Man City left frustrated by fixture pile-up

Manchester City have been left frustrated as they face a fixture pile-up of four games in 11 days next month following the rescheduling of two key matches in the race for the Premier League title.

Pep Guardiola's side will host Crystal Palace on Wednesday, 13 May and travel to Bournemouth six days later, with the FA Cup final against Chelsea taking place in between on Saturday, 16 May.

The Palace game was originally scheduled for 22 March but had to be postponed because of City's participation in the Carabao Cup final against Arsenal, while the Bournemouth match was pushed back because of a clash with the FA Cup final.

City, Palace and Bournemouth had been involved in dialogue with the Premier League over the dates for the games, which have now been resolved.

Premier League leaders Arsenal also face a run of three games in seven days - Mikel Arteta's men travel to Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final on Wednesday, host Fulham in the league on Saturday, before their second leg against Atletico next Tuesday.

Manchester City's frustrations stem from the length of time it has taken for the Crystal Palace game to be confirmed and feel the principle of rescheduling games at the earliest moment has not been followed.

City argue the Premier League knew about the need to rearrange that game on 4 February, when City beat Newcastle to book their place in the Carabao Cup final, but it has taken almost three months to come to this decision.

But it is understood the Premier League decided to wait until after the FA Cup semi-finals to announce this, to give supporters more certainty in the scheduling of fixtures.

City had offered three different alternatives for the Palace fixture in the weeks beginning 20 and 27 April, as well as 4 May, but the Burnley game was rescheduled for the first option and Oliver Glasner's side's participation in the Europa Conference League ruling out the others.

Uefa do not want any fixtures to clash with the Europa League final on Wednesday, 20 May - which is why the Bournemouth fixture is now taking place on the previous day - yet it is pointed out that Arsenal were given permission to play their league game at Wolves on 18 February despite four Champions League knockout matches taking place on the same night.

City had put forward the scenario of potentially facing Bournemouth on 12 May and the Palace game to take place sometime during the following week - that would have allowed an extra day to recover for the Wembley showpiece and to play their final two league games of the season at home.

While Manchester City wanted to play the game against Crystal Palace on Tuesday. 19 May, this did not seem to take into account the Eagles' game against Brentford.

That game has to be played on Sunday, 17 May as the FA Cup final takes place the day before, so there was no realistic prospect that Palace would be told to play again 48 hours later when there were other options available.

Sources say the Premier League have referenced a principle which states that all FA Cup semi‑finalists should play in the first available midweek before those matches, but the game against the Cherries has instead been put into the week after.

It leaves second-placed City with an arduous three games in seven days with a lot of travelling involved during the most crucial part of the campaign when they are chasing a domestic treble.