Manchester City’s 5-1 loss at Arsenal last weekend has been described as “the end of an empire”, but can Leyton Orient read them the last rites in the FA Cup?
By Ian King
Two sides on different levels
Well, we thought they were back. Prior to last weekend’s chastening loss, Manchester City had been unbeaten in their six previous Premier League matches, scoring 18 goals. The last time they failed to get past the Fourth Round of the FA Cup was ten years ago. The last time Orient got to the Fourth Round was in 2011, when they were beaten 5-0 by Arsenal following a replay.
Orient lost 1-0 at home to Stockport County last week, but prior to that they’d been eleven games unbeaten in League One, a run of nine wins and two draws which lifted them up to sixth place. In the last round of the Cup they beat Championship club Derby County 6-5 on penalty kicks following a 1-1 draw at Brisbane Road.
A history lesson from the pre-FotMob days
It’s now 49 years since these two clubs last met, with that last meeting ending in a 2-2 draw back in May 1966. They’ve met twelve times in total, with City winning eight of them. Orient’s last win against them came in a Second Division match in August 1964. The two clubs have met twice before in the FA Cup, in 1920 and 1926, with City winning both of those, 4-1 and 6-1 respectively.
Key players
The scale of the Arsenal loss may provoke Pep Guardiola to play a stronger team than he might otherwise have done. Nico O’Reilly could find himself back in the team. He scored his first senior goal from left-back in their 8-0 win against Salford City in the last round.
Another Nico, Nico González, arrived for £50m on transfer deadline day from Porto, but will any of their newest acquisitions get a runout?
Grenada international Omar Beckles will be on for a busy afternoon at the heart of the Orient defence. He’s been there since 2021, after having risen from the non-league game to play for Accrington, Shrewsbury and Crewe.
Team News
Orient are expected to be at full strength. For Manchester City, Stefan Ortega will likely start in goal in place of Ederson, while their defensive shambles at The Emirates last week means that, having missed out on that one, Abdukodir Khusanov could start in the centre of defence. It’s likely to be a very different City team to the one that started last Sunday.
Prediction
Obviously, this should be a walk in the park for Manchester City. The gulf is enormous. Orient’s record transfer fee is the £200,000 they paid Oldham Athletic for Liam Kelly in 2016. According to publicly available information, City have ten players who currently earn that amount of money a week. City should run up a hatful but it’s the FA Cup – and frankly, when am I ever going to get the opportunity to do this again? So I’ll go for an optimistic 1-0 Orient win because we’d all neutrals would love to see that, wouldn’t they?
(Cover image from IMAGO)
You can follow every game from the FA Cup with FotMob this season – featuring deep stats coverage, xG, and player ratings. Download the free app here.