Manchester City are safely through to the FA Cup semi finals.
In the end it all looked so ridiculously easy and simple. Manchester City have well and truly mastered that art form. City beat Burnley of the Championship almost effortlessly, impudently and, of course, stylishly. But then you knew they would. They are now through to what must seem their umpteenth FA Cup semi final and they were just blase and matter of fact in their approach to the game. It's at times like this when you wish they would look vulnerable at times, a side with rough edges, deficiencies and shortcomings, chinks in their armour. But that certainly won't happen and nor is it ever likely to be the case in the foreseeable future.
Suddenly the FA Cup has become Manchester City's favourite toy or game, an inanimate thing perhaps but still visible to the eye. Yesterday City eventually walloped a Burnley side whose manager once decorated all of City's big occasions with his presence, his stature and his all encompassing influence. The sight of Vincent Kompany in the opposition dug out at the Etihad Stadium almost felt like some optical illusion. Surely you were imagining this one because Kompany had light blue in his veins and was permanently regarded as a cult hero at City.
In the bigger picture Manchester City may have taken their eye off the ball metaphorically of course. They'll be eight points behind Arsenal, the Premier League leaders, if the North London side beat Crystal Palace today at the Emirates Stadium. The calculations are now obvious and City know it. City are still capable of overhauling Arsenal at the top but the FA Cup has assumed an altogether greater significance for Manchester City.
And yet City were just relentless, remorseless, singularly without any leniency or contrition, a side revved up, a side of spectacular co-ordination, constant movement both on and off the ball, freestyling, freewheeling, high fiving, jinking, darting and then passing the ball to each other like children at a birthday party handing the parcel around. City are truly memorable, seminal, pioneering, a force of nature quite often verging on the unbeatable, impossible to catch and, more importantly, to dispossess. It looks as if their route to another FA Cup Final can only be a matter of time.
Over fifty years ago Malcolm Allison and Joe Mercer used to sit in the Maine Road directors box drooling and salivating over the Manchester City of the early 1970s. In those days the likes of Francis Lee, Rodney Marsh and Colin Bell were elegant exhibitionists linking together joyfully in midfield, reading each other's minds, then stripping away the fragile layers of opposition defences and delighting in the wide open spaces. City didn't win anything as such but at the end of the 1960s they did win the old First Division League Championship trophy.
Then City dropped into the wilderness for decade upon decade. For a while they were trapped in the old Third Division which, in retrospect, must have seemed quite degrading and demoralising. But now under the fantastically inspirational Pep Guardiola, City are a team transformed, rejuvenated, effortlessly flamboyant passing, a team of mesmerising intricacies, one and two touch football that leave most of us gasping for yet more superlatives and flattery. By the final whistle Burnley, in a darker shade of shirt, must have been pleading for their team coach to whisk them away from the scene of the crime. But this was no crime, simply a reassertion of Manchester City's Premier League supremacy.
Now City's mega wealthy Saudi owners are beginning to look to the future with some confidence whereas the City of Allison and Mercer were just building site labourers laying down the foundations, planting the seeds, digging for gold they were never likely to find. On the surface it all looked very good and highly impressive but for years and decades City have struggled to find the identity they thought they had discovered under Allison and Mercer.
But now everything has come to fruition. City have now won back to back Premier League titles but you get the impression that the FA Cup and the Champions League may take priority to winning the Premier League. The next couple of weeks after the international break for England could tell us much more than we already knew about City's realistic aspirations. Arsenal are currently in the driving seat and look as though they may be pulling away from City but then anything could happen. Two horse races can often be an immense source of fascination although we are now at the business end of the Premier League season and Nostradamus has yet to reach any positive conclusions.
Yesterday Pep Guardiola looked like a bullfighter who wasn't afraid to take any nonsense. He stood on the touchline animated quite frequently, gesturing politely with his hands and pointing his fingers at his players in a a quiet, restrained manner before the eyes would begin to flare and it all looked very serious and businesslike. Guardiola doesn't do fedora hats and smoke cigars though and it became quite evident though that his City are not quite as annoyingly unpredictable than the City of the Maine Road era.
However in the away dug out Vincent Kompany, once Guardiola's captain, was doing his level best to look like the apprentice facing the sorcerer. Kompany looked suitably honoured to be on the same pitch as his old boss but then it must have seemed like an emotional return to his old home. Burnley will quite definitely be back in the Premier League, after a season's absence and a good, old fashioned bottle of wine will be ready and waiting when Kompany and Guardiola renew old acquaintances.
For the time being City are very much class personified. Once again the difference between City and Burnley is that City have the once again immaculate Kevin De Bruyne, a measured, composed and serene influence on the game every time he touched the ball. For a number of seasons Bruyne has been City's beacon, trigger point, catalyst, smooth as honey, floating delightfully weighted passes angled to perfection. De Bruyne has been order among the chaos, playing the game as if by memory, strutting here and swaggering there as if he'd performed the same act a thousand times. De Bruyne has to be the first name on Guardiola's team sheet.
With Julian Alvarez, the evergreen Ruben Dias, Manuel Akanj, the valuable and game changing Aymeric Laporte and, particularly Riyad Mahrez at his most cunning and manipulative whenever the ball was at its feet, City were just unstoppable at times, unsurpassable, too good to be true. Then there was the still young Phil Foden, frustratingly unsuccessful with Gareth Southgate's 2022 World Cup at the end of last year but still vital and prominent in everything City did. There is a hint of the Colin Bell in Foden inasmuch that his tireless running and carrying of the ball can often remind you of what stage Bell had reached in his years of magnificence.
Then there were the youngsters Cole Palmer and Rico Lewis, products of City's prolific academy and hopefully the spine of City's first team in years to come. With Kyle Walker as fast as a train in a hurry at the back and Laporte equally as immovable in City's rock solid defence, the likes of Sergio Gomez and Rodri were given the luxury of free roles in the final thirds of the pitch. Rodri waved the baton and Gomez simply blew on the bassoon and tinkled the ivories of the piano.
And so for the goal feast. With the game into its first quarter City began to find their flow and irresistible tempo. They were like an orchestra in the pit, warming up their instruments. From Stefan Ortega's short goal kick out, Foden shrewdly anticipated the pass, looked up almost instinctively, saw the options in front of him before sending a precise through ball to Erling Haaland and the extraordinary Norwegian striker then ran beautifully onto Foden's classic ball, rounding the keeper and then slotting home City's opening goal.
Minutes later City had doubled the lead. Bruyne of course was once again the tormentor in chief, prodding the ball through the back of the Burnley defence, finding this time Alvarez who, cutting the ball back sharply, jinked inside his defender and whipped the ball firmly high into Burnley's net like an arrow. Game effectively over for Burnley then anyway. The games was beyond the Clarets reach. City were humming, purring, ticking over efficiently, clipping and snipping their passes together and then briefly admiring their own handiwork. There was something very presumptuous and contemptuous about City's football that led you to believe that they didn't really care whether you'd liked them or not.
From another crazy bagatelle of passes across the centre of the pitch and then whizzing back through Mahrez and Foden, the cat's cradle of passing landed gently and conveniently at the feet and from Foden's cut back low cross that man Haaland was there to nudge home the easiest of third goals. City were definitely in cruise control and the fourth was soon forthcoming. From another multi pass fashion parade of passes from City Alvarez almost steered the ball into the net with all the expertise of an experienced veteran. Then De Bruyne obliged with another goal and the youngster Cole Palmer gave his goal scoring demonstration with a goal he will always remember. Six of the best from City.
And so it was that Manchester City progressed to a Wembley FA Cup semi final in roughly a months time. This is familiar territory for Pep Guardiola's and not for the first time will City fans gather in their droves. There are few heavyweights left in this season's FA Cup so as long as you avoid City in the last four, the chances are that this could be your year to win the FA Cup. Still, as long as Pep is around this is merely wishful thinking.
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