Leyton Orient 1 Manchester City 2

Blues come from behind to beat League One Leyton Orient to advance to the 5th round of the FA Cup

Manchester City travelled back to London on Saturday on the back of a huge defeat to Arsenal. This time the circumstances were different, facing 6th placed League One side Leyton Orient in the FA cup fourth round. Stefan Ortega started in goal. New signings Nico Gonzalez and Vitor Reis both made their debuts. Ruben Dias, Rico Lewis also started in defence. James Mcatee and Nico O’Reilly were in the midfield with Ilkay Gundogan. Jack Grealish, Savio and Omar Marmoush were in attack.

This was by no means an easy encounter for the Blues, in contrast to what some expected. Leyton Orient defended well and made City work hard in attack. The first City chance came in the 9th minute when Gonzalez’s ball over the defence found Savio who layed the ball off for Gundogan who couldn’t convert from close range.

Soon after this problems became apparent for City, a shot from long range from Leyton Orients midfielder Donley went all the way and bounced off the crossbar and struck a stumbling Ortega and into the net to give the home side a shock 1-0 lead against the Blues. The situation then grew worse for City, just a few minutes later, debutant Gonzalez went down with an injury and couldn’t continue in what was a huge shame that the Spanish midfielder picked up an injury on his debut. For the remainder of the first half, Leyton Orient remained strong in defence and this was highlighted by a spirited performance from goalkeeper Keeley, who made a fantastic save on the brink of halftime from a close range shot from Marmoush having received the cross from Savio.

The second half began and it was clear that changes needed to be made for the Blues. Reis was replaced by Kushanov and Dias was replaced by Stones. Eventually, Leyton Orient’s defence was finally broken in the 56th minute after a half-cleared corner  fell to Lewis, who’s long range shot took a deflection off the head of Kushanov to make the scores finally level once again. Leyton Orient remained strong in defence despite the goal were determined to not let City get in the lead having got on level terms

With the Blues still struggling, changes were made. Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne came on, replacing O’Reilly and Mcatee. Moments later. A chipped ball in to the box from Grealish found the boot of De Bruyne, who merely poked the ball past the keeper to give City the lead with a little more than 10 minutes to go. Despite all the Leyton Orient efforts to make the scores level once again and force the match into extra time, the Blues just about saw out a 2-1 win, with the closest chance to concession coming in injury time with a very powerful shot going narrowly wide.

Despite not making it easy for themselves, City will know that it doesn’t get much more easier from here, with Real Madrid looming in the champions league and a tough run of premier league fixtures coming up against Newcastle, Liverpool, and Tottenham, the Blues have no room for error and will need to be at their very best to get through these tough fixtures, certainly many will feel they must be better than they were today.