West Ham Utd v Manchester City
- by Allan Cummings
- Filed: Friday, 4th January 2008
I’ll kick off this FA Cup Preview with an apology for the lack of previews for the last two games. I was a victim of the excesses of Christmas, where the speed of games and the impossibility of trying to keep up with opponent’s results, form and injury lists during the busy period was just beyond me.
A combination of this and my self imposed mission to eat my own bodyweight in Quality Street has meant that I was only fit for spending the bit of the Christmas break that didn’t involve a West Ham game firmly encased on the living room sofa.However, if there is one thing that is guaranteed to get me back amongst the land of the living, it is the FA Cup third round. This season’s fiddling around with the ball bag has seen us paired with Manchester City and it is us that has the home advantage in a 3pm Saturday kick off.
The Blue Moonies
Obviously there are plenty of easier ties than this one to be involved in, particularly at such an early stage of the competition. Our opponents are one of the 16 Premier League clubs that are not considered worthy of Big Four status but they currently sit 4th in the table, jostling with Liverpool, Everton and Aston Villa for a finish that would see them qualify for European competition next season.
There has been much nibbling of humble pie amongst the ranks of the press in regard to City’s manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, who has been in charge of the club since the summer. A combination of City’s good form, particularly at home, and the cock up that Steve McClaren made as coach of the national team has made the papers realise that perhaps they were wrong to be so critical of the job that Eriksson’s work at Soho Square.
He has made significant changes in personnel at City and there has been much gushing over his purchases, particularly of the Brazilian, Elano and the Bulgarian winger, Martin Petrov. However, it would be slightly simplistic to claim that all the success has been bought as he has continued to pluck talent from the club’s academy as well as getting performances out of existing players such as Dietmar Hamman and Micheal Ball that many supporters would not have believed possible before this season.
The club also appears to be looking to the long term as many regular first teamers were born in the (mid) eighties and those likely to feature against us include Stephen Ireland, Vedran Corluka, Micah Richards, Gelson Fernandes, Michael Johnson (if he’s recovered from injury), Nedum Onuoha and Joe Hart.
Despite all of the positives, there are one or two chinks in the armour. I’m not sure if there was a misunderstanding at Sven’s interview when he was warned about playing away but they have struggled on the road. Of the ten away league games that City have been involved in, they have only managed to register two victories, the first of which was of course at the Boleyn back on the opening day of the season and they also enjoyed a midweek success at St James Park this weekend, putting Sam Allardyce under more pressure than my trouser button, post the Christmas chocolates.
The away form slightly improves when you look at the Carling Cup, where they managed to beat Bristol City and Bolton before coming a cropper at the Quarter Final stage.
The side’s strength lies in a resolute back line and a five man midfield that allows them to pack the middle of the park and play quickly on the break. The midfield has seen excellent performances from the likes of Elano (who is now re-hitting his early season form) as well as Hamann, who is displaying the benefits of his maturity and experience.
The forward line has been a slight disappointment and the club are currently being linked with any striker available or otherwise including Johan Elmander and Peter Crouch. The Italian, Rolando Bianchi is the top scoring striker with 5 strikes in total (Elano is the overall top scorer with 6), though Eriksson is currently favouring the pace of Darius Vassell to lead his attack. This may change at the weekend with the acquisition of Mexican striker, Nery Castillo, who has joined on a loan deal and is available to face us.
Previous Encounters
For some reason, Manchester City seem to have a habit of bringing out the very worst in West Ham in recent seasons. This season’s opening day performance was woeful, caused in part by a bit of a Curbs off day in terms of opening line up and then all the re-shuffling that saw our biggest threat on the day, Matty, ending up at left back.
Similarly, both of the encounters with the Blues last season were candidates for the most effete showing in a West Ham shirt, the 2-0 at Eastlands was an lacklustre effort that almost mirrored our first visit to their place and we were similarly awful when we lost 1-0 at home.
Quite why this is the case is unclear to me, City are very much a side that play good football and we have traditionally performed much better against sides like this, as opposed to more physical opposition or teams that put ten men behind the ball.
The optimists amongst us may point to our success against City in the cup as indicative of us getting through on Saturday. While there is truth in the fact that we beat them in the FA Cup in both 1998 and 2006, it is difficult to see what lessons we can learn from those victories, with the time elapsed. It is not as though we can count on a 1998 version of Steve Lomas to settle the tie on Saturday, is it?
Devaluing the Cup
In West Ham’s version of a New Year sale, ticket prices are down for this one, not only for ourselves but also for the visitors. This has resulted in me being turfed out of my usual standing position in the Centenary Lower and being re-seated in the Centenary Upper (aka The Haribo Enclosure).
From this vantage point, I’m not confident about this. With it being doubtful that we will have any of our walking wounded back for Saturday, we are as far from full strength as Sampson was after getting a number one all over at the barbers. I have a bad feeling the cup run will end on day one and that City will continue to be a thorn in our side in a 2-1 defeat.
Enjoy the game.
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