FA Cup Final, Chelsea vs Man City, the numbers

Chelsea and Manchester City will meet at Wembley in the 2026 Emirates FA Cup Final on Saturday. Some statistics provided by TheFA.com.

• Manchester City are the first team to play in four consecutive FA Cup Finals, beating Manchester United in 2023 before losing to the Red Devils in 2024 and Crystal Palace in 2025. Only Chelsea (2020 to 2022) have ever lost the FA Cup Final in three consecutive campaigns.

• This is Chelsea’s 17th FA Cup Final, the third most after Manchester United (22) and Arsenal (21). They’ve won eight and lost eight of their final appearances so far, losing each of their last three in a row.

• Having already won the EFL Cup, Manchester City could win both major English domestic cup competitions this season. It would be the sixth time a team has done so after Arsenal in 1992-93, Liverpool in both 2000-01 and 2021-22, Chelsea in 2006-07 and the Citizens themselves in 2018-19.

• Since losing the 2020-21 UEFA Champions League final to Chelsea, Manchester City haven’t lost any of their last 13 games against the Blues in all competitions (W10 D3), their longest unbeaten run against them.

• Chelsea’s 13-game winless run against City is their longest against an opponent since going 17 without a victory against Arsenal between January 1999 and March 2004.

• Since the 2016-17 season, the two teams to win the most games in the FA Cup are City (45) and Chelsea (37), while they’ve also scored the most goals (City 159, Chelsea 111) and kept the most clean sheets (City 28, Chelsea 26) in that time.

• Chelsea have scored 21 goals in the FA Cup this season, their joint second most in a season along with the 21 they scored in 2006-07. Only in 1969-70 have they netted more (25) when they beat Leeds in a replay in the Final.

• Manchester City have won 21 of their last 23 matches in the FA Cup, with their only defeats in that time coming in the finals in 2024 and 2025. In that time, City’s shots per game has been higher in finals (21) than from third round to semi-finals (19) but their shot conversion in finals is just two per cent compared to 19 per cent in the earlier rounds.

• Four of Chelsea’s five wins in the FA Cup this season have come against sides from outside the Premier League, with the other coming against Leeds in the semi-final. They haven’t beaten two top-flight sides in a single season since 2020-21, one of which was Man City in the semi-final; the other was Sheffield United in the quarter-final.

– TheFA.com