{"id":801,"date":"2026-04-25T19:09:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=801"},"modified":"2026-04-25T19:09:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:09:40","slug":"man-city-player-ratings-vs-southampton-nico-gonzalez-golazo-keeps-treble-hopes-alive-as-pep-guardiolas-second-string-survive-huge-fa-cup-semi-final-scare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=801","title":{"rendered":"Man City player ratings vs Southampton: Nico Gonzalez golazo keeps treble hopes alive as Pep Guardiola&#8217;s second string survive huge FA Cup semi-final scare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"article-teaser\">Nico Gonzalez scored a late screamer as Manchester City roared back from an almighty scare to beat Southampton 2-1 and reach the FA Cup final for a fourth consecutive year. Finn Azaz&#8217;s unstoppable curler had given the Championship side an unlikely lead but Jeremy Doku&#8217;s deflected equaliser soon restored parity before Gonzalez provided the grandstand finish.<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"article-body\" data-affiliate-button-variant=\"D\">\n<div>\n<p><span>After a first half that literally lulled two City fans to sleep live on television, the occasion roared into life as City took the game by the scruff of the neck and did everything to open the scoring. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But after the hapless Omar Marmoush and substitute Savinho came close, it was Southampton who took a shock lead in the 79th minute with an incredible long-range curler from Ireland international Azaz.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Saints&#8217; elation only lasted three minutes though as Doku, who had been probing ever since he came on, cut inside and aimed a shot at goal which ricocheted off defender James Bree and nestled into the far bottom corner. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Southampton responded with another rocket from Kuryu Matsuki but James Trafford tipped it over the bar and moments later Gonzalez took aim and fired City into the final.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><strong>GOAL<\/strong><\/b><span>  rates Man City&#8217;s players from Wembley Stadium&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nico Gonzalez scored a late screamer as Manchester City roared back from an almighty scare&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}