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FA Cup quarter-final draw: Chelsea v Port Vale, Manchester City v Liverpool – as it happened
(www.theguardian.com)
Man City's draw of Liverpool in the FA Cup means the next few weeks they have:
- Real Madrid Away -- Champions League
- West Ham at Home
- Real Madrid at Home -- Champions League
- Arsenal at Wembley -- EFL Cup Final
- Liverpool Away -- FA Cup
- (Bayern Munich/Atalanta at Home, assuming City beats Real Madrid -- Champions League)
- Chelsea Away
- (Bayern Munich/Atalanta Away, assuming City beats Real Madrid -- Champions League)
- Arsenal at Home
Plus, the weekend of the EFL Cup final, they're supposed to play Crystal Palace, so there's another match they'll have to make up at some point.
The only match in there that doesn't look very difficult is West Ham, but since West Ham are fighting to avoid relegation, they'll be motivated. At the very least, they'll probably put in a lot of effort, which means a lot of physical play. That's exactly what Man City will want to avoid in a situation where they're trying to avoid exhausted players.
There is an international break in there right after the EFL Cup final. But, since all their players are full internationals, they're not going to get much rest. And their first match back after that is the FA Cup match against Liverpool, while Arsenal's first match back is Southampton.
I very much like the Southampton draw. There are no guarantees, but they're a championship club at the moment. Arsenal should be able to rotate pretty heavily and still get a win. I think we've seen enough of Arteta to know that he's probably not going to be starting Salmon, Dixon and Dowman... but Dowman, Norgaard, Mosquera, Jesus, etc. seems entirely possible.