Pep Guardiola: Winning the FA Cup would be ‘massively important’ for Man City | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola feels it is “massively important” for Manchester City to win the FA Cup.

City have had to readjust their targets this season after failing to defend their Premier League title and exiting the Champions League prematurely.

Guardiola’s side are hoping to salvage something from a disappointing campaign by beating Crystal Palace in Saturday’s final at Wembley and securing a top-five spot next week.

City manager Guardiola said: “That is now the problem, right? The FA Cup now is not the first choice.

“Of course, we want it. Once we are there, we want to lift the trophy. Of course it’s really massively important.”

While City are bidding to win the 19th trophy of Guardiola’s reign – and their third FA Cup under the Spaniard – Palace are targeting the first in their club’s history.

Oliver Glasner’s side head to the national stadium after a strong second half of the season in which they have lost just four of their last 24 games.

“It’s a fantastic team,” said Guardiola. “They’ve made a good season. They have pace, quality and are a threat.

“Of course we have to perform well but we travel to London to win the title.”

It is City’s third successive appearance in the final but they will be keen to make amends for last season’s defeat by arch-rivals Manchester United.

Guardiola said: “It’s much better winning than losing. It was disappointment last season for our performance but four days or five days before we won the Premier League, the fourth in a row. Maybe our mindset was not incredibly perfect.

“But it’s fine, it happened. The important thing is we were there and are again one year later. It’s an honour, a privilege, being there three times in a row.”

It seems unlikely Rodri, who has been out since suffering a serious knee injury in September, will feature despite suggestions the game was a target when he returned to training recently.

Guardiola said: “He’s much, much better but I’m waiting on the doctors. When they tell me he’s ready, he’s going to start. We don’t want to take a risk and take a step back now in this moment.”

The final potentially offers Kevin De Bruyne one last opportunity to shine in a showpiece occasion before he leaves the club at the end of the season.

After that he has two Premier League games remaining next against Bournemouth and Fulham next week and he is not expected to be involved at the Club World Cup in the summer.

Reports this week have linked City with the signing of Bayer Leverkusen playmaker Florian Wirtz as a potential replacement but Guardiola was not willing to discuss the speculation.

“I don’t have to have the time to talk about that before the final of the FA Cup,” he said. “I have 24 exceptional players. We’re not going to talk one second about the future.”