{"id":7325,"date":"2023-01-26T16:13:47","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T16:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7325"},"modified":"2023-01-28T17:28:26","modified_gmt":"2023-01-28T17:28:26","slug":"up-for-the-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7325","title":{"rendered":"Up for the Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Charlie George scores one of a brace against Citeh in the 1970\/71 FA Cup 5th Round 2-1 “massacre” at Maine Road, Manchester. From www.citytilidie.com<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And so to an FA Cup fourth-round tie at the Oillands, where the colour of money is sky blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a story that Manchester City plays in sky blue and white because when its predecessor club, Ardwick AFC, was in financial straits, Freemasons bailed it out. As a condition or a thank you for the money, the team ditched their red and black shirts for the then colours of Freemasonry. Only circumstantial evidence supports this story. Yet if it is true, the apple has never fallen far from that tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our FA Cup record against City is excellent: played five; won four. The lone loss was in the first tie at the Manor Ground in 1904 when we were still Woolwich Arsenal. City went on to win the Cup for the first time that season, beating fellow Lancastrians Bolton Wanderers 1-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next encounter was a semi-final at Villa Park in 1932. We won 1-0, Cliff ‘Boy’ Bastin scoring against a City side containing Matt Busby, later to have a storied managerial career on the red side of Manchester. However, at Wembley, we lost the notorious’ Over The Line’ final 2-1 to Newcastle United.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three remaining games will be within the living memory of the more senior members of this fine establishment, at least those not having senior moments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Charlie George brace got us through a fifth-round tie at Maine Road on our way to the double in 1971. That was our fourth FA Cup success. The next time we played City in the Cup would be in 2017, on our way to winning the Cup for a record-breaking 13th time and a 20th appearance in an FA Cup Final, also a record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the first season in his managerial career that Pep Guardiola did not win a trophy. We had dispatched his team in the semi-final, 2-1, after extra time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fifth meeting was also a semi-final, played behind closed doors in July 2020 during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored goals in those days, and a brace saw off City again. Another brace brought our 14th FA Cup at the expense of the mob from the Bus Stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So history suggests good things happen after beating City in the Cup. Now, correlation is not causality, and the sample size is small. Most of all, the condition is testing, beating City. Outside the FA Cup, you have to go back 16 games, to December 2015, since we have done that in any other competition, a 2-1 league win at the Emirates in which Theo Walcott scored his 100th goal for the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emirati petrodollars have assembled the most expensive squad in the Premier League, valued at shy of \u00a31 billion. However, money buys quality throughout a squad unless you are congenitally bad at spending it (Exhibits A and B: the Mancs and the Chavs). City is not. It is hard to think of many significant missteps they have made in the transfer market. Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko were all sold as they entered the prime of their careers without the City squad being left noticeably weaker by their departures (whereas ours has benefitted hugely from the arrival of the latter two. Let us hope that City bitterly regrets those sales come May).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Pep Guardiola, they have the most innovative manager in the world, or at least until Super Mik dethrones him \u2014 and Arteta has a ways to go to catch up with his friend’s 30-some major trophies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City will likely line up in a nominal 4-3-3, although Pep has been more varied in his formations this season, even using a back three on occasion. But that means little. He uses the same possession plus positional play blueprint that Arteta has adopted and developed. However they line up, City will morph into 3-2-5 with the ball and 4-5-1 without it, not that Pep tolerates City being out of possession for long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cup keeper Stefan Ortega and Erling Haarland up front will be the only fixed points. Between them will be some combination of Kevin de Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden (if fit), Jack Grealish, Ilkay Gundogan and Rhodri in front of a defence of Kyle Walker (with the impressive young Rico Lewis being rested), Manuel Akanji, John Stones and Nathan Ake. That would still leave a bench of Lewis, Julian Alvarez, Cole Palmer, Kelvin Phillips, Sergio Gomez, Joao Cancelo and Aymeric Laporte to call on. Serious depth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any one or more of them could start if the master micro tactician sees a scintilla of an advantage to be gained by negating an Arsenal strength. Given that the two teams will be playing to the same blueprint, the game could turn on which one is better at closing down or exploiting the pockets of space between the other side’s defence and midfield to nullify the overloads. We shall need Partey at his most imperious, \u00d8degaard at his most creative and Xhaka at his most Xhaka (and Gabriel to keep Haaland in his pocket). This will be a game of two teams trying to out-possess, out-pass and out-overload the other. Intensity will be all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This game rounds out a demanding January that we have so far navigated more satisfactorily than many may have secretly expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel that Arteta will go with a close approximation of his strongest team available to keep the momentum from last Sunday going and because Pep will probably do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cup keeper Turner will likely replace Ramsdale. Trossard for Martinelli is a possible rotation, but I\u2019ll punt that Arteta will stick not twist. White or Tomiyasu at right-back will be a question. If Mahrez played on the left, I would say Tomi to start, but Benny Blanco might be the better man to blank de Breuyne and Grealish, although second-guessing Pep’s team selection is a fool’s errand. The human chess match will come as the two managers make substitutions and tweak their in-game tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, to start:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turner<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partey, \u00d8degaard, Xhaka<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka, Nketiah, Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More rides on the outcome of this game than which club progress to the Fifth Round. Both managers publicly disassociated the Cup tie from the league games, but both know that the winner on Friday lays down a marker for the subsequent two matches that may decide whether the title ends up north or south of Watford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘holic pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gentlemen of the turf have City as odds-on favourite, so any away win offers decent odds. A scintillating 2-1 victory to the men in red and white looks appealing at 15s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be 7,802 travelling faithful, loud and proud, packed into the top two tiers of the South Stand. At the end of the game, may they be looking down on the City fans below in every way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the game ‘holics, near and far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so to an FA Cup fourth-round tie at the Oillands, where the colour of money is sky blue. There is a story that Manchester City plays in sky blue and white because when its predecessor club, Ardwick AFC, was in financial straits, Freemasons bailed it out. As a condition or a thank you for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7325"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7334,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7325\/revisions\/7334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}