Manchester City Held by Stoke

Manchester city put on another unconvincing performance against Stoke City in the FA Cup fifth round. With Carlos Tevez not even in the bench; City had the disadvantage of their top scorer missing. However Adebayor, who has scored three in his last three after returning from African Cup of nations, was available. The Match started brightly with City playing good football and Bridge, with Capello in the stands, making adventurous runs in the stoke penalty box. In the tenth minute Wright-Philips was duly rewarded for his good play when Sorensen misjudged a long ball from Ireland and Shawcross awfully miskicked the ball and then headed it straing back to Wright-Philips who put it in empty net.

The quality of the game faded in the first half after the goal with both teams mishitting passes and giving the ball away. Manchester city have never been convincing in the 4-4-2 formation which Macini has been using after the return of Adebayor . The 4-3-3 formation is when they look comfortable.

Stoke City had chances to equalize in the first half their best chance falling to Lawrence who hit Bridge with the shot. Stoke looked like the team that will score after the first goal as City looked poor. The passing is just not happening for them may be the formation or new coach, however it is not clicking and Mancini needs to find the solution quickly if he wants to mount a challenge for the fourth spot with Liverpool looking good for the first time in the season despite the loss to Arsenal.

In the second half Stoke City equalized when a miskick from Given found Rory Delap who launched it in to the box for Fuller to score fro Six yards. City stated the seconfd hald with Petrov on the right hand side and Wright-Philips on the left side further reducing City’s momentum, Mancini should know by now that Petrov only has a left foot and cannot do anything on the right side other than cutting inside to his left making it easy and predictable for defenders. After that both the teams never looked liked taking control of the match. The only good thing for City in the second half was Roque Santa Cruz, who looked sharp when he came as a substitute.

Stoke will have to worry about the injuries to Etherington and Lawrence as they have to face City again the league on Wednesday. Etherington has been their most influential player in the last few games and they will sorely miss him.

The second leg will surely be more interesting than this and hope that Carlos Tevez comes back to add some spark to City’s quest to win the FA cup.