Roberto Martinez’s men progressed to the last eight with a 2-0 win at Bournemouth on Saturday, while Chelsea cruised to a 5-1 victory against a young Manchester City side at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
Advertisement
At Stamford Bridge, City manager Manuel Pellegrini showed that the focus was on his side’s Champions League last 16 first-leg match against Dynamo Kyiv on Wednesday – handing five players their debut.
A full-strength Chelsea could even afford the luxury of a missed penalty when Oscar’s kick was saved by City’s second-choice keeper Willy Caballero.
Tottenham, second in the Premier League, had earlier seen Dele Alli twice hit the post with the same shot and this loss ended their hopes of emulating the celebrated League and Cup “double” winning Spurs team of 1960/61. We played two rounds before and we had in both rounds a draw with Premier League teams and we won 4-0 and 3-0 (against Aston Villa and Norwich). Some might be still in that team and they go for their revenge.
“They gave us a hard time here (a 3-3 draw in January)”.
“I never see Suarez, Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, these are the best players in the world, I never see these guys wanting to be left out, these guys are never left out or want to be rested for us it seems a big issue in our country”.
With the Blues languishing in 12th place in the Premier League, the FA Cup and Champions League are now Hiddink’s priority.
City forward Kelechi Iheanacho received a pass on the right and spread the ball into Chelsea’s six-yard area.
Hiddink extended his 100 per cent record in the competition to six games and has now lost just one of 13 games in all competitions since succeeding Jose Mourinho in December.
City scored through youngster David Faupala in the 37th minute, one minute after Diego Costa took the lead for Chelsea, who won the game 5-1.
Hiddink said: “Of course it’s a boost for the confidence of the players”. “If one team respects all the cups, it’s this team”, the Chilean added.
“We still have to improve”.
Advertisement
“We have big games coming up and the Champions League is a big challenge, we need to be ready for anything”. “I don’t know whether this is a positive or a negative… for us it was probably negative because it puts more pressure on us”.
