Bournemouth vs Manchester City (FA Cup Quarter-Final): Match Preview, Team News, Stats, Head to Head, How to Watch | OneFootball

Manchester City return to action this Sunday against Bournemouth as club football gets back underway following the final international break of the season.

City look to salvage silverware from a difficult campaign across competitions as they face off against the Cherries this weekend, with the prospect of an FA Cup victory remaining the last hope of success for Pep Guardiola’s men.

Manchester City come into this crucial fixture two weeks on from a disappointing 2-2 league draw with Brighton & Hove Albion after some fundamentally poor defending cost the champions’ more valuable points – an all-too-familiar story this season.

Truthfully, given the way the game unfolded, City were perhaps fortunate to even come away with a point. The game was open and end-to-end from start to finish, with an abundance of chances falling to both teams.

City took the lead early on after a rash challenge on Omar Marmoush inside the 18-yard box won the reigning Champions a penalty, which Erling Haaland calmly dispatched past Bart Verbruggen.

Brighton then restored parity just 10 minutes later after Pervis Estupiñán curled a brilliant set piece past Stefan Ortega Moreno from the edge of the box as the ball struck the inside of the post and nestled into the back of the net.

As the first-half drew to a close, Marmoush restored the lead for the home side as the Egyptian fired an exceptional long-range strike into the bottom corner, making the score 2-1 at the interval.

In the second-half, however, the momentum swung heavily in favour of the visitors as chaos ensued from a corner just three minutes after the break as the City back line failed to clear the ball, resulting in it cannoning off Abdudokir Khusanov into the back of the net.

Brighton would rue previous missed opportunities as the game finished 2-2 with points being shared between the sides. Given the complexion of the game, a point wasn’t an awful result for City, but it still felt like two valuable points dropped in the race for European football.

City’s opponents this weekend come into the game in relatively poor form, having not secured a win over 90 minutes since a 1-3 away victory against Southampton. Since then, Bournemouth have lost three and drawn two, only progressing in the FA Cup fifth round via a penalty shootout against Wolves following a 1-1 draw in normal time.

In terms of implications, this game is absolutely vital for both, with the Blues’ looking to progress to a seventh successive FA Cup semi-final and rescue an underwhelming season through potential glory, whilst Bournemouth have their eyes set on making history, as victory would mean the Cherries progress to their first FA Cup semi-final in the club’s history.

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of this mammoth FA Cup quarter-final tie!

Match Details

Manchester City travel to the Vitality Stadium this Sunday afternoon to take on Bournemouth, with kick-off scheduled for 16:30 (GMT).

Match Officials

The Football Association has confirmed that Stuart Attwell will oversee proceedings on Sunday afternoon as Manchester City travel to the South Coast to take on Bournemouth.

Check out the full list of match officials below!

Team News

In regard to the home side, Bournemouth’s injury list is rather extensive with Enes Ünal, Adam Smith, and Luis Sinisterra all confirmed absentees for the Cherries. Also in doubt are Julian Araujo, who hasn’t featured since November 2024 after sustaining a hamstring injury.

Marcos Senesi is also added to that last after a muscle injury has sidelined the Argentinian for almost five months, so it is also unlikely that the aforementioned pairing will be able to feature for the home side this weekend.

Bernardo Silva is fit and available for Manchester City despite being substituted just 18 minutes after his introduction off the bench against Brighton through a suspected injury two weeks ago. The Portuguese midfielder also played a full 120 minutes for his national side.

Manuel Akanji, John Stones and Nathan Aké all remain ruled out for prolonged periods of time with their respective issues, with all three not expected to feature for Manchester City until next season.

Oscar Bobb seems to be drawing ever closer to a return following his leg fracture at the start of the campaign, with the Norwegian completing 90 minutes for City’s EDS last weekend, while also being pictured in training on Thursday.

The fitness of Ederson is said to have significantly improved, with his previous absence at Brighton confirmed to be due to a lack of fitness by the club, with the Brazilian withdrawing from the national team squad prior to their fixtures against Colombia and Argentina.

In regard to Ederson, Pep Guardiola stated, “Yes (he is) good – he trained the last few days.” But when asked about the possibility of Stefan Ortega starting, the City boss replied, “We will see.”

Rodri will remain out for the foreseeable, with the Ballon d’Or winner still a long way from being deemed match fit despite resuming light training recently. Pep Guardiola said during his pre-match press conference, “It’s an injury for, the doctors told me, seven and a half months, eight months, so he’s arrived at six and a half months.

“He’s behaving really well on the pitch already, but competition is completely different, so we will see. Step by step, I rely on him a lot… We have to make sure he’s fine, and after we’ll start to be involved.”

Head to Head

In the last fixture between these two sides, Bournemouth emerged 2-1 victors back in November, with Antoine Semenyo firing home from close range to establish a 1-0 lead before Evanilson doubled the advantage poking a delicate cross home past Ederson.

Josko Gvardiol restored hope for the Champions late on, thundering a header into the top corner following a brilliant cross by Ilkay Gundogan, while Erling Haaland was inches away from rescuing an unlikely point but was somehow denied through a combination of Mark Travers and the woodwork.

That loss in November, however, is the only flaw in Manchester City’s exemplary recent record against the Cherries, with 15 of the last 16 meetings between the two sides being won by the Sky Blues via an aggregate score of 47-8.

Statistics

Bournemouth won 2-1 against Manchester City the last time they faced in November, having not won any of their first 21 meetings with the Blues in all competitions (D2 L19).

This is the first ever FA Cup meeting between Bournemouth and Manchester City. It’s just the third time the Cherries have faced the reigning English champions in the competition after March 1957 (1-2 v Manchester United) and January 1961 (0-1 v Burnley).

This is just Bournemouth’s third appearance in the FA Cup quarter-finals, losing 2-1 against Manchester United in 1956-57 and 3-0 against Southampton in 2020-21.

Manchester City have won their last seven FA Cup quarter-final ties, with these coming in the last eight campaigns (exception being 2017-18). Their run of reaching the semi-final in six consecutive campaigns is already a record in the competition.

Bournemouth have progressed from their last two FA Cup ties against top-flight opponents (against Everton and Wolves in this season’s fourth and fifth rounds), as many as they had in their previous 17 such ties.

How To Watch

For viewers in the United Kingdom the game can be streamed live on ITV1/ITVX from 16:30 GMT.

For viewers in the United States, the action gets underway at 11:30AM EST and can be watched via ESPN+ USA.

You can find the full global TV listings for this match here!

City Xtra will have full live coverage available on our X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram channels throughout Wednesday evening, with content also provided on cityxtra.co.uk and YouTube!