Pep Guardiola extraordinary Man City rant in full after FA Cup semi-final win over Chelsea

Pep Guardiola has launched into a lengthy rant after Manchester City beat Chelsea to reach the FA Cup final.

City claimed a 1-0 win at Wembley Stadium on Saturday in the semi-final, with Bernardo Silva scoring the winning goal in the second half. Victory for Guardiola's side will now set up a final against either Manchester United or Coventry City next month in the capital.

The win for City comes just three days after the defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final. City lost to the La Liga giants in a penalty shootout at the Etihad Stadium, but still managed to recover in time to feature against Chelsea at Wembley a few days later.

The decision to play the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday is one that has irritated Guardiola, and he went on to express his frustrations in a lengthy rant after the game. Guardiola was speaking to BBC Sport where he was joined by Gary Lineker, Micah Richards, Frank Lampard and Alan Shearer on the touchline at Wembley, where he was asked about the turnaround between the games against Real Madrid and Chelsea.

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"It is unacceptable. It is really unacceptable," Guardiola told the BBC. "Coventry [and] Man United and Chelsea don't play in the week and let us play today. Next week on Friday would be better, instead of Saturday put it [the match] on Friday for recovery.

"It is for the health of the players. It is not normal. Honestly, it is not normal. It is not possible. It is unacceptable to go 120 minutes. All of you are football players. The emotion too, Madrid, the way we lose.

"I know in this country this is special for many things, but it is for the health of the players. I don’t understand how we survived today."

Lineker then responded by asking Guardiola if he had personally raised the issue with the FA. Guardiola answered by explaining further why he was unhappy with the scheduling of the fixture.

Guardiola said: "Gary, do you think demanding is going to change something? The only power I have, I say here.

"I know it is not going to change anything, but why do you play today and not tomorrow when Coventry, United and Chelsea don’t play in the week?

"Why don't you have one more day for the health of the players? Tell me how you prepare for this match against Chelsea in the best moment of the season, the semi-final of this prestigious FA Cup. How? It is impossible. There is no chance."

Shearer then suggested that Guardiola could make several changes to his line-ups for both games against Real Madrid and Chelsea. The City boss responded by explaining why recent history has affected his team selections this season.

"You can change your squad around," said Shearer. "You don’t have to play so many players in a game on Wednesday, and you made only four changes today."

Guardiola then answered: "I know I had, I thought a lot. I remember two or three seasons ago it happened the same thing - we played in Dortmund on Wednesday, travelled Saturday here against Liverpool, made a lot of changes, 3-0 at half-time they destroy us. After we saved face in the second half.

"So I changed a lot and thought a lot with the staff. This player, that player. Most of them were not recovered, it is impossible. Not just physically, the way that we play. Mentally it's so, so tough to recover.

"These guys are legends, what they have done for seven years they’ve proved it again. Rodri, the way he played today and Kyle [Walker] was there after injury for three or four weeks, played 120 minutes and now running with [Nicolas] Jackson and [Mykhailo] Mudryk at the end. I don’t know how they survived - hats off."