FA sanction is set to add even more spice to Manchester City v Liverpool cup clash
The draw for the quarter-finals of the FA Cup on Monday night handed Liverpool a tough assignment away to Manchester City.
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The Reds won a memorable semi-final at Wembley when the teams last met in this competition four years ago, but they lost both of their Premier League games against Pep Guardiola’s side this season, including a controversial stoppage-time reverse at Anfield just over a month ago.
The Spaniard won’t be on the touchline for the cup clash at the Etihad Stadium on the first weekend of April, having been handed a two-game ban for accumulating a sixth yellow card of the campaign in his team’s fifth-round victory away to Newcastle last weekend.
Lijnders to take charge of Man City against Liverpool next month
As per Sky Sports, the 55-year-old will be suspended for the Premier League match away to West Ham on Saturday and Liverpool’s visit to Manchester in the FA Cup, but he can be in the dugout for the Carabao Cup final against Arsenal, which falls in between those two fixtures.
As set out by FA guidelines: ‘Play-off matches [semi-finals and finals] in the EFL and National League System, as well as finals of the Emirates FA Cup, EFL Cup [and] EFL Trophy are exempt from any automatic touchline ban for the accumulation of cautions by technical area occupants’.
Therefore, the second match of Guardiola’s ban will be served against the Reds…and it means that Pep Lijnders – Jurgen Klopp’s long-time assistant at LFC – will take charge of Man City against his former club on the weekend of 4/5 April.
Liverpool now have even further motivation to beat Man City
Eyebrows may well have been raised on Merseyside when the 43-year-old linked up with one of Liverpool’s biggest competitors at the start of last summer, not least because of the intense rivalry which developed between the two clubs over the past decade when he served under the German at Anfield.
That Klopp actually gave his blessing for his former assistant to team up with Guardiola at the Etihad is likely to have compounded the ill-feeling among Reds supporters, and the presence of Lijnders on the touchline for the FA Cup quarter-finals will add further spice to an already tasty fixture.
For LFC in particular, the game in Manchester will take on huge importance, with this competition representing our best (and, by then, potentially only) chance of a trophy from what’s been a thoroughly underwhelming season.
Conversely, it could be the first of seven or eight matches next month if Liverpool continue to battle on three fronts and progress to the semi-finals of both the Champions League and FA Cup.
On top of that, the sight of Lijnders calling the shots for Man City on 4/5 April and the tempestuous end to the team’s clash at Anfield last month will surely add even more motivational fuel for the Reds, if it were needed!
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