City wary of Sam’s wounded Hammers

The City kit boss and former Latics star writes every week for Chron Sport

West Ham were well beaten by Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup on Sunday, but we’ll see a completely different team line up against City tomorrow night in the Capital One Cup semi-final.

Sam Allardyce played a number of young lads at the City Ground — I think two or three of them actually made their first-team debuts — and maybe the occasion got to some of them, since they were hammered 5-0.

It’s a cup semi-final tomorrow, though, and Sam’s team will be up for it without a doubt.

It’s a tricky tie for us over the two games, but this current City squad should have enough to make it to another Wembley final.

Of course United are in the other semi-final and they’ll be fancying their chances against Sunderland over two legs. We could be looking at an all-Manchester final.

What a great match-up that would be, what an occasion — there would be plenty of added spice to that Wembley game.



I was sad to hear about Eusebio passing away. I never saw him play live, but I’ve watched plenty of him on the telly over the years and he really was one of the best in the world.

I remember back in the 60s he was always in and around the top three alongside and Pele and other huge stars like George Best.

He was brilliant at the World Cup in 1966 and then everyone saw what he was capable of in the European Cup final against United a couple of years later.

He was just a phenomenal player, a phenomenal scorer of goals, and he was a true gentleman too.

The incident in the European final at Wembley springs to mind. When he went back to compliment goalkeeper Alex Stepney after he had made a superb save to keep one of his shots out — well, that really summed the man up for me.

What a great sportsman — he’ll be sadly missed by everyone involved in football.