FA Cup and the Team of our Generation

The votes are in. The votes are counted. I know the team and the manager, the captain and, if I wanted to get very serious about this, the bench. But, you are going to have to wait.

You see, I don't just want to list their names. They deserve more than this. They deserve a graphic and something special, so before I announce the team, which will be very soon, there needs to be a bit of a tense build up; on the same scale as 'will Ashley Young sign a new contract this summer' or not.

FA Cup v Manchester City

Manchester City are not going to win the league this season. I actually can't see them winning the league with Mancini and I think Mancini, deep down, knows this.

Because he knows this, he will be putting every effort into winning what he can and where his team have a chance is the FA Cup and the Europa LDV League as both come down to one match.

When I write one match, I mean, one match at a time and while it isn't a lottery, things seem to be more even when you are playing in matches like this.

My point; it isn't going to be easy tonight, but it was never going to be easy for Reading last night or Everton the round before. It was never going to be easy for The Clowns at the weekend and look what happened then.

So, there will be updates, team news and everything else usually associated with a match day and I think, there might even be a little more anticipation than usual, because I believe we can win.

Early team news

I'm not predicting who is going to play tonight but I will predict the manager is going to take this match extremely seriously and as such, we will see out strongest possible side play.

There is talk that Gary Gardner has travelled with the squad and if he has, he might even feature. I like how Houllier is giving the younger players a chance and I like how there is a bit of pressure to perform. I'd like it more if Barry Bannan was more involved, but we can only trust the manager that he is doing right and hope that Barry sees it as a challenge.

Football odds

The odds don't look great for us, but that is exactly why you should think we can win. On our day, we can play some very good football and the manager is slowly getting them to play the way we need them to play. I'm having a cheeky fiver.

Team news

This looks like an attacking team and very nice to see Bannan get a start. The full team is Friedel, Herd, Dunne, Clark, Delph, Bannan, Petrov, Bradley, Gabby, The Fonz and Heskey. On the bench we have Marshall, Pires, Reo-Coker, Walker, Ashley, Downing and Albrighton.