Preview: Scunthorpe v City

City travel through Yorkshire to Scunthorpe tomorrow hoping to book a place in the FA Cup 5th round. The game, according to their website, will be the first involving Scunny to be shown live on terrestrial television, a capacity 9,000 crowd is expected, and Nigel Adkins' men will be out to put right October's League Cup defeat at our place.

The same old faces are missing through injury. Roque Santa Cruz's dodgy calf will see him miss another three or four weeks. Pat Vieira's at least a week off a debut, also calf-related. Wayne Bridge and Joleon Lescott are both expected back around the turn of February. Michael Johnson's still broken, and young striker David Ball has fractured a metatarsal. Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor are still absent.

Roberto Mancini has revealed that Carlos Tevez will be rested ahead of the return leg with United. I think Craig Bellamy may also not start, which probably means Benjani alone in attack. Gareth Barry is carrying a groin injury and i imagine Stevie Ireland will replace him for his first appearance of the year. Dedryck Boyata could make his third start for the senior side. Vince Kompany, excellent since his return, is another i think might be given the afternoon off.

Scunny will be without the suspended Michael O'Connor, banned for picking up ten bookings. Josh Wright is the man most likely to deputise. Defender Andrew Wright has a foot injury. Young Josh Lillis is expected to continue in goal in place of the experienced former Tranmere man Joe Murhpy.

I'm anticipating a very tough game. All the cliches about small grounds, changing rooms, romance of the cup, etc, etc, have already been trotted out dozens of times, but i don't imagine the setting will come as too much of a culture shock for our lads, and the little i've seen of Scunthorpe this season tells of a side well capable of playing and not sticking ten men behind the ball and hoping for the best.

Strikers Hooper and Hayes will prove a real handful. Last season they bagged an incredible 49 goals between them, and so far this year have continued their impressive partnership a division higher. At just 22 Hooper is the more prolific, and might even move on before the end of the transfer window. Hayes will put himself about and unsettle us, drag our centre-halves all over the show. Other goal threats will come from midfielders Woolford; a tricky left-winger, and former West Ham youth player Grant McCann.

We should have enough to see Scunthorpe off, but nothing would surprise me in what's so far been a season of shocks. Without Tevez and Bellamy, if the latter is indeed rested, i worry about us not having that edge in attack. We were awful at Boro in the last round and got a bit lucky. I'm looking for Stephen Ireland to come in and dictate the tempo of the game, something he's well capable of.

Given the naive, nay stupid comments this week by Garry Cook i just hope we can go there and get the job done. As mentioned previously, you don't declare yourselves the new kids on the block ahead of a potential cup humbling against lower-league opposition. Tomorrow we'll be tested, whether we can keep mature heads and avoid the banana skin on offer, well, we'll see, but with such an important game midweek it would certainly prove a boost.

Possible teams:
Scunthorpe: Lillis, Byrne, Williams, Mirfin, Jones, Togwell, J.Wright, McCann, Hooper, Hayes, Woolford

City: Given, Vidal, Garrido, Richards, Boyata, de Jong, Wright-Phillips, Zabaleta, Ireland, Benjani, Petrov

Prediction: Scunthorpe 1 City 2