It’s been quite an interesting year for Manchester City so far, if at the beginning of the year you had asked me if I thought Man City would carry on their invincible streak and win the quadruple, I would have probably muttered something and nodded my head, conceding that I thought they would because they looked unstoppable. Now, however, just 2 and a bit months in, if you asked me the same question… I would laugh heartily until the colour started to drain from my face and I struggled to breathe.
Monday night saw Manchester City taken out in one of the biggest shocks of this year’s FA Cup, as a poor performance coupled with Fabian Delph’s sending off helped Wigan sneak into the FA Cup quarter-final.
The irony is not lost on me that Pep Guardiola has spent the past few weeks complaining about other teams performing “reckless” tackles against his City side when Fabian Delph went into his challenge with all the finesse and accuracy of a blindfolded Stephen Hawking taking archery lessons.
It was a game marred by controversy and will probably be remembered for the wrong reasons, one such reason being Anthony Taylor, in a moment where he was influenced by our current government, he decided to make a giant U-turn, it would be easier to ask people to show referees some respect if they were able to stand by their decisions and not fold to pressure from the opposing team.
But it seems if you surround the referee and scream and shout at him then you are perfectly able to change his mind and that’s okay.
The whole red card offence descended into a farcical row that erupted on the touchline between Cook and Guardiola, this then continued into the tunnel where we are shown scenes of the two rowing and shoving. However, if I wanted to see two balding men arguing and shoving each other about I’d pop down to my local Wetherspoons on a Saturday night.
Wigan managed to come through and Will Grigg slotted the ball into the net despite falling over in the motion, which I must admit is a talent in itself.
The Delph sending off wasn’t the only controversy, however, as after the game, hundreds of jubilant Wigan fans stormed the pitch. It was a horrible end to the game, and it surprised just about everyone, mainly because nobody knew Wigan had hundreds of fans. One fan got into an altercation with Sergio Aguero, Sergio after the game claimed that the fan in question had spat on him, and it could have resulted in something even worse, like Sergio getting punched in the face, which would be terrible because nobody would be able to notice the difference.
Man City will now be focusing all their attention on the Carabao Cup final, hoping that they can now go towards the treble unless this is the first domino and now the season will come crumbling down around them.