Touching distance of final

The City kit boss and former Latics star writes every week for Chron Sport

THE gulf in class shone through during Manchester City’s 5-0 victory over Barnsley in the FA Cup quarter-final clash at the Etihad Stadium.

Even with a few regulars rested, we were always likely to be too strong for our Yorkshire opponents — and so it proved.

Carlos Tevez continued his good run of form by helping himself to a hat-trick and we never looked back from our bright start.

The win sets up a semi-final showdown with either Chelsea or Manchester United at Wembley on the weekend of April 13-14.

Whoever we end up facing in the last four, it is clear we are in for a difficult encounter. I think the Chelsea-United replay is a close one to call,. but we are back at Wembley and 90 minutes from the final.

We return to the league this Saturday against Everton at Goodison Park. It has been a notoriously hard place for us to pick up points in the last few years; the Toffees are our bogey team.

But there is no room for error now if we are to keep the pressure on leaders United.

Draws don’t do much good at this stage: we probably have to win every fixture.