Manchester: Manchester City cult hero Uwe Rosler enjoyed an unlikely winning return to the club on Sunday as his Wigan Athletic side triumphed 2-1 in an FA Cup quarterfinal upset.
The Championship team, who stunned City 1-0 in last season’s final, will now face Arsenal in a Wembley semifinal, having endured an anxious final 25 minutes after Samir Nasri reduced the arrears.
The pre-game consensus may have been that there was little danger of history repeating itself, but it took Wigan less than half an hour to raise that possibility at the Etihad Stadium.
City conceded an unnecessary penalty, courtesy of the latest in a series of errors from centre-back Martin Demichelis, who was beaten by Marc-Antoine Fortune and compounded the error with a blatant trip.
The home side offered little protest and Gomez, one of four survivors from last year’s final in Wigan’s line-up, showed impressive poise by sending goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon the wrong way from the penalty spot.
The lead was just about a deserved one for the visitors, superbly organised by their manager Rosler, the former City striker, who patrolled the touchline barking instructions.
City made six changes to the team that had won the League Cup at Wembley seven days previously, but despite the influx of fresh legs, they took their time to establish anything like their normal fluid attacking game.
Prior to Gomez’s goal, City had seemed to be asserting a degree of control, with Jesus Navas particularly threatening from the right wing.
Before the interval, three City players wrestled Callum McManaman to the ground as he weaved into the home half, with tempers flaring.
Matters were about to become far more serious for City with barely a minute gone in the second half as Wigan claimed a second goal that, again, owed much to laxity in the home side’s defending.
City failed to react after Joleon Lescott headed out of the City area and were even slower to respond as James McArthur sent a low cross skidding across the six-yard box from the left.
Exploiting further hesitancy in the City rearguard, James Perch sped in ahead of Gael Clichy at the back post and slid the ball home to double Wigan’s lead.
City manager Manuel Pellegrini must have been as stunned as the watching home supporters and he responded by making three substitutions at once, throwing on James Milner, Edin Dzeko and David Silva.
The pressure mounted, and Nasri finally handed City a foothold in the 68th minute. Clichy’s left-wing corner was headed on by Demichelis and Micah Richards for Nasri, whose low, left-foot shot from just outside the area beat the dive of the unsighted Carson, but Wigan resisted all further attempts on their citadel.
In the two other last-eight fixtures, Sheffield United beat Charlton 2-0, while Hull trounced Sunderland 3-0. (AFP)