Manchester City will face Chelsea in the FA Cup final on Saturday, with Pep Guardiola’s side chasing another domestic trophy and Chelsea trying to rescue a season that has already drifted badly off course. City are still in the Premier League title race with Arsenal and have already won the Carabao Cup, while Chelsea arrive at Wembley ninth in the league table and without a permanent manager in charge.
For City, the final is another chance to keep stacking silverware under Guardiola. They last won the FA Cup in 2023 and lost the final 1-0 to Crystal Palace last season before falling 2-1 to Manchester United in 2024, a run that puts them in position to become the first team to lose three FA Cup finals in a row if that pattern continues. They also had a tune-up on Wednesday, beating Crystal Palace 3-0, and now move into four games in the space of 12 days with the title race still alive.
Chelsea come in with a very different kind of pressure. They drew at Liverpool last weekend after six straight league games without a win, and that result offered some relief after a miserable stretch that has left them looking for something bigger than a point. A Wembley victory would save their season and secure a place in next season’s Europa League, turning what has been a fractured campaign into something that can still be sold as a success.
The club’s recent FA Cup record shows how thin that margin has become. Chelsea last won the competition in 2018, beating Manchester United 1-0, but since then they have lost finals on penalties to Liverpool in 2022, 1-0 to Leicester in 2021 and 2-1 to Arsenal in 2020. The weight of that history will follow them into Saturday’s final, just as City’s recent near-misses will follow Guardiola’s team to Wembley.
That is why the fixture feels so sharp: one side is trying to keep a season of dominance moving toward another trophy, while the other is trying to stop its own campaign from being defined by collapse. In that setting, the prediction from Julien Laurens lands with the force of a familiar read on the matchup: Manchester City are the favourites to win the FA Cup as they face Chelsea in the final on Saturday, and his pick is a 2-1 City win.
Manchester City do not need this final to validate the season, but another trophy would still matter. Chelsea need it far more, because a win at Wembley is the difference between a campaign that ends in disappointment and one that still leaves room for a claim of survival. The final is a cup tie, but for both clubs it carries the shape of a verdict.
