FOR PREMIER GIANTS
City plane stupid as super Boro send them tumbling
THIS, Manchester City really should concede, is why you avoid long-haul travel on the eve of a game.
Why matters here in England need to remain the priority ahead of commitments to their super-rich owners in Abu Dhabi.
Why a catwalk encounter with Hamburg was probably not what Manuel Pellegrini and his players needed after that bruising defeat by Arsenal the previous weekend.
Pellegrini would not admit it last night, of course. Blaming his employers for this, City’s second FA Cup defeat by Championship opposition in as many years, would amount to printing off his own P45. Particularly when the airline are the club sponsors.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Pellegrini, when asked about the trip. ‘You can have your opinion. I have a different opinion.
‘We had six or seven clear chances in the match to score at the start and I think we played very well.
‘After Middlesbrough scored, we were disorderly and they could then have scored more goals.
‘But it is very easy to say that (about Abu Dhabi). ‘I think there are a lot of football reasons rather than Abu Dhabi.’
Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka felt after his side survived everything City threw at them in the first half that they might have a chance of pulling off a famous win.
Karanka, a former Real Madrid assistant boss, said: ‘At half-time, I told my players — and maybe they thought I was crazy — City are in our hands because the only chances they had in the first half came from our mistakes — and we fixed those mistakes in the second half.’
The English Premier champions performed like a team that had been sitting on a plane for seven hours, arriving late on Friday night after five days in a different time zone. And Middlesbrough were only too happy to take advantage.
Had Karanka’s side looked tired, they too would have had an excuse. This was their third match in a week.
But players pushing hard for promotion seemed eager to demonstrate they will be ready should they find themselves back in the top flight next season. With second-half goals from Patrick Bamford and Kike, a place in the fifth round of the Cup was no less than they deserved.
City might well point to the period of dominance they enjoyed in the opening 45 minutes and a series of outstanding saves from Tomas Mejias did deny them a goal.
However, it was a very different City side that stumbled through the second half, with fatigue as serious an issue as a lack of composure.
In the case of Boro’s opening goal, there might also have been a hint of cowardice, with error-prone keeper Willy Caballero seemingly reluctant to commit to a 50:50 challenge with Albert Adomah.
For Pellegrini, it amounted to the stuff of nightmares. First, came the bad backpass from Fernando, then the sight of Caballero allowing Adomah to knock the ball beyond him, before the two of them ended up in a heap and then, a sluggish Fernando trying to make a clearance that Bamford intercepted and directed the ball over the line.
Defensively, Boro were superb here, but there were some fine attacking displays, too.
Bamford, on loan from Chelsea, was among the best but Lee Tomlin was terrific, almost scoring when he followed a marvellous turn with a shot that bounced off a post.
For City’s stunned supporters, the only consolation was the fact that they were charged so little to witness this. Just £15 for adults and a fiver for kids.
The warning signs were there for the home team in the opening minute when Vincent Kompany made a mistake that Boro went close to capitalising on.
In fairness, though, to City, they then played some decent football that, had it not been for Mejias, would have been rewarded with a goal.
The shots on target were frequent but so too were some excellent saves from the Spaniard. He might have played for Real Madrid only once in seven years, but he excelled in the way he denied James Milner, David Silva and Stevan Jovetic.
With the start of the second half came yet another marvellous stop by Mejias, this time to parry a header from Jovetic.
Pellegrini brought on Frank Lampard for Jesus Navas and the former Chelsea midfielder almost equalised when a deflected effort bounced off a post.
But Boro had other chances before Kike’s breakaway strike, with Bamford providing the assist.