No time to brood for City
MANCHESTER — Manchester City’s quest for a historic quadruple is over after a shock FA Cup defeat to Wigan but there is little time to lick their wounds with the League Cup final against Arsenal looming.
Pep Guardiola’s City face Arsene Wenger’s Gunners in Sunday’s Wembley showpiece, trying to win the first trophy of the Guardiola era, with English Premier League glory looking certain barring an unforeseen disaster.
Guardiola’s team are also on course for the Champions League quarter-finals after thrashing Basle 4-0 away in the first leg of their last-16 tie last week. But, even with the league title apparently in the bag, back-to-back cup defeats would put a dampener on what has been an impressive season of dazzling football.
Ten-man City went down 1-0 to League One Wigan in an ill-tempered FA Cup fifth round tie on Monday, courtesy of a late Will Grigg goal — a repeat of the scoreline in the 2013 FA Cup final.
To make matters worse, Sergio Aguero became embroiled in an ugly post-match altercation with fans while visiting supporters were seen tearing up advertising hoardings and throwing them on to the pitch. “We’ve got to look at those (other three competitions) and look forward, but we’re disappointed,” said City defender John Stones.
“We wanted to be in all four competitions right until the end. That’s been cut short now. We’ll take time to reflect on tonight and look forward to the final on the weekend.”
LOS ANGELES — Women’s tennis star Serena Williams says she lives in fear of blood clots, a condition that surfaced during a harrowing postnatal ordeal in September when she almost died giving birth to her first child.
In an op-ed piece she wrote for CNN on Tuesday, the tennis legend lifted the lid on her near-death experience while giving birth to daughter, Olympia, after getting blood clots in her lungs.
“I almost died after giving birth to my daughter,” Williams said.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion Williams said she had to have an emergency Caesarean section surgery after her heart rate plummeted dramatically during contractions. The surgery was successful and before she knew it she was holding the newborn. “But what followed just 24 hours after giving birth were six days of uncertainty,” she said.
In a Vogue magazine interview in January, Williams said that during her postnatal ordeal she suffered a pulmonary embolism — when blood clots block one or more arteries
Guardiola left Ederson, Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling out of his starting line-up but otherwise named a strong side containing Aguero, David Silva and centrebacks Stones and Aymeric Laporte. Following a series of complaints over dangerous challenges on his players not being punished harshly enough, Guardiola saw his own player, Fabian Delph, shown a straight red card just before half-time.
The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss then exchanged heated words with Wigan manager Paul Cook as they went down the tunnel at half-time. But the Catalan admitted Delph and City only had themselves to blame for the defeat.
“Is a red card, yeah,” said Guardiola. “For me it’s an unnecessary action and the referee decides what he decides, so I’m not here to judge, so can be a red card. We have to learn about that. I just judge my team for the intentions, not the result and today the intentions were good. We tried 10 against 11.”
City still dominated despite being a man light as Wigan enjoyed just 17 per cent possession and four shots compared to City’s 29.
However, they had the shot that counted, when Grigg latched onto an error from Walker, who came on after Delph was sent off, before firing past Claudio Bravo 11 minutes from time. “We conceded one shot on target in 90 minutes and we lost, but football is like this,” added Guardiola. The City boss played down his spat with Cook. “Nothing happened in the tunnel, nothing happened with my colleague,” he said. “It was just please stay in your position, that’s all, and then finished.”
Guardiola said he did not see the Aguero incident at the end of the game.
“I was in the locker room, I didn’t see it,” he said. “It’s safer when the fans are not there, but sometimes it happens. The fans respect the players and the players the fans and go inside.” — AFP