Josep Guardiola assigned a difficult task to Abdukadir Khusanov

“Manchester City” is fighting for two goals in the rest of this season. The main thing is that the team must maintain its place in the top four in the English Premier League and qualify for the European Champions League for next season.

In addition, the “City” must try to leave some bright memories of the unsuccessful last season for themselves by at least winning the FA Cup.

Josep Guardiola's team faced Plymouth, a representative of the lower league, in the fifth round of the FA Cup. Plymouth, who had eliminated Premier League teams such as Brentford and Liverpool from the competition in this round, also started the match against the Manchester team quickly and opened the scoring first.

The hosts scored three goals later, winning the match and qualifying for the next round.

After this match, Josep Guardiola emphasized that the main responsibility for achieving the goals lies with the new players, in particular Abdukadir Khusanov.

The fact is that in this match, central defender Nathan Ake was injured and could not play in the second half. The experienced player joins central defenders Manuel Akanji and John Stones, who were previously hospitalized. Now they will need time to recover from their injuries and then regain their sports form.

- Now we are again without experienced central defenders. We will not be able to use the services of Nathan Ake for some time.

I must thank the club's management for bringing Abdukadir Khusanov to the team and Vitor Reis, who played well today. Without Khusanov, we would have lost the opportunity to qualify for the Champions League or continue our campaign in the FA Cup.

Now, in central defense, only Abdukadir Khusanov, Vitor Reis and Ruben Dias are left from the experienced players.

The fact that new players are in our line-up now is a miracle. Because our current problems have been tormenting us all season.

But overall, the team is in good spirits. It is clear that our game has changed for the better in the last month. We played very well against Liverpool and Chelsea. We can easily forget about the game in Madrid. In fact, we were far from where we should be.

The qualifying stage is changing well and everything is interconnected. We will fight for a place in the Champions League this year and next season, - said Josep Guardiola.

It is worth noting that Manchester City's four transfers, which they spent more than 200 million euros in January, are paying off. To date, Abdukadir Khusanov, Umar Marmush and Nico Gonzalez have become regular first-team players. 18-year-old Brazilian central defender Vitor Reis has also shown that he is capable of playing in the first team, having played in two matches in the FA Cup.

Manchester City will next play in the Premier League on March 8 against third-placed Nottingham Forest. This key match of the 28th round will start at 17:30 Tashkent time. Follow “Zamin” news on “Telegram”