Manchester City Fan View: The FA Cup is Pep Guardiola's best chance of silverware

Manchester City cruised past Crystal Palace on Saturday to confirm their place in the FA Cup fifth round. They started with a very strong line-up – albeit using it as a chance to blood a new signing and re-introduce a player returning from injury – and were rewarded for doing so. Just as they did to West Ham in the third round, Pep Guardiola’s men made light work of their opponents, leaving London with a 3-0 victory.

The famous old cup now represents the Blues best chance of silverware this season. Though it may not carry the prestige it once did, the competition still carries weight and is one that Guardiola should retain a 100% focus on winning.

Discussion and debate about mangers fielding ‘weakened’ sides in The FA Cup is now as traditional as The Magic of the Cup, replays and the winner’s ascent up the Wembley steps. Perennially, in each of the early rounds a team – usually from the Premier League – comes a cropper against a rival from a less prestigious part of the football landscape and has to deal with talk of ‘disrespecting the cup’. Of course, it is up to each manager to assess his club’s priorities and pick his team accordingly, but Guardiola at least appears to have realised the value of having a real tilt at winning the trophy. He’s also noticed that his resources are vast enough to pick strong line-ups across all of the tournaments City compete in.

Winning the Premier League is now surely a stretch too far City. Trail-blazers Chelsea continue to impress every time they take to the field and the Blues lie in fifth, 12 points shy of the leaders with 16 games left to play. A swing back in their favour that see’s them leapfrog four rivals is too much to reasonably hope for, and cementing a top three position whilst improving performances should be the real focus. If Chelsea slip and City haul themselves back into contention, then that will be a bonus, but nobody in Manchester should be holding their breath.

The Champions League is, of course, still winnable. Though City have their problems, they have already beaten Barcelona this season in progressing from their group and they were handed a favourable tie for the Round of 16. It’s true that AS Monaco have enough about them to worry City; Leonardo Jardim’s men are extremely adept at scoring goals, while Guardiola’s charges are pretty good at conceding them. But even with that in mind, City will still be favourites to advance to the last eight for the second year in succession.

What happens from there is hard to predict, but the simple fact is that there are better sides than the Blues left in the competition and when it comes down to it, that quality should show. City can take heart from knowing that very average sides have won the Champions League in recent memory; Liverpool in 2005 and Chelsea in 2012 spring immediately to mind. But, as with the Premier League, this should be a case of setting a realistic target, such as reaching the semi-final, then treating progression beyond that as a bonus.

That leaves The FA Cup as the most likely route to a trophy this year. Guardiola has already shown his hand by selecting strong teams in the last two rounds; he wants to win. If he can bring silverware back to Manchester in his first season with the club, it will go a long way to building faith in his ideas. The club already backs the manager 100% and will continue to do so, but tangible success would buy a bit more credit from a somewhat sceptical national press and will enamour him to a fanbase that has not yet been completely won round.

Aside from that, winning is a habit. It might be one of the biggest clichés in sport, but it is that for a reason. As we saw when Roberto Mancini led City to FA Cup success in 2011, that refreshing of the trophy cabinet lays a foundation for future success. Guardiola will be mindful of that as he tries to guide his side to Wembley.

Guardiola has made himself exempt from criticism about his approach to the cup and City have made light work of their two opponents so far. After an extraordinarily unlucky run of being drawn away to Premier League opponents in recent cup runs, they’ll be hoping for a more favourable home draw in the next round. They sit just two games from Wembley and make no mistake about it, Guardiola will have the world’s most famous domestic cup in his sights.