 min Fabregas slips a nice ball behind the defence for Hazard on the right; he cuts it back to Traore, who bobbles a shot onto the far post. So many Chelsea attacks have involved late runs from midfield in the inside-left or inside-right channel.
78 min City replace Fernando with the 17-year-old Cameron Humphreys.
77 min Manu Garcia makes space on the edge of the box and hits a shot that is blocked superbly by Ivanovic. Or Cahill. They all look the same!
CABALLERO SAVES THE PENALTY!
Oscar did an Aldridge-style stop before whipping an imperfect penalty to his left. Caballero dived a long way and made a good save.
Updated
PENALTY TO CHELSEA
Demichelis blunderbusses into Traore from behind, and Andre Marriner gives a penalty. It looks a bit soft.
Updated
75 min Chelsea’s late runs from midfield have destroyed City, a rare example of tactics deciding a football match.
74 min “To be fair to Cabellero,” says Ian Copestake, “he does have the look of a man who exists in a different dimension.”
It’s a lonely job being a keeper. No wonder you have sympathy for him.
72 min Poor old Cahill has taken another one in the coupon. This time it was a flailing arm from Iheanacho. Accidental.
70 min Oscar wallops a 25-yard shot not far wide.
Updated
69 min City almost get one back. Zabaleta’s cross from the right touchline is just behind Iheanacho, who improvises and tries a backheel from seven yards. He’s no Thierry Henry, however, and it’s blocked by Gary Cahill. Moments later, Chelsea replace Diego Costa and Pedro with Oscar and Bertrand Traore. Pedro was excellent, a constant pain in City’s derriere with his movement.
Caballero was expecting it to go to his right and shimmied across goal for reasons best known to himself. Hazard simply placed it in the other corner. That’s a strange mistake from Caballero.
GOAL! Chelsea 4-1 Manchester City
Hazard just passes the free-kick into the far corner.
Updated
65 min Demichelis is booked for an, erm, rugged tackle on Hazard just outside the box.
64 min Fabregas drags a scruffy shot well wide from 20 yards.
63 min For the first time, this is starting to look like men against boys.
Updated
61 min I would make Chelsea favourites to win the FA Cup, but there is a better than usual chance for teams in the second tier of English football – Everton, West Ham, Watford, Crystal Palace – to win it this year.
58 min Another simple angled through pass, from Willian to Pedro, beats the City defence. Caballero comes out, Pedro lifts it over him across the face of goal, and Demichelis puts it behind for a corner.
55 min A half chance for City, but Faupala dallies in the area and that allows Ivanovic to clear.
54 min City’s first substitution: Brandon Barker replaces Celina, who had a quiet game.
Hazard’s cross from the left was only half cleared by Fernando, and Cahill rattled a volley through Caballero from 12 yards. On reflection Caballero should probably have done better – it was straight at him, although Cahill did hit it well. It’s the kind of shot that a playground keeper would simply have hoofed away with his feet, but Caballero tried to get down to it with his hands.
GOAL! Chelsea 3-1 Manchester City (Cahill 53)
Chelsea are into the quarter-finals.
Updated
53 min City have been so vulnerable to the through pass today.
51 min “Fabregas is brilliant,” sniffs Mustafa Feeroz. “Hmmm. Yes, against Arsenal of course and once against Barcelona. But can it be so hard to be brilliant against an under-19s team?” Apparently so: the other 10 players haven’t managed it.
Chelsea say anyone identified throwing coins will be banned from Stamford Bridge after objects thrown after Faupala equaliser
— Matt McGeehan (@mattmcgeehan) February 21, 2016
Chelsea broke from the edge of their own box, with Willian carrying the ball 50 yards before giving it to Hazard on the right. He played an angled pass back to Willian, who had made a late run into the area and dragged a precise shot across Caballero and into the corner.
GOAL! Chelsea 2-1 Man City (Willian 48)
This is another very nice goal.
Updated
Age of entitlement latest
47 min “I know for a fact that I’m not alone,” says Matt Dony. “I’m in a full house, having yesterday moved in to my in-laws’ place while some builders get a wriggle on and, y’know, actually build my house. Being alone sounds wonderful. I envy Copestake. The upshot of a long day spent moving furniture was that I flaked out and went to bed during Match of the Day. Glad to hear it doesn’t sound like I missed much.”
46 min Chelsea become the second half, kicking from left to right.
Crystal Palace are into the quarter-finals after a 1-0 win at Spurs.
Half time: Chelsea 1-1 Manchester City
That was a whole heap of fun. Two splendidly worked goals, lots of near misses for Chelsea, and plenty to admire from the City kids, especially the Garcias, Adarabioyo and the front two. See you in 10 minutes!
44 min Here’s Ian Copestake: “Coin throwing suggests that ticket prices are just not high enough.”
43 min The effervescent Pedro runs at Zabaleta in the area, comes inside and drills a shot that is well blocked by Adarabioyo.
41 min Caballero makes an excellent save. City were undone by yet another short pass over the top of the defence, this time from Hazard to Fabregas on the left of the box. He clipped it square to Pedro, whose adroit volley from six yards brought a fine reaction save from Caballero.
40 min Some coins were thrown at the City kids while they were celebrating the goal. Won’t somebody think of the children?
39 min “To echo Ian Copestake,” begins Mac Millings, “I feel that a psychological battle will have been won when he starts eating from outside the box of microwave meals for one.”
This was a nicely worked goal. Manu Garcia played a one-two with Fernando and worked the ball into Faupala on the edge of the box. He turned it round the corner for Iheanacho, who slipped it back across the face of goal with the outside of his left foot. There was a bit of a scramble, and Azpilicueta’s attempt clearance hit Faupala and went into the top of the net.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-1 Manchester City (Faupala 37)
The City bairns are level!
Updated
A simple goal for Diego Costa. Fabregas, who has been brilliant, lifted a nice pass over the defence for Hazard on the left of the box. He hooked it first time into the six-yard box, and Costa headed past Caballero.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Manchester City (Diego Costa 35)
It had been coming.
Updated
34 min Faupala runs at the defence and finds Iheanacho, who sprays a drive over the bar from 25 yards.
33 min “I suppose that for viewer Pep Guardiola this is far more interesting than the usual low-key City tedium with increasingly rare flashes from Aguero, Toure etc,” says Phil Podolsky. “Though most of these youngsters will end up playing for teams with names few can pronounce cause that’s the way of the world, yeah?”
31 min “All we need now is for Gary Naylor to email in,” says Ian Copestake, “and it will be 2005 all over again.”
30 min Baba Rahman lifts a clever cross towards Pedro, who chests the ball past it Caballero but takes it too far away from goal. He had been flagged offside, wrongly, so it wouldn’t have counted.
Updated
28 min “With the amount of clever talent on both sides here,” begins Ian Copestake, “I feel that a psychological battle will have been won when one side starts shooting from outside the box.”
27 min Here’s Mac Millings. “Ian Copestake may be alone. There’s no ‘but’ here. That was the end of that sentence.”
26 min Caballero makes a bizarre mess of Baba Rahman’s cross, scooping it up in the air on the half-volley, but he gets away with it.
25 min Chelsea are starting to exert their authority and experience. Pedro is wrongly given offside from Willian’s through ball, although Caballero got there first anyway.
Updated
24 min Caballero makes a comfortable save from Fabregas’s 25-yard shot.
20 min That pass from Fabregas to Pedro when he hit the post was well Barcelona.
19 min “How can England expect to develop a world beating Twenty20 team if Man City keep playing highly talented non-English children?” says Ian Copestake with a mouthful of beans on toast.
18 min Hazard picks up a loose ball just inside the box and hits a shot that is blocked by Fernando. It’s a decent game, this.
15 min Cahill is back on the field, although he has just taken one in the coupon from Faupala. His nose is bleeding, so the game is stopped. It was a clash of heads, nothing untoward.
13 min Pedro hits the post! It was Chelsea’s first decent attack, and it was a thing of beauty. Pedro zoomed infield from the right and played the ball to Fabregas, who dropped a delightful return ball into the space behind the defence. Pedro ran onto it and looped a left-footed shot across goal that rebounded off the face of the far post.
Updated
11 min “Afternoon Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “Unappetising drivel it may be, but I’ll say one thing about English football. It’s punctual. A four o’clock kick off means a four o’clock kick off.” It’s what William Webb Ellis would have wanted.
10 min Cahill is off the field, gingerly stretching some part of his right leg. That doesn’t look great for Chelsea.
7 min City have probably been the better side so far, with plenty of confidence in possession. I suspect that, in a few years’ time, we will look back on this game as the start of one or two very good City careers.
5 min I don’t think it is, because the existing problem – those outside the elite don’t believe they can win it because of the inequality in English football, and therefore prioritise staying up/finishing eighth - wouldn’t change. Money > glory.
3 min Hello! A swaggering run from Faupala, who nutmegs two Chelsea players on the edge of the box before lashing a shot that is pushed away at the near post by Courtois. It was a fairly comfortable save, but even so, the confidence of Faupala was spectacular.
2 min “Am I alone...” says Ian Copestake. Yes. You know you are. Just look at the contents of that fridg- Oh hang on, there’s more. “... in thinking that yesterday’s football was the most unappetising drivel since drivel appeared on a menu next to something French?”
I quite enjoyed the Bournemouth game, the second half anyway. But yes, the matches did feel like they were on a mezzanine level between friendly and competitive matches.
1 min City, in their ghost green (sic) away kit, kick off from left to right.
“Fair to say the FA Cup is a competition in crisis, that such a big club as City is doing what was once only thinkable in the League Cup in the early rounds,” says Daniel Llewelyn.
The FA Cup is beyond salvation. It’s very sad but the culture has changed to such an extent that no gimmick can save it.
Man City's team today: five full debuts, six teenagers and shirt numbers adding up to 447, including a 72, a 75 and a 76 #magicofthecup
— Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian) February 21, 2016
“I must admit,” confesses Nick Parmenter, “that the possibility of Chelsea losing hasn’t even crossed my mind yet.”
A draw certainly isn’t beyond the realms, though a two-goal win Chelsea win is the likeliest scenario.
Updated
“I’ve respected Pellegrini all along but this is scandalous,” says Krishnan Patel. “He has had millions and millions to spend in the transfer market and there is no excuse for a team selection like that. It’s not like he has Barcelona or Bayern lined up or he has a big game in the league coming up in three days. The fans deserve a refund.”
What are they going to do, sack him?
Spent some time with Kelechi Iheanacho, Manchester City's 19-year-old striker. His first interview here: https://t.co/d8HojJqYnw #mcfc
— Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian) February 19, 2016
“Man City will have lost three in a row after this,” says Nick Parmenter of Manuel Pellegrini’s team selection. “What happened to gaining momentum? Remember Arsenal losing 4-0 to Man Utd in the FA Cup in 2008 - they never recovered!”
It’s tricky, this. On the one hand the FA Cup is winnable; on the other the Champions League and Premier League, though less likely, mean much more. I suppose you have to trust your instinct. Even the great Sir Alex Ferguson sacrificed a potential quadruple with his selection for the FA Cup semi-final in 2008-09.
I can understand why Pellegrini has done it, given the injuries and the games they have to come. Or perhaps, as my colleague Tom Bryant suggested, he simply could not give a solitary one now that he knows he’s out the door in May.
Also: watching the kids play in the first team is one of football’s great pleasures. They should make the League Cup an under-23s tournament.
An email!
“Those numbers in the City debutants’ Twitter handles are almost as depressing as this T20,” writes my colleague Dan Lucas. I was an adult* before any of them were born!
* Technically
MBMs while u wait
Just the five full debutants for City then. That’s all.
Congrats to our full debutants today @BersantCelina, @DavidFaups, @97_aleix, @TosinAdarabioyo & @Manugarcia_98. #mcfc #chelseavcity #facup
— Manchester City FC (@MCFC) February 21, 2016
Chelsea are unchanged. There have even been scurrilous rumours that they want to win the competition!
Updated
The teams
Chelsea (4-2-3-1) Courtois; Azpilicueta, Cahill, Ivanovic, Baba Rahman; Fabregas, Mikel; Pedro, Willian, Hazard; Diego Costa.
Substitutes: Begovic, Miazga, Matic, Loftus-Cheek, Oscar, Traore, Remy.
Manchester City (4-4-2) Caballero; Zabaleta, Adarabioyo, Demichelis, Kolarov; M Garcia, Fernando, A.Garcia, Celina; Iheanacho, Faupala.
Substitutes: Hart, Clichy, Humphreys, Kompany, Fernandinho, Barker, Sterling.
Preamble
Hello. This time last year, Chelsea and Manchester City met at Stamford Bridge in a match that was widely described as a title decider. It wasn’t, but that’s not the point: the point, which I’ll get to any minute now once I’ve stopped meandering like somebody with a word count to fill, is that they were the top pre-eminent sides in the country, and it seemed that, with better players and more money than the rest, they would dominate English football for the foreseeable.
A year later, they have both slipped to such an extent that the FA Cup – and in City’s case, the League Cup – represents their best/only (delete as appropriate) chance of winning a trophy this season. The peculiar thing is that, even though they are 12th and fourth in the Premier League, they are probably still the best two teams in the country – or, at least, the two English teams with the greatest capacity for excellence. Whoever wins this will have a legitimate claim to be favourites to win the FA Cup.
Both teams know the value of the competition. Chelsea have won it four times in the last decade, and when City won it in 2011, it was their first trophy since 47BC. City beat Chelsea in this competition in 2013 and 2014, before losing to Wigan in the next round, but you’d probably fancy Chelsea today.
There are two reasons for that: they are at home, and they are likely to rest fewer players than City, who go to Kiev in the Champions League on Wednesday and, according to Dead Manuel Walking, have only 13 fit players. One thing’s for sure: one of these sides MUST win today. Or it could be a draw.
Kick off is at 4 post meridiem Greenwich Mean Time
Updated
Rob will be here shortly. In the meantime, here is David Hytner’s preview:
Damaging back-to-back Premier League defeats, injuries and the schlep to Dynamo Kyiv for Wednesday’s Champions League game have weighed on Manuel Pellegrini before the FA Cup fifth round’s biggest tie. The Manchester Citymanager has said he will prioritise Kyiv and Stamford Bridge could be a chance for some of his younger players. Chelsea’s focus is rather more narrow and Guus Hiddink will go all-in for a second FA Cup in two attempts. David Hytner
Kick-off Sunday 4pm
Venue Stamford Bridge
Head-to-head Chelsea 61 Man City 51 Draws 39
Live BBC1
Referee Andre Marriner
This season G16, Y56, R4, 3.75 cards per game
Odds H 15-13 A 27-10 D 11-4
Chelsea
Subs from Amelia, Blackman, Courtois, Miazga, Fàbregas, Mikel, Kenedy, Traoré, Rémy, Pato, Hazard
Doubtful None
Injured Terry (hamstring, 2 Mar), Zouma (knee, Aug), Falcao (groin, unknown)
Suspended None
Form WWDDWL
Discipline Y60 R3
Leading scorer Costa 12
Manchester City
Subs from Hart, Wright, Agüero, Humphreys-Grant, Clichy, Serrano, Bony, Sagna, Mangala, Silva, Kompany, Fernandinho, Touré, Bytyqi
Doubtful Bony (calf), Mangala (hamstring), Sagna (knee)
Injured Navas (hamstring, 2 Mar), De Bruyne (knee, Apr), Delph (calf, Apr), Nasri (hamstring, Apr)
Suspended None
Form DWWWLL
Discipline Y58 R0
Leading scorer Agüero 18
