First of all apologies to Chinners for nabbing his bollox (title), I couldn't resist. Looks like the away fans are up for a good day out at our place, and for the most part pretty realistic about what might happen. There are few interesting comments here though ....Enjoy :)
COME ON CITY !!!
Team Selection
DImi
Whitehead Woodgate Omerou Husband
Ledesma Clayton Leadbitter Reach
Bamford Vossen
My favourite
Went to my first game at the age of 10 - Boro v City at Maine Road in January 1972. FA Cup. Drew 1-1 and won the replay. [Incidental memory - Nobby Stiles playing for us and the game was stopped while they all tried to find his contact lens.
And the rest...
Re the Arsenal game....could work in our favour. They now fly to the Middle East to play a friendly on Tuesday before our game, with a 'must win' (according to Pellegrini) away to Chelsea the following week. Can't see them playing a full strength side against us, the likes of Aguero and co may sit this one out. All of that, coupled with an empty home end and a bouncing away end, could work in our favour.There's always a chance...
Have you seen who plays in their 'not full strength team'
I know they'd still get in most teams. I would still rather play against Scott Sinclair than David Silva and against Jovetic than Aguero.
Well as long as we aren't embarrassed i will be happy. Even if they put out a 2nd string team it will be a very tough game I honestly don't see us winning this. But.......We are on a very good run, we have no pressure on us, they have been doing a lot of travel this week ans well as playing an extra game and they have a big big game after us. Head:3-1
I think it's important from a team psychology point of view to go and play a strong XI and to play in our usual way ie not 5 at the back etc. Yes we will almost certainly get beaten but it will make the players feel that AK rates them and that he believes that our way playing can compete in the PL and with a team like City, which in itself in a confidence boast. if we go there and and play 5 at the back and 3 holding midfielders - what does that say to the players?
i think we are going to win. 2-0 boro. man city are never going to be at it against little boro, they will be in 3rd gear and when we get at them and get infront they'll find out that 4 and 5th gear are not in the squad.
I will be happy with a good performance, no injuries or suspensions, no debatable goals that will pee the players off, and most important of all I want this finished in 90 minutes. At this stage of the season I think a draw would be worse than a loss. If you offered me an 8-1 defeat but a 1-0 win over Brentford id shake hands on the points. We can worry about the FA cup next year on the way to the treble. Damp seriousness aside, I am excited about this and I hope City do put out a knackered reserve team and get embarrased. Aguero and Kompany just come back from injury so hope he doesnt want to give them some match minutes before the Chelsea match.
For the record, I do think we can cause an upset here. They don't seem to be taking us seriously, we are hard to break down and I'm confident that if kike plays he will do well against defenders who aren't just looking for a wrestling match
Well at least we can concentrate on the league afterwards.
Grest tie! If AK is on for FA cup it will be a great test of our players. It also gives them a taste of playing at a huge premier league ground with a full house.. All good in my eyes
Pre match chants of "8-1 were gonna win 8-1"
I'm very happy with the draw. The worst case scenario would have been a Championship/lower PL team. It could be a good carrot to dangle in front of our players to get them to sharpen their concentration in the upcoming Championship games.
To be fair it should be easy for them
Man City can be poor at times when they think they only have to turn up to win
So we have a small chance.But I expect a poor Man City to go 1 0 down and scrape a 2 1 win.
A good performance and then out of the cup wouldnt be a bad result.
Some Bluemoon comments
They really are a bunch of self-important bell ends on that forum aren't they? You'd think our fans are a hybrid of Millwall and Leeds fans....
Tbf they earned the right to be that arrogant having been dedicated lifelong city fans for the last 5 years
What a set of toss pots them lot are. Obviously the Fowler saved pen and the 8-1 massacre still haunt them....hahahaha
city fans have had a thing about us even before the 8-1 because of incidents like the tiatto disallowed goal up here and when we won 1-0 thanks to sun-jihai's og and we never even had a shot on target....they've always been a bit precious
looking at that forum they seem to hate us lol,
I didn't know they disliked us so much Seems like a lot keyboard warriors and old heads who can't let go on there though. So much talk about football violence. Sad really
there was plenty of resentment to us through the whole robson era from the supposed "elite" clubs like man city, villa, spurs and everton because we had the audacity to sign better players than them. most teams fans seem to have lost that now but clearly city's haven't
I went to Maine Road for a FA Youth Cup game in 2003 and their fans were a horrible bunch back then. We parked our car around the corner from stadium and some little chav who mustn't have been older than 10 or 11 that was in full chav attire with air max's, Burberry top, baseball cap at a 45% angle, the full works basically, on a pedal bike says something along the lines of "ere mate ya want me to look after ya car?, it might get damaged if ya don't pay me...", clearly a threat that he would damage it if , so my parents handed over something like £3 to him. Inside the people weren't much better with their fans staring pulling faces and swearing at the largely young Boro fans that were there chanting, even for fans for going "ooooh" or clapping at missed chances. Stupid really considering it was just a youth game. Basically they're a bunch of wrong'uns. It was one of my youngest memories of an away game and their fans have stuck in my memory as a horrible lot. They're up there with Leeds United...
After reading some of their comments about us, I now hope we smash them too!
.... I was reading there forum last night and they are by far the worst set of fans on any forum I have read this season, Obviously not all of them because I don't tie everyone to the same brush unlike a lot of their fans do. A lot of them sound bitter and twisted... I guess that 8-1 demolition still wrangles with them and they cant let go. Oh and of course making it in to Europe at their expense
cant wait for this - come on!!!
