FA Cup: Pressure on Pep Guardiola to salvage Manchester City season

By Alex Keble

Football

Fri March 28, 2025 · 9M ago

That we are no longer talking about the sensational collapse of Manchester City’s title defence, or what such a remarkable demise might mean for the future of this century’s greatest manager, reads as a sign that the club has stabilised.

In reality, it means we’re just bored. Now the Champions League latter stages are coming into view, and now Liverpool are the ‘champions-elect’, the story has simply moved on. If things feel stable, that’s only because Man City’s poor form has been normalised and their season has faded into irrelevance.

Guardiola’s side have won just four of their last ten matches in all competitions. They’ve won the equivalent of 13 points from those 10 games, mid-table form, and although they are still fifth - a Champions League place this year – there is little reason to assume Man City will hang onto that position.

In fact the only real positive to take from three months of 2025 is progression to the final eight of the FA Cup, a feat achieved by beating Salford City, Leyton Orient and Plymouth Argyle.

FA Cup winner (odds via Sky Bet)

Manchester City - 2/1
Aston Villa - 7/2
Brighton - 11/2
Fulham, Bournemouth - 8/1
Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest - 9/1
Preston - 100/1

Victory in the FA Cup is starting to feel essential, because although the neutral might have lost sight of Man City’s ongoing concerns, Guardiola will know he needs something to get the project back on track; something to keep the players alert, engaged, and believing enough to bounce back next season.

If, on the other hand, Man City were to lose at Bournemouth this weekend – if they were to crash out of a competition that to the neutral looks romantically wide open, but to Guardiola must look like the easiest cup win of his career – then 2024/25 would be the manager’s first trophy-less season in Manchester since his debut year in 2016/17.

Pep Guardiola's Manchester City haven't struggled so much since his first season in charge (2016/17)

Guardiola said at the time he would have been sacked by Bayern Munich or Barcelona for a season like that, and has admitted in subsequent years he feared the sword might fall. There is no chance of that happening this year, of course, but failure to win the FA Cup would draw obvious comparisons to that mirrored year, and leave us wondering if his project is passing down the other side of the arc.

Looming over all of this are the charges against Man City, with an announcement expected any day now. Guardiola has already promised he will not leave the club no matter what the panel conclude, but if City go without a major trophy this year, and if a points deduction leaves them unable to realistically get back into the Champions League, then some may quietly wonder whether a clean break is a better option for all parties.

Even if Man City are found not guilty, qualifying for the Champions League looks tough. The consensus seems to be that City will simply find a way but, again, this merely reflects our waning attention.

It was another difficult afternoon for misfiring Man City

Guardiola’s side have won just one of their last four Premier League matches and haven’t won three on the bounce since October. They are just five points above Bournemouth in tenth and just one point above Brighton in seventh.

They need momentum and need self-belief, but with Guardiola’s tactics faltering badly those are attributes unlikely to be found without FA Cup trips to Wembley in the offing.

This FA Cup weekend has rightly been hyped as a moment for outsiders to start believing. Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace, Brighton, Bournemouth, and Fulham are hoping to respectively end waits of 29, 35, 120, 124, 126, and 146 years for a major trophy.

But the club whose journey through this tournament is technically of the least interest to neutrals has the most riding on it.

A super-club like Man City can afford a year without a trophy. But the Guardiola project, on its current trajectory of ambling towards a long and uncomfortable death, simply cannot.

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