FA Cup semis: Arsenal v Man City in numbers

Arsenal and Manchester City meet at Wembley
on Saturday evening with the aim of becoming our first confirmed
Emirates FA Cup Finalist in 2020.

There’s already a degree of
familiarity between the clubs, with Gunners boss Mikel Arteta having
worked under City manager Pep Guardiola for three years before making
the move to the Emirates Stadium earlier this year.

And they recently faced off in the Premier League, with City running out as 3-0 winners at the Etihad Stadium last month, shortly after the restart.

Messi rages as failing Barca lose LaLiga

Barcelona made it all about the Champions League and after surrendering La Liga to Real Madrid, now it is all they have left.

Winning
the title last season for an eighth time in 11 years was never going to
be enough. Winning the double had not been either the year before.

La Liga and the Copa del Rey had become Barca’s default, their domestic dominance taken for granted and then diminished by disappointment in Europe.

Ancelotti says goalkeeper Pickford must do better

Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti said
goalkeeper Jordan Pickford is not doing well after a number of
error-strewn displays but backed the England international to rediscover
his best form.

The 26-year-old Pickford, who has made seven
errors directly leading to goals in the Premier League since the start
of last season, was guilty of another erratic showing in Sunday’s 3-0
defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Rebuilding Arsenal a ‘massive job’, says Arteta

Manager Mikel
Arteta says the task of rebuilding Arsenal is a “massive job” and that
there is an “enormous” difference between his side and Premier League
champions Liverpool.

Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-1 on Wednesday but the London side are still ninth and trail the champions by 40 points.

“You
can see how Liverpool build their squad and there’s no magic, you need
to improve the squad with quality players,” Arteta told Sky Sports

City deserve an apology – Guardiola

Manchester City
manager Pep Guardiola said his team deserved an apology, after their
two-year Uefa ban from European football was overturned by the Court of
Arbitration for Sport (CAS) – a verdict he called a “good day for
football”.

Guardiola said the club’s reputation had been damaged
by the furore around allegations that they broke Financial Fair Play
(FFP) rules and fired back at comments from managers Jose Mourinho and
Juergen Klopp.

Key moments in Manchester City’s six-year battle with UEFA

Monday’s decision by the Court of Arbitration
for Sport (CAS) to overturn Manchester City’s European ban marks a
significant victory for the English club in their long conflict with
UEFA.

MAY 2014: FIRST SANCTIONS

Charged for failing to maintain a balance between their revenue and expenditure, with a deficit that exceeded the 30-million-euro ($34 million at current exchange rates) maximum at the time, City accepted a conditional fine of 60 million euros in May 2014 to be deducted from European prize money, of which 40 million euros would be lifted if the club met other conditions over the following two seasons.

These included a smaller limit on losses, transfer restrictions and a reduced squad in Europe.

NOVEMBER 2018: REVELATIONS IN FOOTBALL LEAKS

A
wide-ranging expose, dubbed ‘Football Leaks’, published by a consortium
of European newspapers included the revelation that Manchester City
had, among other strategies, used overpriced sponsorship and backdoor
contracts to conceal subsidies from owner Sheikh Mansour, the deputy
prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, to sidestep Financial Fair
Play (FFP) limits.

The reports alleged that Sheikh Mansour had
funnelled 127.5 million euros to the club through City’s sponsors, which
include Etihad, the Emirati airline.

Some of the allegations had
been laid out in a 2015 report by a consortium of US airlines
complaining that they were facing unfair competition from
state-subsidised Gulf airlines.

MARCH 7, 2019: NEW UEFA INVESTIGATION

UEFA
opened an investigation into “potential violations of the rules of
Financial Fair Play”. The possible punishments ranged from a reprimand
to a ban from European competitions.

FEBRUARY 14, 2020: CHAMPTIONS LEAGUE BAN

On
Valentine’s Day, UEFA’s Adjudicatory Chamber banned City from European
competitions for the next two seasons for “serious financial fair-play
breaches” in its accounts for the period 2012-2016.

The English champions were also fined 30 million euros ($32.5 million).

They immediately launched an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

JUNE 8-10, 2020: CAS HEARING

Lausanne-based
CAS, the arbitrator in sports cases, hears the appeal through a
videoconference. It announces that “at the end of the hearings, both
parties expressed their satisfaction with the conduct of the
procedure”. 

JULY 13, 2020: CAS LIFTS CITY’S BAN

CAS
set aside the ban, ruling that “most of the alleged breaches reported
by the Adjudicatory Chamber… were either not established or
time-barred”.

It said that many of the alleged offences could not be punished because of UEFA’s five-year statute of limitations.

CAS
said that while City were guilty of obstructing the UEFA investigation,
it was over-ruling the “more significant violation” of “dishonest
concealment” of funding. 

The only penalty was a fine of 10 million euros, to be paid to UEFA.

De Gea needs more trophies, says Solskjaer

Goalkeeper David de
Gea will not be content with personal accolades and needs to win more
major trophies at Manchester United, manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has
said.

De Gea, 29, has won United’s Player of the Year award four
times since arriving from Atletico Madrid in 2011 but the club have won
the Premier League just once during his nine seasons at Old Trafford.