What a difference a week makes.
This time last week, as City prepared for a tricky-looking trip to West Brom, we were saying what a difference a month makes.
Manchester City’s crisis has now developed into full blown euphoria after a 4-0 win at the Hawthorns was followed by a momentous display of attacking verve to write off the aristocrats of Barcelona 3-1 in midweek. Football is nothing if not unpredictable.
The fabled ten straight wins, followed swiftly by six without success have now morphed again, into two successive wins, seven goals and a smile as wide as the Manchester Ship Canal.
As Middlesbrough chug into view, it is now imperative that feet are brought swiftly back to earth and the task of maintaining a slender lead atop the Premier League is given preference.
City know that their Champions League aspirations have been given a true boost by Tuesday night’s mauling of Barcelona. They have tasted the caviar. Now they must chew on the bread and butter.
It is quite a feat that City still lead the table at all after a barren month of October, during which anything that could go wrong did just that.
In Middlesbrough, the home side faces a historically stubborn opponent, which has frequently removed a wheel or two from the Manchester bandwagon. After a Herculean effort to gain a point at Arsenal, Aitor Karanka’s side pulled off a long-awaited home win over Bournemouth to climb into the safety of mid-table last weekend.
A season finish in similar surroundings would suit everyone at the Riverside in what will be a first year of consolidation back in the Premier League. In fact, they have made a better job of their away fixtures so far than those played on Teeside, drawing at Arsenal, West Brom and West Ham and winning the first Tees-Wear derby of the season at Sunderland.
As was proved last week when Gaston Ramirez surged the length of the pitch to score the opening goal against Bournemouth, Middlesbrough can pack a punch on the counter-attack. With ex-City striker Alvaro Negredo at the end of the attack, they have someone who will be familiar with the surroundings too.
Much of Karanka’s preparation will have to concentrate on the defence, however, which is likely to come under severe pressure from a City side which can score from a variety of sources.
Ramirez and Negredo will have to pull out all the stops to surpass the feats of their predecessors, however. In recent years, Boro have managed to knock City out of the FA Cup as a championship side and scored eight past Sven Goran Erikssen’s distracted side during a deeply unsatisfactory end to the 2007-08 season. The Swede paid for that defeat with his job, City fans with their dignity.
But it is the match that took place in Manchester right at the end of the 2004-05 season that may give the most pointers to what we can expect at the weekend. Boro, needing a point to gain entry into the following season’s UEFA Cup, came with a strict plan and spent long periods defending that precious point after Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s scorching strike had been cancelled out by Kiki Musampa.
In the days before Pep Guardiola, City’s tacticians had more rudimentary ideas and homespun tactics. Finally despairing that the needed breakthrough would come (City too could qualify at Middlesbrough’s expense if they won), the man in charge went for broke. Where Guardiola might swap the positions of Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva, as he did to great effect against the Catalans, Stuart Pearce, enacting a piece of tactical thinking that might have been invented by Stoneage FC, brought on substitute goalkeeper Nicky Weaver.
Pearce was not intent on swapping his goalkeepers, however. As the crowd watched in hushed awe, midfielder Claudio Reyna was summoned to the touchline and removed from the game. City now had two goalkeepers on the pitch. As Weaver trotted towards David James in the City goal, only two or three people in the crowd of 47,000 could have known what was going on.
James, leaving his goal to put on an outfield shirt, duly played the last few minutes as a centre forward. Utterly confused by James’s strangely mesmeric attempts to kick the ball, defender Frank Queudrue gave away a penalty. The match’s result — and indeed the issue of which of these clubs would qualify for Europe — would now hinge on the last kick of the season. There would be no time to restart afterwards, as time had elapsed.
Robbie Fowler, scorer of 120 goals for Liverpool, duly had his kick saved by Mark Schwarzer, cementing Middlesbrough’s relieved celebrations in the psyche of those that were there for the rest of their lives. More of this kind of drama after last Tuesday’s exhausting spectacle, might be slightly too much for some City fans to handle.
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