Arsenal beat Man City to book FA Cup final ticket

Arsenal followed up their impressive midweek win over Liverpool with an astonishing 2-0 shock win over Manchester City on Saturday (July 18) to book their place in the FA Cup finals.

The game saw Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta outfox his mentor Pep Guardiola at Wembley to propel Arsenal to their 21st FA Cup final.

Arteta has only been in charge of the Gunners since December when he replaced Unai Emery. Despite question marks about his tenure, he now looks set to take home his first silverware, courtesy of two well-taken goals by top scorer, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Arsenal will now face the winner of Sunday’s (July 19) second semi-final between Chelsea and Manchester United.

Mikel Arteta told the BBC : “We’ve had an incredible week to beat the best two teams in Europe, it doesn’t happen every day.

“I don’t care who plays, I can trust them – we made changes and everyone was ready.

“We had to suffer in many moments. We had to be really well-organised and minimise the spaces.”

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola told the BBC match of the day: 

“We didn’t make a good performance, we were not ready enough. If you don’t play for 90 minutes in a semi-final this can happen. We didn’t play good, we are human beings. The opponent played good, sometimes it happens.

“The only regret is that we didn’t play the first half like we played the second one. We had to change the set-up but we couldn’t do it.”

Meanwhile, Arteta paid tribute to his former boss, Pep Guardiola: “I high-fived him after the game and wished him luck. I love him like yesterday or this morning the same way.”