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Manchester City did not deserve to go out of the Champions League on Wednesday. On the balance of play against Real Madrid, they can count themselves a bit unlucky to lose the tie. It is important that they bounce back quickly, though, starting with an FA Cup semi-final.

City's main focus now will be their attempt to become the first side in the 136-year history of English league football to be crowned champions four times in a row. That would be a huge achievement, and going out of Europe will aid that.

Pep is greedy for trophies, though, and of course he will want to lift the FA Cup again too.

Chelsea have drawn with City twice this season and they will be dangerous with Cole Palmer in their team.

But the kerfuffle over who would take their penalty against Everton on Monday, when Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson argued before Palmer took the ball and scored his fourth goal, sums up the whole situation at the club.

I would not mind seeing that happen if Palmer had missed a few penalties on the trot, because then it is someone else's turn.

But it appears that they have an odd dressing room at the moment, with a lot of inflated egos in there, and if Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino cannot create harmony, you wonder who will.

On the pitch, Chelsea have shown a bit more consistency in the second half of the season with an eight-game unbeaten run in the league that has put them in the race for sixth place.

Pochettino will want a trophy to underline their improvement, but I think it will be City who progress. I am backing the holders to flex their muscles again, go again... and win this tie quite comfortably.

Sutton's prediction: 3-0

You can read the rest of my predictions for the weekend's games here.

Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino on Christopher Nkunku's ongoing recovery from a hamstring injury: "They assess him day by day and now in the last few days he has the possibility to be involved in some parts of the training session.

"We now need to see the reaction of his body and then how he is going to evolve. We hope he can involve him and he will be involved as soon as possible, or before the end of the season."

BBC Sport has a dedicated Chelsea page packed with news, analysis and fan views - get it here

Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino on Cole Palmer: "Honestly, always we never judged the players when we signed the players but we believe they can perform. It is true he is performing in a very good way. I think it's his first consistent season playing. Also we need to be careful because he is young and he is growing.

"He already played twice in the Premier League [against Manchester City]. He is very grateful to Manchester City and to coach Pep Guardiola. He always talks very highly about them and Pep. He's not this type of player to have something inside.

"I think he understood perfectly that maybe for different reasons he wanted to prove himself in another club. I think also a thank you to Manchester City for giving the opportunity to him to move to another club. He is very grateful and talked kindly about Pep and Manchester City."

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

News coming in concerning Emiliano Martinez, who had quite the night in Aston Villa's penalty shootout win over Lille in the Europa Conference League.

He received two yellow cards on the night, the second coming in the middle of the shootout which, in the Laws of the Game, meant he was allowed to stay on the pitch.

But despite saving the crucial penalty that saw Villa reach the semi-finals, he will now be suspended for the first leg against Olympiacos on 2 May.

It's for picking up three cautions during the quarter-finals, having also been booked in the first leg.

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Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino on why he has lemons in his office: "Yes, I like to have lemons in my office. It's a habit, it's not a superstition, but I like to have lemons in my office. I don't know why I need to believe in this, or if it's helping or not. But it makes me feel comfortable. It's like home. My place now in the training ground is like my home. Lemons make me feel like home."

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Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino on the row between his players over penalty-taking duties in their 6-0 win over Everton: "We were talking a lot this week because we were practising penalties. I think it's clear. I made clear after the game. We had a meeting with the players and staff and they were involved also the sporting director.

"I explained my feelings and in the future it cannot happen like this. The message was clear and now we need to move. They are clever and understand the situation. In another way it's good that a player wants to take responsibility for a penalty, show the character and personality of the team and the players.

"But they need to respect discipline and the rules which are so important. The way they wanted to do things was in a very wrong way. It's important for them to learn and for us to apply common sense and act in a different way in the future. Now all is clear we need to move on."

Finally from Pep Guardiola, here's the Manchester City manager on bouncing back from the disappointment of his team's Champiopns League exit in midweek: "We don't have an option, we don't want to feel sorry for ourselves. We performed at our best but were not able to win.

"We don't have time to reflect, we'll do that in the summertime. In football you compete to win, but sometimes you lose games, and that's what happened."

BBC Sport has a dedicated Manchester City page packed with news, analysis and fan views - get it here

Image source, Reuters

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola on 21-year-old winger Cole Palmer, who City sold to Chelsea last summer: "He's an exceptional player, we knew when he was here. I've said many times, I didn't give the minutes that maybe he deserved and now he has at Chelsea. I understand completely.

"He's a shy guy with a lot of potential. It is what it is. He's playing fantastically well.

"But he was asking for two seasons to leave. I said 'no, stay'. But he still said 'no, I want to leave'. What could we do? I said stay because Riyad [Mahrez] has gone but for two seasons he wanted to leave."

Image source, PA Media

On the fitness of Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland, who came off late on against Real Madrid in midweek, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said: "Kevin seems well. Erling felt something, a muscular issue. Kevin felt exhausted, so tired, after five months out injured [at the start of the season], so that's normal. We'll see more tomorrow.

On his best players being tired: "It's normal, with the amount of games we've played this season and in the previous seasons. There's not much time for recovery, we played extra-time and the intensity we play. We are not machines, the fatigue is there."

BBC Sport has a dedicated Manchester City page packed with news, analysis and fan views - get it here

Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner has confirmed that Jefferson Lerma was injured during last week's 1-0 win at Liverpool, while defender Rob Holding is back in contention for Sunday's game against West Ham.

“We have one player injured from the Liverpool game, and that is Jefferson Lerma," he said.

“We will miss him for at least until Manchester United [on 6th May], so for this week where we have three games in six or seven days.

“I am pleased that Rob Holding is back. He trained for the whole week with us and he will be in the squad.

“We have three question marks. Chris Richards: it was the first time he trained with us today, but it was a very easy session, so him.

“Then we have Joel Ward, who also had issues this week with his groin so we will see tomorrow, and Will Hughes got a knock yesterday in training, so he couldn’t train today.

“So it is three players we will take the final decision on tomorrow. That is it, nobody else is coming back."

BBC Sport has a dedicated Palace page packed with news, analysis and fan views - get it here

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola on FA Cup replays being scrapped: "I think you know better than me the reason why [the competition] was created. It's for the lower-division sides to have the chance to have big clubs and get money for them. In that sense, it is a problem. It's a big blow.

"For the big clubs playing in European competitions, it's much better. We have a tight schedule with lots of games. To find a balance in world football is so difficult.

"I understand why clubs in lower divisions complain and it has been a tradition for many years but with the schedule that we have, playing in European competition and with many players going to the national teams, it is much better."

BBC Sport has a dedicated Manchester City page packed with news, analysis and fan views - get it here

Tomorrow's FA Cup semi-final will be Chelsea's second trip to Wembley this season after getting to the League Cup final against Liverpool.

Cole Palmer continues to have an incredible first season at Stamford Bridge and takes on the side who sold him for the third time this season.

Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino will likely be asked during his news conference about the penalty situation when Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson tried to take the ball from regular taker Palmer during Monday's Premier League win over Everton.

Pep Guardiola will be speaking to the media shortly.

The Manchester City manager will surely be asked about Cole Palmer, who was sold to Chelsea for £42.5m in the summer and has been so good it has propelled him towards selection for England's Euro 2024 squad.

Despite no longer being able to do the Treble, City can still become the first side to do the domestic Double in successive seasons.

Image source, BBC Sport

The EFL statement added that: "This latest agreement between the Premier League and the FA, in the absence of financial reform, is just a further example of how the EFL and its clubs are being marginalised in favour of others further up the pyramid and that only serves to threaten the future of the English game.

"The EFL today calls on both the Premier League and the FA, as the governing body, to re-evaluate their approach to their footballing partnership with the EFL and engage more collaboratively on issues directly affecting our clubs."

A little earlier Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag gave his view on the decision to scrap FA Cup replays. You can see what he had to say by clicking the video above.

Everton manager Sean Dyche on scrapping FA Cup replays: "The debate about how much football is getting played by individuals, are we asking too much of them as players and all the rest of it. So there's a bigger picture at play, particularly the teams that are super successful every season, playing all sorts of different trophies.

"For the beauty of the cup, it changes obviously. The glamour, the prestige changes. But I don't know, they're cramming so much into football now and certainly in the Premier League season and as I said particularly the teams that are doing well in all sorts of competitions.

"I don't think it's an easy situation, because there are a lot of games and as I said the higher up you go, the more trophies you're in, it does get a lot of games. Players are playing 55 or 65 games a season and I think it does get challenging for them.

"It's not an easy situation to make them decisions, who's saying what and who wants what, the latest debate about player wellbeing and heading the ball and extra-time, where does it all live, which one's which? Generally speaking, I think most managers would suggest players play a lot of games. Particularly ones that are involved in international tournaments as well. "

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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on the decision to scrap FA Cup replays: "We cannot only look at that in an isolated way but in the next few season. I understand every point of view.

"Mine is to protect our players and when I look at the amount of minutes and games they played in the last two seasons, with no breaks, and what they are going have to play in the next two years that's not healthy. For sure. So somewhere, somehow, and it doesn't have to be that [the FA Cup] we have to reduce that calendar."

BBC Sport has a dedicated Arsenal page packed with news, analysis and fan views - get it here

The English Football League has now issued a statement in response to that made by the Football Association earlier, in which the FA said that scrapping FA Cup replays "was discussed in the early meetings and all parties accepted that they could not continue".

However, the EFL statement, external reads: "The agreement which now sees the abolition of replays from the competition format was agreed solely between the Premier League and FA. Ahead of the deal being announced there was no agreement with the EFL nor was there any formal consultation with EFL clubs as members of the FA and participants in the competition.

"In September 2023, the EFL did initially discuss with clubs potential changes to the FA Cup format but only as part of a wider and more fundamental change to financial distributions. As is now clear, there has been no movement in this area since September."

There is a lot of criticism for the Premier League around the decision to scrap FA Cup replays.

However, they believe the real fault lies with Fifa and Uefa, who are expanding their competitions, which have created even less room for domestic matches.

The Premier League, FA and EFL have no input into the expansion of European competition, mid-season internationals and the introduction of a post-season Club World Cup.

All they can do is work around the available dates.

More from Fulham manager Marco Silva on facing Liverpool for the fourth time this season, having also met in the Carabao Cup semi-finals: "They have been very, very good games. Probably some of them too open for a manger to enjoy but yes, at Anfield, at the Cottage as well, they’ve been really in some moments emotional games as well. Other moments entertaining, tight games always. Of course in some of them, dramatic ends of the match.

"I think (playing) at Anfield played a big part in it as well, they became more emotional. Even last season, it was really tough for them to play at Craven Cottage. Carabao this season of course we wanted to make their life really difficult, give them a match and of course, let’s hope we can get a different result than the last games we’ve played against them."

BBC Sport has a dedicated Fulham page packed with news, analysis and fan views - get it here

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