Pre-Match
Shay Given made his City debut as Mark Hughes made just the one change to the eleven that started against Stoke last week.
It was a bright but bitterly cold day in Manchester, with no sign of the snow that has affected so much of the UK – but rest assured it was still over a foot deep just a few miles away, as your correspondant’s car can testify!
The Match
City were straight into it, with a Bellamy burst down the left ending when the Boro defence cleared it away from Ireland & Robinho in the first minute. Just two minutes later Digard passed it straight to Ireland, whose attempt to link up with Bellamy was cut out in the nick of time by Brad Jones on the edge of his area.
We forced a couple of corners around the 10-minute mark, and neat control on the turn from captain Vincent Kompany saw the Belgian volley the ball a couple of yards wide at the second. Robinho got into a dangerous position in the box five minutes later, but he took an air-shot when faced by Pogatetz. Meanwhile, Boro were not posing much of a threat, with Johnson’s shot over on 19 minutes their biggest threat of the half so far.
But SWP went close shortly after, drifting in from the right before shooting from 20 yards out, however a last-minute deflection took it wide – but no corner was given.
Shay Given had virtually nothing to do for the first 28 minutes, but then he showed just why he is so highly-rated. City got caught napping and a cross from the right found Alves, but his snap-shot brought a brilliant stop from Given, just a couple of yards away from the Brazilian at the time.
That roused City and the fans into life, and two minutes later Boro’s keeper made a fine save. Our sixth corner of the match saw SWP shoot, the ball bobble around and then Bellamy poke it goalwards from eight yards – but Brad Jones made a superb save diving away to his left. Pablo Zabaleta took the crowd up on their urging him on to shoot from long range a minute later, the ball going a yard over.
Given made another good stop from Alves on 38 minutes, sticking out his left hand after at first leaning the other way.
Within a minute we went agonisingly close to scoring twice, first when Ireland’s flying header hit the bar, then when Ireland’s cross from the right somehow missed Bellamy in front of an open goal. We had Given to thank again seconds later, this time the Irishman saved with his feet to deny Alves once more – but if Boro’s record signing had looked up and found his support we would surely have been a goal down.
A lively end to the first half was followed by a quiet start to the second – until the Blues broke the shackles! Nigel de Jong went on a rare forward foray and found Ireland; he in turn passed it to Craig Bellamy on the far side of the box, and after cutting onto his left foot the Welsh striker drilled the ball across Jones and into the bottom corner of the net for his second since his arrival from Newcastle.
Robinho could have made it two on 66, the Brazilian latching onto a great move involving SWP & Bellamy and seemingly rounding Jones, only for the Boro keeper to recover his ground and just push the ball away.
But Boro broke away in search of the equaliser, which looked on the cards in the 69th minutes when Alves took advantage of confusion between Onuoha and Kompany. The Brazilian shot from the corner of the box, but Shay Given was equal to it once again with another great stop, this time low to his left.
Robinho went close at the other end, his shot just going wide thanks to a deflection, but from the resulting corner we could not threaten the Boro goal. The game’s first yellow went to Gary O’Neil with 10 minutes left, and just after good possession by City in the near corner ended when Ireland fired a couple of yards wide.
Caicedo replaced Robinho with seven minutes left, and the Ecuadorian forced Jones to work three minutes later, his shot on the turn at the end of another well-worked move from the right going straight at the Boro keeper. An effort from longer range a minute later also flew straight to Jones.
As we entered the last 60 seconds of normal time, Boro appealed for a penalty when the ball struck Bridge high up on the arm as he turned away, but the referee was rightly unmoved.
Three minutes were added on, and City ate up time well with a series of corners on the far side before the whistle blew and we had a hard-earned but well deserved three points in the hat.
