City 3 - 0 Arsenal

• A semi final! (To be more precise, a semi final of a major cup competition. The semi final against Wigan Athletic in May 1999 does have an important place in our collective heart, although it is not quite the same thing.) If you wanted one clear example of the progress that we are making then here you are. If you include Hamburg last year we had lost five quarter finals in the last five seasons. Arsenal Reserves at home is an easy tie, but we’d lost to worse. After weeks of evidence to the contrary, it was a relief to see that Mark Hughes might just have ‘typical City’ in retreat.

• But let’s not get distracted from the performance. It was as well as we have played all season – certainly our best performance since we beat Arsenal’s first team 4-2 at Eastlands in September. In control of possession, speed on the attack and solidity in defence it was a huge improvement on recent weeks. What a delight to see us take the chances we create and not throw our lead away.

• It must be said, though, that Arsenal Reserves are a particularly accommodating side to play against. With that charming combination of technical excellence but physical and mental weakness they give you enough space and enough chances that any decent team playing at home should be able to beat them. Alex Song had a huge job on his hands – but the back four were poorly protected and we found it much easier to turn possession into chances than we have in the recent past.

• This was helped by the fact that three of our front four – Shaun Wright-Phillips, Craig Bellamy and Carlos Tévez all had their best games for some time. Their pace and movement was too much for Arsenal, more than making up for the fact that Emmanuel Adebayor had a quieter game than most anticipated. It does raise the question of whether Nigel de Jong comes into the team on Saturday (a must, for me), and if so for whom? It would be very bold of Hughes to drop any of those three – although Wright-Phillips’ ankle knock may provide an excuse – and so don’t rule out Tévez leading the line in 4-2-3-1. And this is to say nothing of Robinho.