Man City vs Chelsea LIVE: FA Cup score, result and reaction as City cruise into fourth round

Man City XI: Ortega, Walker, Akanji, Laporte, Gomez, Rodri, Bernardo, Palmer, Mahrez, Alvarez, Foden

Chelsea XI: Kepa, Humphreys, Chalobah, Koulibaly, Hall, Jorginho, Kovacic, Gallagher, Ziyech, Mount, Havertz

It was revealing that so many of the tributes following the death of Gianluca Vialli focused not on his career, but on his character.

The stories were touching and humorous in equal measure, like the time Vialli and fellow Italian Gianfranco Zola wanted to thank Chelsea’s player liaison officer, Gary Staker, for helping them adjust to English life. They told Staker they were taking him out to dinner, and he drove his old Ford to the restaurant where he was persuaded to hand over his keys to a waiter for parking. After the meal, Staker became flustered when he couldn’t find his car outside, and he was even more confused when the Italians pointed at the gleaming new BMW sitting in the car park. When he eventually got his head around their gift, he wept.

During those early days at Chelsea, Vialli worked hard on his English with a little help from his mischievous captain, Dennis Wise. Wise would teach him a new phrase each week and Vialli would endeavour to crowbar this latest nugget into media interviews. Vialli was in on the joke of course, and in his unique blend of Italian Cockney he told a reporter after one defeat: “Well, ‘ats off to them.”

The teams have arrived at the Etihad for this afternoon’s FA Cup clash between Manchester City and Chelsea. The official starting XIs will be coming out shortly too.

This is the eighth meeting between Manchester City and Chelsea in the FA Cup.

City have won four and the Blues have won three of the previous seven ties including each of the last two fixtures (5-1 in 2015/16 fifth round and 1-0 in 2020/21 semi-final).

Graham Potter’s Chelsea have won just one of their last eight Premier League matches with three draws and four defeats. Since the first game in this run on October 19th, no side has won fewer games in the competition.

The Blues are really struggling to find matchwinning form but can they change that in today’s FA Cup third round?

Among other things, it is a tale of two World Cup winners. Julian Alvarez’s first start since the World Cup final could come for Manchester City against Chelsea on Sunday. Indeed his last club goal, separated by strikes against Poland and Australia plus a World Cup semi-final brace against Croatia, was for Manchester City against Chelsea: in the Carabao Cup in November.

Enzo Fernandez was an Argentina teammate of Alvarez’s in Qatar; when the midfielder won the award as the World Cup’s best young player, perhaps it was at the striker’s expense. Each has had a swift rise and they lined up together in May, too, when Alvarez scored six goals in River Plate’s 8-1 thrashing of Alianza Lima in the Copa Libertadores. They left their homeland for Europe soon after; if Chelsea had their way, they might be on the pitch again at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, albeit on different sides.

Chelsea’s attempts to buy Fernandez have riled Benfica; if they end up triggering his release clause, it will cost £105m, though the Portuguese club bought him for just £8.8m. Meanwhile, City can congratulate themselves on the fact they paid a mere £14m for Alvarez. And if Clearlake Capital are entitled to argue they were not Chelsea’s owners when City tied up the deal for Alvarez, the huge sums they may pay for Fernandez – which would strip Jack Grealish of his title as the biggest buy in English football history – help illustrate how their paths have diverged. And, as is perhaps inevitable in the case of these clubs, it involves finances.

Pep Guardiola sung the praises of Manchester City defender Nathan Ake who has impressed with his performances since the World Cup break,

“Nobody talks about Nathan and right now he’s playing beyond our expectations as a left-back,” Guardiola said ahead of the FA Cup third round match versus Chelsea today.

“As a defender, how good he defends, all the actions with the ball are clever, these types of players help to make the others bright like Kevin [De Bruyne] and Erling [Haaland]. I always pay attention to these types of things.”

Their Premier League victory over the Blues on Thursday night meant that Manchester City became only the second side ever to win four consecutive meetings with Chelsea in all competitions while also keeping a clean sheet each time, after Bolton Wanderers from 1958 to 1960.

Will they make it five from five this afternoon?

Graham Potter says he has “total support” from the Chelsea board and insists that this is a “completely different” club from the era under Roman Abramovich when they repeatedly sacked managers. The 47-year-old also pointed to how Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta had early struggles only to excel with time, which is something the new hierarchy understand.

Potter added he would not have left Brighton if there was any chance of his job coming under threat this early, regardless of results, and that he is more confident of success now than when he joined.

The Chelsea manager has only one win from the last eight games, which is the sort of form that would have seen his predecessors under serious threat when Abramovich was owner. While that still informs perceptions of Chelsea, the predominant view at the club is that a mismatched squad must be totally reshaped to a new football ideal, that completely fits with Potter’s approach.

There is consequently no threat of a sacking, because the hierarchy see this as a long-term project that is fundamentally linked to the manager’s outlook on the game. The thinking is that Potter is working with a squad built for multiple different coaches, which is why they are not placing too much stock in current form. It is why Potter can speak with such certainty about his position.

Chelsea boss, Graham Potter, says his goal is to compete for and win as many trophies as possible during his time at Stamford Bridge but acknowledges that his team have a difficult draw in the third round of the FA Cup.

“We always want to try and compete for trophies, absolutely we do,” Potter said. “In terms of how that gets measured, you have to take the season as it is and analyse it at the end of the campaign. We’re not halfway through the season yet, there’s still lots to play for.

“We’ve got a game in a cup competition that of course we want to do well in. We want to go through, that’s for sure, and we want to compete.

“Obviously we have a difficult game in terms of playing Manchester City at their place but you saw from the other night, we matched them for large periods of the game and gave a pretty spirited performance.

“We need to do the same again today and try to improve.”