FA Cup the real loser in Stamford Bridge demolition

Manchester City’s hopes of an historic ‘quadruple’ are over following Manuel Pellegrini’s decision, in a fit of pique, to pick a youth team to play Chelsea in an FA Cup fifth round tie and there could now be repercussions not just for the future of the competition too but for his own season too.

City go straight from this fixture into a Champions League tie in Kiev in midweek and on to a League Cup final after that; so Pellegrini has largely escaped universal criticism for fielding five young debutants at Stamford Bridge and complaining about the scheduling of matches in England which seems to inherently punish successful sides.

But that’s not to say, however, that his decision will not have consequences following a 5-1 defeat — both for the mentality of City as a club and for the reputation of a competition which seems once again to have a fight on its hands as it bids to hold on to traditional values in an era in which money talks so much more loudly.