Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
YOUR TURN NEXT, CITY!
Newport’s Cup heroes earn crack at Guardiola & Co
NEWPORT will welcome Manchester City to Rodney Parade in the fifth round as Tony Pulis suffered an unhappy homecoming.
The League Two side beat Leeds and held Tottenham last season then saw off Leicester in the third round this term.
Now Michael Flynn’s FA Cup specialists have the chance to create the biggest shock in their history after reaching this stage for the first time in 70 years.
“Manchester City, we’re coming for you,” was the joyous chant at full-time. This was no fluke as the 82nd-ranked club in the Football League outplayed the fifth team in the Championship.
Man-of-the-match Robbie Willmott and Padraig Amond scored the goals, but it could have been more – and keeper Joe Day, who missed the first game because his wife is expecting twins, had a quiet evening on the pitch. But Day took a cab straight after the match as she had gone into labour.
Pulis, who was born in Newport and started his playing career there, saw his old club beat Boro at his own game in awful conditions.
Strikers Jordan Hugill and Britt Assombalonga also limped off in the second half ahead of Saturday’s game with Leeds.
Newport will welcome Pep Guardiola and Co under the lights a week on Saturday to take their FA Cup windfall to £1.2million this season – even before gate receipts are taken into account.
This was an old-school cup-tie with the noise from the capacity 7,000 crowd drowning out the wind and rain. The League Two club ripped into Boro right from the start with direct tactics suited to the boggy conditions.
Referee Stuart Attwell turned down a confident early penalty appeal when the ball hit Adam Clayton’s upper arm and then Dimi Konstantopoulos kept the visitors in the game.
A rare Boro counter-attack saw Lewis Wing feed Hugill and the onloan West Ham striker fizzed his shot against a post.
Pulis replaced Paddy Mcnair with the on-loan Rajiv van La Parra at the break, but Newport took a deserved lead two minutes into the second period. Willmott drove forward and let fly to score his first goal of the season.
Amond broke free of Boro’s clutches after 67 minutes to lash a Willmott corner high into the net.