Manchester City have the opportunity to set a new FA Cup record when they welcome Newcastle United to the Etihad Stadium for a quarter-final tie on Saturday evening.
The Citizens lifted the trophy for the sixth time in their history when they beat rivals Manchester United 2-1 in the final at Wembley Stadium last season en route to completing a historic treble.
Since the start of last season, Pep Guardiola's side have won each of their last nine FA Cup ties by an impressive aggregate score of 31-3, netting 12 of those goals across three ties this term against Huddersfield Town, Tottenham Hotspur and Luton Town.
After thrashing Huddersfield 5-0 and beating Spurs 1-0 in the third and fourth rounds respectively, Man City secured an emphatic 6-2 win at Luton in the fifth round last month, with Erling Haaland scoring five goals.
Newcastle now stand in Man City's way at the quarter-final stage – the Citizens are preparing for their 30th FA Cup quarter-final and will become only the 10th team to feature in that many ties at this stage of the competition.
The holders will be confident of success against Eddie Howe's side considering that they have lost just three of their last 37 meetings with the Magpies across all competitions.
Should Man City come out on top against Newcastle on Saturday, they will become the first team in FA Cup history to reach the semi-final stage in six consecutive campaigns.
Guardiola is wary of Newcastle's threat, though, with the Magpies having already beaten City 1-0 in the EFL Cup third round earlier this season and also put up a fight in a slender 1-0 Premier League defeat in their last visit to the Etihad.
"This season and previous ones since Eddie Howe was there and the people from Saudi Arabia took over, it's always been tight games and we don't expect anything different," Guardiola told reporters on Friday.
"We have an incredible chance at home with our people. We need in home games the support of our fans like we had against [Manchester] United, I don't remember that environment for a long time.
"Tomorrow isn't an exception. We need it to reach the semi-final at Wembley again."
Man City, who are unbeaten in their last 21 games across all competitions, will have to cope without star playmaker Kevin De Bruyne and first-choice goalkeeper Ederson on Saturday as they are both sidelined with respective groin and muscle injuries.
However, Guardiola has confirmed that Jack Grealish is in contention to return after recovering from a groin injury that has forced him to miss each of City's last three matches. body check tags ::
