Manchester City v Newcastle: FA Cup quarter-final – live

Evening everyone. Well, this clash of petro-state funded heavyweights will have to go some to match the earlier drama in the West Midlands, but let’s hope it rises to the challenge as Manchester City’s double-treble hunters take on a Newcastle side battling uneven recent form and a historically atrocious FA Cup record. This is only the Toon’s third FA Cup quarter-final in the past 19 years, with teams ranging from Cambridge and Sheffield Wednesday to Arsenal and City having sent them packing in recent times, while readers with longer memories will recall their insipid non-performances in the finals of 1998 and 1999 (not to mention 1974), and the fact they’ve not won the old pot since 1955. So no pressure, guys.

This is, however, Newcastle’s biggest match of the season and they and their fans should be bang up for this. “We’ll have a right go,” roared Eddie Howe in yesterday’s presser though he is again hampered by injury worries, most recently to the new England call-up Anthony Gordon, who is a doubt for today. And Howe himself is under pressure as his side struggle to rediscover the intensity and identity they showed last season.

City, for their part, will be without Kevin de Bruyne while Ederson is ruled out after injuring himself amid the bedlam of last Sunday’s rollicking draw at Liverpool (though Stefan Ortega is their go-to man for Cup games anyway, such are their luxuries of choice). And City haven’t lost an FA Cup tie away from Wembley for six years, when they lost at Wigan’s DW Stadium.

So yeah, Pep Guardiola’s side are sizeable favourites, but it’s the Cup, right, and as we’ve seen a little more than usual this season, upsets and magic can still happen. Don’t go anywhere.

Kick-off 5.30pm GMT.