{"id":611427,"date":"2026-04-28T15:03:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/611427\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T15:03:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:03:19","slug":"man-city-fixtures-pep-guardiolas-side-face-pile-up-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/611427\/","title":{"rendered":"Man City fixtures: Pep Guardiola&#8217;s side face pile-up in May"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-city\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester City<\/a> have been left frustrated by the length of time it has taken for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/crystal-palace\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crystal Palace<\/a> game to be confirmed and feel the principle of rescheduling games at the earliest moment has not been followed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Premier League knew about the need to rearrange that game on 4 February, when City beat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Newcastle<\/a> to book their place in the Carabao Cup final, but it has taken almost three months to come to this decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is understood City had offered three different alternatives for the Palace fixture in the weeks beginning 20 and 27 April, as well as 4 May, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/burnley\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Burnley<\/a> game was rescheduled for the first option and Oliver Glasner&#8217;s side&#8217;s participation in the Europa Conference League ruling out the other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Uefa do not want any fixtures to clash with the Europa League final on Wednesday, 20 May &#8211; which is why the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/afc-bournemouth\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bournemouth<\/a> fixture is now taking place on the previous day &#8211; yet it is pointed out that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a> were given permission to play their league game at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/wolverhampton-wanderers\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wolves<\/a> on 18 February despite four Champions League knockout matches taking place on the same night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">City had put forward the scenario of potentially facing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/afc-bournemouth\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bournemouth<\/a> on 12 May and Palace a week later, which would have allowed an extra day to recover for the Wembley showpiece and to play their final two league games of the season at home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-city\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester City<\/a> wanted to play the game against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/crystal-palace\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crystal Palace<\/a> on Tuesday. 19 May, this did not seem to take into account the Eagles&#8217; game against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/brentford\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brentford<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That game has to be played on Sunday, 17 May as the FA Cup final takes place the day before, so there was no realistic prospect that Palace would be told to play again 48 hours later when there were other options available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sources say the Premier League have referenced a principle which states that all FA Cup semi\u2011finalists should play in the first available midweek before those matches, but the game against the Cherries has instead been put into the week after.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It leaves City with an arduous three games in seven days with a lot of travelling involved during the most crucial part of the campaign when they are chasing a domestic treble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester City have been left frustrated by the length of time it has taken for the Crystal Palace&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-611427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}