Premier League champions meet their challengers tonight at the Etihad Stadium as Manchester City take on Arsenal in the FA Cup competition. City punished Chelsea with 4 goals without a reply in the third round of the competition to book themselves a match day with the Gunners who thumped Oxford United 3-0 to advance to this stage. Man City must be thanking their stars for landing the signature of Erling Haaland who netted a hat-trick in their weekend's 3-0 victory against Wolves boosting their morale in the EPL title race whereby Arsenal are currently ahead of them. However, Pep Guardiola's side still have five points between them and league leaders Arsenal whom they are yet to face this season. 

City have progressed to the FA Cup semi-finals in each of their last four campaigns and will be looking to avoid an early exit at this stage of the competition when they face the Gunners on home soil tonight. City have scored in all their competitive home fixtures with March 2022 being the last time they were at home and failed to score a goal in their 0-0 fixture against Sporting Lisbon. Arsenal and Manchester United game lived up to its thrilling expectations considering the fact that both sides had gone into the game fresh from posting derby victories over their local adversaries with Arsenal beating Tottenham and United trumping City. 

Arsenal's consistency in pressuring Manchester United in their box paid off as they emerged victorious in a game that lived to its hype after Eddie Nkeitah's brace and Bukayo Saka's wonder goal canceled out Marcus Rashford's and Lisandro Martinez's goals in a 3-2 win. Nkeitah continues to deputise expertly in the absence of Gabriel Jesus as he was on target yet again twice alongside Mohamed Elneny's goal to gift the Gunners a 3-0 victory against Oxford United in the last round of the FA Cup. 
 

The Gunners are 14-times FA Cup champions but have surprisingly only progressed past the fourth round of the FA Cup once since 2017 which was their last run to the silverware glory and they have been dumped out at this stage by Manchester United in 2018-19 and Southampton in 2020-21. They now travel to the Etihad Stadium boasting a five-game winning streak away from home keeping four clean sheets in that run and scoring 12 goals. Less than a year after taking over as manager of Arsenal, Arteta orchestrated a superb smash-and-grab 2-0 victory over Man City in the 2019–20 FA Cup semifinals, but the hosts have since won their past five matches against the Gunners in all competitions. 

(Image: Sky Sports)