Manchester City's comeback victory earns praise from Guardiola for Doku's performance.

In the highly anticipated FA Cup semi-final, Manchester City staged a remarkable comeback in the second half to defeat Southampton and advance to the FA Cup final for the fourth consecutive year.

After the match, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola gave an exclusive interview, providing a detailed analysis of the dramatic game and praising the opponent's tenacity as well as the outstanding performance of his substitutes.

Facing a precarious situation where they were trailing in the second half, Guardiola admitted that it was entirely expected: "Southampton had been unbeaten in 19 games, so I never expected it to be an easy match."

"Football is just that unpredictable. Their defense and style of play deserve high praise. They may have only crossed the halfway line once in the second half, but they scored an incredible goal."

When discussing his lineup for the match, Guardiola explained why he didn't start Doku and Savinho. He pointed out that with the team facing a congested schedule, the risk of injury to key players was extremely high, and the starting lineup deserved playing time and stabilized the situation in the first half. The substitutes, on the other hand, became the key to changing the course of the game.

At the end of the interview, Guardiola praised Doku, who scored the crucial goal: "Look at how much Jeremy has grown in terms of impact on the game over the past two seasons, he is now an incredible threat."

“When he’s one-on-one in the attacking third, he’s almost unstoppable. In this game, he even drew two or three defenders. Our efforts were evident, after all, this is the FA Cup semi-final. We gave it our all, and we’ll be back in the final in a few weeks.”

Image source: Internet