City were left reeling after another disappointing day which saw them dumped out of the FA Cup at home to Middlesbrough, who leave Manchester with a 2-0 win and a ticket to the next round. The side was roundly criticised for their performance, and will go into the game at Stamford Bridge in low spirits.
Manuel Pellegrini started a relatively weakened team, with Deryck Boyata partnering Vincent Kompany in the middle of defence, whilst Joe Hart was left out in place of Willy Caballero. Sergio Aguero continued up top in a bid to regain form ahead of next week’s trip to London.
The first half started in a good fashion, with City controlling much of the possession and crosses from Navas and Kolarov flying in near to City men who couldn’t quite get onto it. Eventually, Boro worked their way back into the game and looked much more comfortable, with Patrick Bamford a particular threat. Despite that, City still looked more likely to score and came close with efforts from David Silva and Aguero. Boyata squandered a golden chance from eight yards when he blasted over after the ball dropped to his feet.
At the start of the second half however, things started to take a turn for the much worse. Boro looked in a lot more control than they had previously, and managed to take the lead on 53 minutes, via the on-loan Chelsea striker Bamford. The ball was played forward, and whilst it looked like Fernando had managed to get the ball to relative safety, his pass back to Caballero was short and Albert Adomah was able to nip in and put the keeper under pressure. The ball deflected towards goal, and whilst Fernando got back to try and clear it, it hit off of Bamford and into the goal to send the travelling fans wild.
Pellegrini threw on Frank Lampard and Fernandinho to try and level the game, but nothing was really able to turn the tide of the game, leaving Boro in control. The closest City got to getting an equaliser was via Lampard, who’s shot from outside the box almost curled in, hitting the post and bouncing away on 89 minutes.
Moments later, Middlesbrough managed to get a second to seal a big win for them. Boro managed to get through on goal with Bamford, and whilst Kolarov brought down the striker just outside the box with a challenge that would have surely led to a red card, it didn’t matter due to Bamford playing the ball a millisecond earlier, to Kike who hit it first time past the goalkeeper to double the Boro lead, and dump City out.
This result won’t give many City fans hope going into next week’s game against Chelsea, especially if they play like this again. There are few games were there aren’t positives to be taken, but this is probably one of those games. The players looked poor, the defence was once again a mess, and it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the season. Of course, it could all be a different story when Bony and Yaya come back.
