Tonight we see Manchester City travel to West Brom to take on Steve Clarke’s Baggies. Here are three key battles that are likely to have an outcome on the result of the tie.
Lescott vs Long
The little Irish striker has captured our hearts over the last few weeks with a range of beautiful performances. His brace against Aston Villa recently contained two cases for goal of the season, while his general play this season has been immense.
Going up against Lescott – a player who is renowned for his inability to cope against nimble players – Long could thrive should he get the space needed to run at him.
Yacob vs Toure
While the former is a scrappy player who loves nothing more to throw himself into tackles and squeeze people off the ball, the latter will happily bulldoze his way through the entire opposition before making a pin-point pass to the forwards.
It will be interesting to see who gets the better of who during the 90 minutes, though my money is on the Manchester City man.
Negredo & Aguero vs McAuley & Olsson
This will be the big one – can the West Brom centre-back pairing retain arguably the most talented Premier League strike partnership? Aguero has 10 league goals this season and Negredo has six, so to keep a clean sheet tonight would be extraordinary for the Midlands side, although I can’t see it myself.