Sergio Aguero seals victory as Manchester City fight back against Swansea to reach FA Cup semi-finals
Swansea City 2-3 Manchester City: The Argentine striker scored twice to keep alive City’s hopes of an unprecedented quadruple by rounding off a rousing comeback as the visitors overcame a two-goal deficit
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Your support makes all the difference.Sergio Aguero kept alive Manchester City’s on track for a clean sweep of honours this season as he led a stunning recovery, with the Premier League leaders fighting back from the brink against Swansea.
The Argentine striker scored twice to keep alive City’s hopes of an unprecedented quadruple by rounding off a rousing comeback as they overcame a two-goal deficit to beat Swansea 3-2 and secure a place in the FA Cup semi-finals.
As Aguero watched from the substitute’ bench, Swansea surged into a first-half lead but then emerged as City’s saviour by setting up his team’s first goal before completing the comeback with two late goals.
They were enough to maintain the League Cup winners’ ambitions of further Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League glory this season.
Even though City started the game with Sterling and Aguero on the substitutes’ bench, it looked as if it would be business as usual for the Premier League leaders.
Guardiola’s players had run rings round Schalke in a 7-0 Champions League victory and looked intent on a repeat performance against their Championship opponents as City skipper David Silva settled into his play-making stride.
City would have been ahead in the fifth minute but for a fine save by Kristoffer Nordfeldt who pushed away a powerful shot from Leroy Sane before repeating the trick to keep out Bernardo Silva’s curling effort.
Despite City’s early dominance, Swansea were clearly going to be no pushovers, especially when they worked out that attack would be the best form of defence, with a pass-and-move game that even Guardiola would have enjoyed.
Roared on by vociferous support, they warmed to the task of making life uncomfortable for the visiting defence before the breakthrough arrived thanks to a dreadful misjudgement by England midfielder Fabian Delph.
Delph, sent off when City tumbled out of last season’s FA Cup at Wigan, conceded a penalty that put Swansea in command of this tie in the 21stminute.
He was caught flat-footed when Connor Roberts darted into the penalty box taking control of Mike van der Hoorn’s crossfield ball and fouled the Wales international wing-back.
Swansea, without regular penalty-taker and leading scorer Oli McBurnie due to injury, had missed four out of seven penalties this season, but centre-back Matt Grimes confidently converted, sending the ball high into the net as Ederson guessed incorrectly dived to his left.
It was Grimes’s first goal in three-and-a-half years with Swansea but he took over penalty duties following Bersant Celina’s embarrassing spot-kick miss in a 3-0 midweek defeat at West Bromwich Albion.
Swansea fans had not seen anything like it since they were beating the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool last season in the ultimately unsuccessful fight to stay in the Premier League.
Things rapidly went from bad to worse for the Premier League leaders in the 29th minute as Guardiola’s defence disintegrated following a nine-pass move involving seven Swansea players.
Bersant Celina, who had been the butt of social media jokes since his midweek spot-kick miscue, rounded off a sequence of passes to curl the ball delightfully beyond Ederson.
Swansea had a lucky escape when the ball went just wide of their goal after a spot of goalmouth pinball that had Guardiola looking bamboozled.
Aymeric Laporte was lucky not to see read when he lost his temper following referee Andre Marriner’s half-time whistle and was booked for shoving Swansea winger Wayne Routlege in the chest.
Guardiola eventually sent on Raheem Sterling on in place of Sane in the 57th minute and Sergio Ageuro in place of Riyayd Mahrez six minutes later and it paid off soon after as City hit back.
It was entertainment of the highest order, with neither defence dominating, and City’s pressure was rewarded in the 69th minute when Silva thumped the ball past Nordfeldt after he was teed up by Aguero to set up a tense finale.
City pressure was rewarded in the 69th minute when Bernardo Silva hit a crisp shot beyond Nordfeldt.
It was developing into a humdinger of a cup tie but City really raised their game and Guardiola’s side were repeatedly kept at bay by the heroics of Nordfeldt who had the Spanish coach holding his head in his hands in disbelief with one save.
The mounting pressure eventually told and Ageuro got the better of Nordfeldt with a spot-kick which hit a post before going in off the keeper’s in the 78th minute after Sterling was fouled by Cameron Carter Vickers.
Aguero had the final word in the 89th minute with a stooping header to complete a rousing comeback.
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