Who would have thought it?!

What a day! What a win! 2-0 versus the champions of England would be a headline in itself, but from a team in the tier below is very impressive, to say the least, from our lads. Only the ex-boro brigade down at Bradford stole our thunder (where Halliday and Yeates score, Davies plays and Stockton-lad Phil Parkinson manages.)

The day began and we were more hopeful than expectant. Upon hearing the news that the Manchester City lads had only been in the country a matter of hours, the players must have smelt blood. The only thing I smelt, however, was a strange burning as we passed over the Pennines in my Dad's Mazda 2.

Thankfully, it must've been some crazy farmer on a hill somewhere as the smell wasn't coming from inside the car. We arrived in the private car park, adorned with Manchester City badges, so us 'Boro-simpletons' didn't get confused, and gave the nice man in the luminescent jacket £7 for the troubles of letting us park in this strange piece of land behind some silver iron buildings. As we pulled up, McDonald's in hands, we were thankful to see, not only Boro fans, but other cars. The car park we went into before was deserted and looked 'dodgy as' and was through an assault course of pot holes and round the back of a random building.

On the walk down to the Etihad, however, we thought that the stadium, despite looking like a spider, was a great looking stadium. Some pictures of it can be seen on the twitter page for this blog - https://twitter.com/onestevegibson/media
There were also numerous novelty scarf salesmen. Although they seemed good from a Boro fan's perspective, you had to question how many that Man City Fans would buy. If they were £5 to sell, you'd imagine that they weren't that expensive to make, due to the sheer number of them about.

There was refurbishments around the ground, but once inside it did look very good, high sides that made it look rather intimidating. It looked quite different to how it does on Match Of The Day.

Multiple groans came out from those in the crowd as we discovered the man keeping goal for us would be Tomas Mejias, the man who conceded 3 to Sheffield Wednesday, a team that lost 7-0 and 2-1 to Manchester City earlier in the season. It was also no surprise to see Lee Tomlin in the team, as he had scored 3 in the previous 2 games. Adomah started over Adam Reach, presumably Karanka opted in favour of the more experienced head of Albert. These were the only real surprises in a team that also saw Kike dropped to the bench and Dean Whitehead start in right-back, as Kalas' injury he picked up against Cardiff hadn't healed in time.

The team was a very strong one, especially for one that had played just 4 days previously. And as the game kicked off, the 6 players (Dimi, Friend, Ayala, Gibson, Clayton and Leadbitter) whom had played nye on every game since the turn of the year, were called on from the off. They saw a lot of action in a first half dominated by the hosts (let us not forget Deano, also, who played very well in the game.)

Now, contrary to what has been said by ALL media outlets (except Jermaine Jenas maybe), even tough Manchester City troubled our defense with shots, Milner's was the only real chance where they got a clear sight of goal. Boyata lashed wide with 3 bodies in front of him and Silva refused to head the ball. Milner's shot was dealt with very well by Mejias who pushed the ball around the post. for a corner. Also, in the first half, Ayala was claimed to have handled the ball in the box. And I have to say that this is rubbish. You can clearly see Ayala's hand is about 6 inches from his hip and only moves as the ball is coming towards him, in an attempt to get it out of the way. So Mr Fowler, it , therefore, wasn't a penalty.

The only real attack of note from a Boro point of view, in a half plagued by misplaced passes and unsuccessful dribbles, was when Tomlin put the ball in the back of the net from 10 yards, after Bamford had already been called offside. Whilst it counted for nothing, it showed to the team that they could break down City's backline.

AK must've had a word with his players as they came out in the second half and tried to run at City and tried to close them down, where as we had been sitting back in the first half. I enjoyed the second half a lot more, not least because of the fact that I could actually see there attacks, where as the crossbar had obscured my view before.

We attacked with a lot more intensity and after a worrying Man City corner that amounted to nothing, a bouncing ball in the midfield was misjudged by Fernando and Bamford, and Kompany's backward header was nodded on by Bamford to Vossen, who inturn poked the ball through to Adomah. Fernando managed to stab the ball back towards Caballero. The Argentine, however, was slow off his line and Adomah kicked the ball into Caballero, the ball then rolled agonisingly goal-wards and we thought Fernando was going to get it clear. But Bamford had other ideas, as he ran in the way of Fernando's clearance and the ball hit off the diving loanee's leg, and into the back of the net.

Delirium ensued for us, the travelling faithful as 10,800 arms were either held aloft of shaken wildly or used pick up others. It was a great moment that will live long in the memories of all that were there. Moments later, we thought it would happen again, as more inadequate 'keeping from "Willy" lead to a chance for Lee Tomlin, who, after skilling past 3 blue shirts fired against the goalkeeper. The rebound fell to the one man we would have hoped and prayed for it to fall to. Grant 'Thunderb*****d' Leadbitter. He wound up the shot, and as all the Teesside faithful waited for it to hit the net, the falling leg of Fernando stopped his glory.

This great chance was only topped by that of  Lee Tomlin. As the pass came to his fee, with his back to goal, he turned 180 degrees with the ball at his foot and hit a shot with the outside of his right foot off the inside of he post and the ball tickled wide of the other post.

For those who are yet to see the Tomlin Turn™ https://t.co/c0n10wSQ6k
— Kay Murray (@KayLMurray) January 24, 2015

Such great chances went begging, such as Adomah's attempted chip and Vossen's volley at Caballero, that we could have been 7-0 up, if we had taken the chances. You don't hear that reported! No, only the 4 Man City missed.

Man City's only real chance of the half came when Lampard's 20 yard effort hit he upright courtesy of Adam Clayton's outstretched leg.

We dominated the game, and we finally put the game to bed in the 92nd minute, and after Bamford was fouled whilst running through on goal, the ball fell to Kike, who had failed to score against teams like Reading, Wigan and Cardiff, who rolled the ball past the city 'keeper and put Boro 2-0 up vs the champions. Kike's celebrations are endearing him to us Boro fans, he ran into the crowd and celebrated after scoring his goal. Much like his 'thumbs up' celebration after scoring against Bolton.

It was an amazing game, and amazing day. And, now, we will hopefully have another and with the same outcome because we have drawn Arsenal in the 5th round.

As ever, though, Karanka remains focused on the next game, as Derby have the chance to go ahead of us today (27th) so Brentford is a game that, if we win, means we can go top (again.)

Up the Boro.

"Boro go down with the decorations"

I heard the quote for this post from BBC Tees' own Ali Brownlee, and I'm quite disappointed that it looks like I won't getting to use that.

To be fair I would rather us be winning games. The two most recent games have been examples of games which are showing a side of a team we haven't seen for a long time. A team who can grind out a win.

Reading was a perfect chance to do that. The Royal's sat in 19th place when we faced them at the Madejski. It wasn't an interesting 0-0, which was why I didn't do a report on it!

(That was a joke, I have had mock exams so have only been posting tweets.)

But chances like the one that fell to Adomah, which he headed at Federici in the Reading net, epitomises what I'm trying to say and we didn't grind out that  win. Chances fell to Bamford and Kike in that game, but none were converted.

And a week later, against Huddersfield the same feeling was there. It was the first game at the Riverside since Boxing Day and the players would have been eager to impress, especially with the good performances towards the end of last calendar year.

But the first half was rather lackluster with guilt-edge chances falling to people like Bamford, who headed wide from 6 yards with a vast majority of the goal to aim for.

As we headed into the second, the same could be applied, with Kike scuffing a left footed shot from inside the box. I know at the moment there is quite a lot of hostility towards Kike from some fans, and a few of them sat close to me. I get what people say, that 'if you pay free n'alf million for the lad he should be able to put a ball in the back of the net.' Firstly, it was £2.7 million (3.5 million euros) and he hasn't hit the ground running, per say with 6 goals in 26 games. But he has almost become a victim of his own success. A goal on his debut has lead many fans to say that he should be dropped. If we remember, Jelle Vossen didn't score in his first 13 games or so. We should, therefore, not slate him as he is 25 and only just arrived in the country.

If you look at those 'up there' with us,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/table
Bournemouth have Wilson, who has done well coming up from League 1, but they still have Pitman and Kermogant who are scoring for them, and they all, literally, speak the same language, not like Kike who's had to learn another language and maybe hasn't fully settled yet. Derby and Ipswich have has their strikers (Martin, McGoldrick and Murphy) for more than one season. And, again, they all speak English.

You can see that Kike's problems are all to do with his confidence. You could see in the Cardiff game how desperate he was to keep hold of the ball after chesting it down, as he was afraid of boos and heckles. So, keep singing his name. Just not so often or it might seem facetious, like we are mocking him.

But anyway, back to the Huddersfield game, and it took until the 61st minute for Boro to score their first league goal since Leadbitter's penalty sealed the 3-0 win over Forest. Tomlin had fired a well struck shot over the bar a few moments earlier, and Huddersfield should have learned their lesson as he strode forward again and lashed the ball into Alex Smithies' net.

I remember recalling that these were the first shots in the game that had been hit with any venom, we had been over-passing and this looked to be an instruction from AK, to actually try shooting.

Credit Huddersfield, however, as they looked good on the attack with the pace of Wells, who would strike the woodwork in the closing stages of the game. Ex-Boro man Jacob Butterfield's ferocious strike caused Dimi to produce a great save, which nearly forced him off injured.

He played on, and saw his opposite number come up for a corner in the 90th minute. Smithies was unmarked in the box, but the corner couldn't find him and Boro got it clear for another corner. Huddersfield, bewilderingly, decided to take this corner shot. They presumably wanted a better angle on the cross, but instead gave Tomlin a very good angle to score in an open net, as Leadbitter intercepted the corner and Tomlin ran forward.

Some said that 'Tomlin didn't see the 'keeper off his line.' I refuse. He can't not have seen the 'keeper run up for the corner. He just didn't want to lash it from the halfway line and miss an open goal.

This was a game that I felt we hadn't taken our chances in the first hour, and one that we may have drawn, or even lost.

The same feeling present in the Cardiff game, although it was a lot more cold.

More missed from Kike brought many to their feet, as did a strange decision to award a throw in to Cardiff, when Bamford had played the ball ,quite clearly, off Cardiff's fullback, Brayford. The linesman was obviously aware of his error as he gave another decision the wrong way, but in Boro's favour when it should've been a Cardiff throw in. Leadbitter had some choice words for the linesman, whether they were congratulatory, or derogatory I don't know.

Headed opportunities came the way of Ayala and Friend, but none were taken. Even when Ayala went for the spectacular shoulder, after misjudging one.

This result, however, didn't look as in the balance as Huddersfield did. Cardiff just lumped the ball up to Alex Revell and then his replacement Jones and it seemed a matter of time before Boro would score.

And it was. The lively Reach, who looked fresh after not playing the weekends game against Huddersfield, provided a low cross for Bamford. He looked to have squirmed his chance as he hit it into the arms of the sliding midfielder, Peter Whittingham, but he buried the second chance.

Tomlin doubled the scoreline on 80 minutes and has really pushed for a place against Manchester City on Saturday, with his 3rd goal in as many days.

The Cardiff attacks didn't look to cause much bother in the Boro back line, who were gunning for a 6th consecutive clean sheet, with Gunnarsson firing over. A defensive lapse from newly introduced Albert Adomah, however, gifted youngster Joe Ralls with the ball, which he whipped into Jones' head and he dispatched, with Gibson and Friend struggling to compete with him.

Even though Gibbo said it 'felt like a loss' because the defense had conceded for the first time in over 650 minutes, it was a victory. One that sent us into 2nd place, just one point from Bournemouth who had lost at Leeds, surprisingly.

Leeds' favour was quickly followed up 24 hours later by Brighton who beat Ipswich, who are now behind us on goal difference. Derby can still go top when they play Blackburn. Now we have to hope that Steeley can show his true Boro roots by keeping a clean sheet. (OR Eastwood plays yet another blinder.) And also Brighton don't cash in that favour on the last day of the season, when we play them at the Riverside.

Attentions can now turn to Man City on Saturday. The optimists will be hoping for another 8-1, and the pessimists will be thinking they will avenge it, by hammering us. I just hope that none of them have tickets, because although I have said some rather pessimistic things, you can't go there thinking that we will get knocked out. Look at Sheffield Wednesday, they pushed Manchester City to bring on Silva and Nasri before they could seal out the game. And, even though they beat us, I'd like to think we were better than Sheffield Wednesday.

And if we perform like we did against Liverpool, but may be tighter at the back, with Dimi in goal and may be the experienced head of Woody marshaling the back 4, we might be able to cause an upset!

Oh one final thing, I have just said that Woody might come into the back four with him being on the bench for the match against Cardiff, but I'd expect the back 7 to be unchanged (that being Dimi, Kalas, Ayala, Gibson, Friend, Clayton, Leadbitter) with maybe a return for Vossen and Adomah, to add a bit of pace to the team, as if Demichelis is playing centre back, I feel we can 'get at them'

So, as we march on City's city, I'll say again; up the Boro; in Aitor we trust and, of course, there is only one Steve Gibson.