THE VERDICT: CITY 5 HUDDERSFIELD 1

WEMBLEY is within touching distance for Pep Guardiola.

And in this kind of mood there would be no more fitting a team to light up the national stadium than his electrifying City.

Having allowed Chelsea to build a surely unassailable lead at the top of the Premier League, there is a sense of Guardiola letting his team off the leash in recent weeks.

But enjoy it while it lasts – it can’t go on forever.

Guardiola is determined to make City dominate English football – and his thrilling team may need a dose of pragmatism to realise that ambition. Until then, sit back and drink it in. Since the turn of the year West Ham were made to pay in brutal fashion – twice.

Against Monaco, a week ago, City produced a modern-day classic – winning 5-3 in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.

And faced with Championship promotion-chasing Huddersfield in the FA Cup fifth round replay, City were simply irresistible – eventually running out 5-1 winners.

Inside a breathtaking first 45 minutes, Guardiola’s men scored three, hit the woodwork twice and had three legitimate penalty appeals dismissed.

All that after going a goal down to Harry Bunn’s seventh-minute strike.

It is the whole picture that makes City THE must-see attraction in English football right now.

At the back, they are a basket case at times.

Things have got so bad with Claudio Bravo – guilty of allowing Bunn’s effort to go straight through him – that his own fans cheered ironically when he pulled off a wholly unconvincing save shortly before half-time.

But as flaky as they are at the back, they are mesmerising up front.

Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling and Kevin de Bruyne break with such bewildering pace that opposition defenders are left dizzy.

Three, unpunished, handballs in the box were a measure of the panic City’s forwards can provoke.

Sane, Aguero – from the penalty spot – and Pablo Zabaleta put them in command by the halfway point, prompting the Etihad to imagine a repeat of the famous 10-1 against Huddersfield in 1987.

Instead they had to make do with two more – Aguero finishing clinically in the 73rd minute after more good work from the outstanding Sterling, and substitute Sane (30), Aguero (35 pen, 73), Zabaleta (38), Iheanacho (90) Bunn (7) 67% 33% 16 5 6 2 None Hudson, Stankovic Paul Tierney 42,425 Kelechi Iheanacho striking in injury time.

With relegation-threatened Middlesbrough to come in the quarter-finals, Guardiola can see a Wembley semi-final on the horizon.

It would be his first return to Wembley since Barcelona’s Champions League triumph on the same stage in 2011.

That vintage of Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta stands out as his finest creation.

He believes he is building something special at City, too – and a first trophy would be an ominous marker of his progress.