Man City vs Chelsea: Latest FA Cup team news, injury latest and predicted lineup
Chelsea arrive bang in form with City nursing a European hangover.
Chelsea hope to welcome a number of players back for their FA Cup semi-final showdown against Manchester City.
Enzo Fernandez, Axel Disasi and Raheem Sterling all missed the 6-0 thrashing of Everton on Monday night with Levi Colwill absent from his side’s last five games with a toe injury.
Fernandez and Disasi were both ‘under assessment’ last weekend with Mauricio Pochettino confident both were dealing with small issues.
Both players were pictured back in training this week, boosting their hopes of returning to the side on Saturday.
Sterling meanwhile has missed Chelsea’s last two games after suffering from food poisoning but has also returned to training and will be available to take on his former side at Wembley.
Shortly after his involvement in that bizarre penalty row on Monday night, Noni Madueke appeared to be limping as he was replaced by Carney Chukwuemeka midway through the second-half.
The Blues remain without a handful of longer-term absentees with Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia out for the rest of the season. Christopher Nkunku and Lesley Ugochukwu also remain sidelined while captain Reece James is still recovering from his latest setback.
Manchester City meanwhile will need to dust themselves off following their Champions League elimination at the hands of Real Madrid on Wednesday night.
Players from both sides were visibly exhausted during the tense quarter-final decider that went all the way to penalties with Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland both replaced despite being likely candidates to step up in the shoot-out.
Haaland was replaced on 90 minutes by Julian Alvarez with Kevin de Bruyne and Manuel Akanji both going off 12 minutes later.
Pep Guardiola revealed all three players had asked to come off because they felt they were unable to continue.
‘They were playing amazing; I’m not a big fan of so many substitutions but Kevin, Erling and Manu asked me to go out because they could not continue.’
Kyle Walker was fit again to start that game, showing his troublesome hamstring is in full working order after sprinting back to deny Vinicius Jr last night.
Nathan Ake was also back in the squad after a recent calf problem.
Chelsea predicted XI vs Man City: Petrovic, Gusto, Disasi, Thiago Silva, Cucurella, Caicedo, Gallagher, Madueke, Palmer, Mudruyk, Jackson
Man City predicted XI vs Chelsea: Ortega, Walker, Ake, Dias, Gvardiol, Rodri, Foden, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Doku, Haaland
Man City vs Chelsea kick-off time and TV channel
The second semi-final of the weekend kicks off at 5:15pm [BST] on Saturday 20 April. The match will be broadcast live on BBC One and available for streaming on BBC iPlayer.
Chelsea news, exclusives and analysis
