Pablo Zabaleta Looks Back and Ahead to Chelsea

Manchester City takes on Chelsea in the FA Cup on Sunday. The Blues tenured field player defender Pablo Zabaleta has been through the wars with Chelsea featuring in multiple FA Cups ties between the clubs and the Citizens Charity Shield win in 2012.

Much has been made of the possibility that Manchester City would rest many of its top players in advance of the midweek trip to Kiev in UEFA Champions League play and the following Sunday's League Cup Final at Wembley against Liverpool.

Zabaleta discussed the match:

"It was big draw for us and will be a great game,"

"Chelsea are one of the favourites to win the FA Cup and I heard Guus Hiddink talking about this as a final so there is a lot of expectation on them to win this game.

"It is probably a final in that two of the biggest clubs are playing one another at this stage, but we will see what happens on the day.""I will never forget the year we lost the final against Wigan," he recalled.

"Many people said a similar thing; that the semi-final against Chelsea was the final with the winner expected to go on and win the competition.

"So I think this is a huge game for us. They are a very difficult team to play and of course we need to play at 100% that game and go to it with a lot of belief and perform well.

"They are on their own ground and have been playing well so it's one of the toughest draws we could have been given, but we are going there to beat Chelsea.

"We've said all season we want to try to reach the final in this competition. The FA Cup is one of those trophies that the fans and the players want to win.

"It's a massive competition and hopefully we can play well and live to fight another day, but we are under no illusions and know how hard it is going to be."