City Watch: City collapse against Madrid but reach FA Cup fifth round

Manchester City are almost half way though their ‘month of death’ as I’m labelling it, having already played Arsenal at the start of the month.

The teams fate in the FA cup and Champions League was to be decided.

Let’s start with the FA cup game, played on Saturday against League One side, Leyton Orient. Now if this was any other season, I’d have looked at this draw and, with no disrespect to Orient, not batted an eyelid to the fact we were going to get though. But with the teams form this season, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. 

This was a rare occasion I didn’t manage to attend the game as I was unable to get a ticket, there was a lot of demand after all! Ten minutes in, I was actually quite happy about this, as the League One side came out swinging, with some great early chances created. It was on loan forward, Jamie Donley who came up with an outrageous strike from the halfway line which hit the bar and rolled in the net off Stefan Ortega, who couldn’t have done much to stop it. 

This, naturally, had me worried, and I was having flashbacks to when Will Grigg scored against us for Wigan to knock us out of the FA cup all those years ago. However, tired legs and the big players subbed on saw the game through, with Abdukodir Khusanov and Kevin De Bruyne giving the Blues a 2-1 win against Orient. An early scare was fought off, and we will now play Plymouth at the Etihad in the next round, who by the way knocked out Brentford and Liverpool so far.

Following our victory in the FA Cup, the Blues took on Spanish side, Real Madrid. There’s been a bit of a rivalry between the two sides in the last few years, and I’m glad to say it continued on Tuesday evening.

City led the game twice, 1-0 and 2-1, and in my opinion, playing quite good and confident football, something we’ve been lacking over the last few months. John Stones played further forward as more of a defensive midfielder and was, as I saw it, our best player.

We were leading the game going into the final five minutes, but Madrid did what they did to us three years ago, they scored two late goals to win the game 3-2, one of which was from ex-City player, Brahim Diaz. I was disappointed to lose the game, I genuinely believe we deserved more and I can’t imagine us getting it back now.

If we were to go out in the Spanish capital next week, I hope we take the opportunity to try and secure a top four spot and hopefully focus on the FA Cup. 

Man City now play Newcastle on the weekend before travelling to Madrid before the second leg of the playoffs.