City spent most of the week in Abu Dhabi to get the horror of losing at home to Arsenal out of their system, only to find their possession game once against being blunted by another determined defence. Manuel Pellegrini admitted his side had not been at their best against Arsenal – “we had plenty of possession but just didn’t use the ball well enough” – and against Middlesbrough it was more of the same story.
With the visitors offering only token commitment to attack in the first half – not that Lee Tomlin and Patrick Bamford were unable to cause anxiety in the home defence – the traffic was overwhelmingly one way. City kept coming forward, with David Silva and Jesús Navas working hard to find a way through, but the former frequently found no one on the end of his first-time flicks and passes, while the latter was all energy and running with little in the way of a final delivery.
It took City until midway through the first half to test the Boro goalkeeper, and once they did begin to rain shots on goal they found Tómas Mejías more than capable of standing up to them. Stevan Jovetic in particular saw four decent efforts saved in the first half, with Silva, Sergio Agüero and James Milner also being denied by the goalkeeper.
If that makes it sound as though City were creating chance after chance and only goalkeeping heroics were keeping the scores level it was not quite like that. City were not creating many clear openings, ones from which it would have been easier to score than hit the goalkeeper. Mejías was doing a good job dealing with shots coming through a crowded area but most were speculative efforts from a fair way out.
The only time City found themselves with a player on the six-yard line with just the goalkeeper to beat it was not the deadly Agüero but the less than clinical Dedryck Boyata, who scuffed his first attempt then put a follow-up effort miles over the bar. City would have been embarrassed had Bamford kept a header on target on the stroke of the interval. “You’re just a shit Man United,” chorused the Boro fans giddily. That is quite an insult these days but it was hard to argue when City went behind early in the second half to one of the comedy goals of the season.
First Fernando put Boyata under pressure with an underhit back-pass, and when the City defender could not hold off Albert Adomah’s enthusiastic challenge Willy Caballero came out to clear the ball and missed. That left the ball rolling slowly towards an unguarded net and while Fernando looked capable of a goal-line clearance, after sprinting back diligently to tidy up his initial error, his last-ditch hook to safety only succeeded in striking Bamford’s shins and rebounding into goal.
Boro taking the lead changed the game utterly. Now full of confidence, the visitors went for a second, perhaps realising that Boyata and Vincent Kompany were vulnerable at the heart of the City defence. Caballero redeemed himself for his part in the goal with a fine double-save from Tomlin then Grant Leadbitter, before standing tall to thwart an audacious attempted chip from the impressive Adomah.
Best of all was a remarkable piece of skill from Tomlin on the hour, who beat Kompany all ends up with a terrific turn, then flicked a shot against the base of an upright with only Caballero to beat and the hard work seemingly done.
City would never have come back from two goals down; in fact they never looked particularly like recovering from being one behind. Mejías was nowhere near as busy in the second half as he had been in the first, Boro defended capably when they had to, and though for one agonising second it looked as though their hard work was going to be undone by a Frank Lampard shot that deflected off Adam Clayton to beat Mejías, the ball struck a post and bounced harmlessly across goal.
Kike made sure of a famous victory late in stoppage time after taking a pass from the excellent Bamford, but a second goal was hardly necessary, even if it did give the travelling fans at that end a cue for wild celebration. Boro were already thoroughly deserving of a place in the fifth round.
Paul Wilson at the Etihad Stadium 
