Sunday marks the first FA Cup meeting between between Manchester City and Fulham FC since 1914! Yes, it’s been 106 years we’ve seen the Sky Blues and the Craven Cottagers face off in this competition, and they’ll get together again at the City of Manchester Stadium this weekend.
City will head into this one feeling pretty fit and healthy, as Benjamin Mendy, John Stones and Aymeric Laporte are all fully back integrated into the team. Their only injury absentee here will be Leroy Sane. Flipping over to the visitors, they’ll be without the services of top scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic due to an ankle injury.
Maxime Le Marchand, Anthony Knockaert, Aboubakar Kamara and Harrison Reed could all be out of action for this match as well.
Fulham manager Scott Parker knows what kind of challenge lies ahead for his side, and he knows that he needs to get that amped up for the big obstacle in their way of progressing to through to their next round.
“If you go to places like the Etihad and play against teams like Man City with no real conviction and don’t try to put your stamp on the game, nine times out of 10 you roll out of there with a loss,” Parker said.
“Let’s go there with courage, let’s have a belief about us, and let’s try and put our stamp on it.”
Manchester City vs Fulham FC FYIs
Kickoff: City of Manchester Stadium, Jan 26, 1pm
Manchester City Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
Head to Head: City are undefeated in 14 matches against Fulham (W11, D3)
Key stat/fact: City have won the past eight meetings in all competitions, by an aggregate score of 23-3.
Prediction: Manchester City 4, Fulham 0
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.