Liverpool face a daunting trip to Manchester City in the standout tie of the FA Cup quarter-finals this weekend as Mohamed Salah seeks to end nine spectacular seasons at Anfield on a high.<\/p>\n
Arsenal and Chelsea will expect to reach the semi-finals at Wembley against lower tier opposition, while West Ham and Leeds put their battle for Premier League survival on hold in a bid to reach the last four.<\/p>\n
AFP Sport examines what to look out for in the four ties:<\/p>\n
City produced perhaps their best performance of the season to dominate Arsenal and win the League Cup final 2-0 before the international break.<\/p>\n
They remain in the running to match their feat as the only English side to ever win the domestic treble of League Cup, FA Cup and Premier League in 2018\/19.<\/p>\n
Liverpool face a defining 10 days for their season and possibly Arne Slot’s future at Anfield.<\/p>\n
Languishing fifth in the Premier League, the FA Cup and Champions League are the Reds’ only remaining hope of glory.<\/p>\n
After visiting the Etihad, Slot’s men face European champions Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League quarter-finals over two legs on April 8 and 14.<\/p>\n
Despite leading Liverpool to a record-equalling 20th English top-flight title less than a year ago, Slot is under huge pressure to end a difficult second season on a high if he is to remain in the job.<\/p>\n
The rest of Liverpool’s season will also be marked by a long farewell to Salah.<\/p>\n
The Egyptian announced over the international break that he will leave at the end of the campaign having netted 255 goals so far for the club.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully he can make his legacy even more special in the upcoming weeks and months where we still play for something special, but he will always leave this club as a legend,” said Slot.<\/p>\n
Chelsea can ill afford to add a massive cup upset to a maelstrom of discontent on and off the pitch at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
Four consecutive defeats have plunged manager Liam Rosenior’s future into doubt less than three months into his reign.<\/p>\n
Enzo Fernandez and Marc Cucurella have spoken out publicly in recent weeks, criticising the decision to sack Enzo Maresca in January.<\/p>\n
Chelsea then annonuced a Premier League record pre-tax loss of \u00a3262.4 million ($349.3 million) for the year to June 30 on Wednesday, sparking speculation over who the Blues may have to sell this summer.<\/p>\n
A Port Vale side rooted to the bottom of League One and headed for the fourth tier should still pose little problems for the Premier League giants.<\/p>\n
But Vale have won as many games in the FA and League Cup this season (seven) as they have in 38 league games.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta’s team selection will be scrutinised at St. Mary’s after most of his key players pulled out of international duty with injuries.<\/p>\n
Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes were among the 10 Gunners’ to withdraw from action with their nations.<\/p>\n
Arteta is seeking a reaction after Arsenal’s six-year wait for a trophy was prolonged by City at Wembley.<\/p>\n
But they remain in pole position for a first Premier League title in 22 years and also have a favourable Champions League quarter-final draw against Sporting Lisbon.<\/p>\n
The priority for both sides may be Premier League survival, but the draw has handed them a rare chance to make the last four.<\/p>\n
Leeds have not reached the FA Cup semi-finals since 1987, while West Ham last made it that far 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
West Ham sit in the Premier League relegation zone, four points adrift of Leeds, but have used the positive momentum of a cup run to turn their season around.<\/p>\n
Since ending a 10-match winless run against QPR in the third round, Nuno Espirito Santo’s side have lost just three of 13 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool face a daunting trip to Manchester City in the standout tie of the FA Cup quarter-finals this weekend as Mohamed Salah seeks to end nine spectacular seasons at Anfield on a high. Arsenal and Chelsea will expect to reach the semi-finals at Wembley against lower tier opposition, while West Ham and Leeds put their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32307,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32304\/revisions\/32307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}