Leicester City v Manchester City - as it happened

Preamble: Sven-Goran Eriksson reneged on a gentleman's agreement to join Blackburn in 1997 simply because Jack Walker refused to approve the free-transfer signing of a 32-year-old Mancini from Sampdoria. In the end they both joined Lazio instead, where they won the league. At Blackburn, Eriksson was replaced at the head of the wish-list by Roy Hodgson, which didn't work out that well. At Sampdoria, Mancini was replaced by Daniele Dichio, which was even less successful. That today's coaches are members of some kind of mutual appreciation society is well known. They're pretty much the Mork and Mindy of football. "He is like my brother. I have know him for around 15 years. He is a fantastic coach and a fantastic man," says Mancini. "As a player, Mancho was a genius," says Eriksson. That's right, Mancho. "He saw things on the pitch quicker than anybody else. Sometimes even I would say, 'What is he doing?' And then, boom, you saw. Football? He knows everything about the game." And here, for the first time, they are rivals in the dug-outs. So that's the back-story. Watch out for meaningful man-hugs before kick-off and particularly lingering hand-shakes at the final whistle, possibly involving some eye contact and an earnest left-hand-on-right-shoulder clasp. All that, and the fact that Eriksson used to manage City, and Mancini made four starts during a brief spell at Leicester that started 10 years ago next week. And Darius Vassell used to play for Manchester City and now scampers about optimistically in a Leicester shirt. Also, Leicester have a bit of money. Manchester City have a lot of it. It's subtext city, it really is. And the game itself? Well, Leicester are at home, where their record is much better than their league position might suggest – they've lost just two out of 13 in the Championship. So there's certainly a chance of an upset, and that chance will almost certainly remain alive for longer than the possibility of a shock at Old Trafford earlier this afternoon. 3.34pm: And here, with no messing about, are some teams! Leicester: Weale, Naughton, Hobbs, Bamba, Berner, Abe, Wellens, King, Dyer, Vassell, Gallagher. Subs : Neilson, Teixeira, Oakley, Howard, Logan, Waghorn, Moussa. Man City: Hart, Boateng, Toure, Lescott, Kolarov, Wright-Phillips, Milner, Vieira, Adam Johnson, Jo, Tevez. Subs: Given, Zabaleta, Santa Cruz, De Jong, Boyata, Nimely, Ibrahim. Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral) 3.35pm: Oooh, it's the fourth-round draw! 3.37pm: I'll live blog the draw. Why ever not? It'll be conducted by some chap from the air force, and a bloke from the navy. But first, here's Stuart Pearce in Afghanistan. "It's the trip of a lifetime for someone like myself," says Psycho. 3.39pm: Pearce has complained about the dust, and is now being shown around "a patchy helicopter". 3.41pm: Torquay United v Crawley Town or Derby County! What a start! 3.41pm: Watford v Brighton! Wowee! 3.41pm: Bolton v Wigan! An all-Premier League humzinger! 3.41pm: Arsenal or Leeds v Huddersfield Town! 3.42pm: Fulham v Tottenham! A London derby! Of sorts! 3.42pm: Everton v Chelsea (or Ipswich, if there's a miracle)! 3.43pm: Southampton v Manchester United! The dream draw (unless Southampton fancy a place in round five)! 3.43pm: Burnley v Burton Albion! Er, not sure that's what Burton wanted. Also, I missed a tie. Sorry. 3.43pm: Birmingham City v Coventry City! Another kind-of-derby! 3.44pm: Notts County v Leicester City or Manchester City ! So that's what today's victors have to look forward to, then. 3.44pm: Aston Villa v Blackburn - it's another all-Premier League draw. 3.45pm: West Ham v Nottingham Forest - "upset" ahoy! 3.45pm: Sheffield Wednesday v Wycombe or Hereford - that's last place on ITV's highlights programme sorted then. 3.46pm: That's it! Except for the two ties I didn't manage to type in before I forgot them. Doncaster or Wolves v Stoke or Cardiff, that was one of them. Too many ors in that one. 3.46pm: Chelsea now 3-0 up against Ipswich, incidentally. 3.47pm: So if Leicester win this, Eriksson will be up against his other English former employers. Uncanny. 3.59pm: The teams are preparing to come out and we're all set for 45 minutes of excitement. Leicester give a debut to recent signing Sol Bamba, the lanky centre-back who didn't do quite well enough when given a trial by Watford a couple of years back. MCFC are clad in their rather fetching away strip, and are all set to capitalise on Bamba's nerves after naming an attacking line-up. 4.01pm: Robbie Savage's pre-match interview with Roberto Mancini, which ended with the Welshman asking his former Leicester team-mate, in Italian, if there's any chance of him getting a contract offer in the summer, has been described as "a new low for televised sport" by emailer Adam Hirst. "I don't mind him as a summariser but never let him loose with a microphone anywhere ever again." 1 min: Peeeeeep! And we're off! GOAL! Leicester City 1 Manchester City 0 (Bamba, 1) And that's Sol Bamba scoring after less than a minute of his debut! Incredible scenes. Look at his face! Just look at his face! 3 mins: You'll win nothing with defending like that. A short corner was eventually swung into the penalty area, got flicked goalwards and an utterly unmarked Bamba poked in from four yards. Couldn't have been easier. 4 mins: Vassell, holding off three defenders in a manner which will be almost entirely unfamiliar to long-term followers of his career, wins a free-kick just outside the area. 5 mins: And it's swung over to the far post, where Jack Hobbs slams it goalwards with his mighty forehead only for Hart to push it away. The linesman reckons the ball was out of play before the header came in, but frankly I don't believe him. 8 mins: City finally get a spell of possession, switching the ball from side to side before eventually attempting a cross that sails out of play. 4.12pm: Vassell goes down under Kolo Touré's challenge, off-camera. The crowd bays but there's nothing doing whistle-wise. 11 mins: "Don't knock Robbie Savage," says Cali Davies. "In Denmark our commentator just saw a replay of the goal and said it was 2-0!" 12 mins: Edin Dzeko's in the stands, wearing his red-and-black MCFC scarf and wondering why he's not in Turin instead. 13 mins: Lovely burst by Milner to get to the byline on the right side of the penalty area, but his low pull-back is booted clear by Bamba. 14 mins: And from the corner, Vieira is unmarked to volley goalwards but there's no power on the shot and the ball is cleared. 17 mins: Leicester still doing well, though. Kyle Naughton looking good at right-back, and Vassell bright up front. 19 mins: Kolarov, with a trademark useless free-kick (is this unfair?), wins a corner when it deflects off the wall. GOAL! Leicester City 1 Manchester City 1 (James Milner, 23 mins) Leicester haven't coped well with Milner's breaks from midfield, and Bamba's hopeless attempt at a tackle is the latest and most painful failure. Milner cuts inside, Bamba doesn't get within three yards of the ball and the Englishman slams a left-footed short into the far corner from the edge of the penalty area. 25 mins: Manchester City's fans do not appear to be sitting down. At what point will they all be forcibly ejected from the ground? 26 mins: Many of them are looking away from the pitch and bouncing up and down. The remainder are looking towards the pitch and bouncing up and down. Either way, they're bouncing. 28 mins: Bamba's a tall lad, and roves upfront to win another header from a set-piece, though it's from too far out, and also not firm enough, or on target enough, to worry Hart. 30 mins: Carlos Tevez attempts a left-footed shot on the half-turn from 17 yards out, which flies over the bar. This is quite a fun match at the minute. 31 mins: The pitch, of course, is dreadful, but it's sticky enough to add a certain retro 1970s-era push'n'shove to proceedings. 33 mins: Stinging wondershot from Abe, left-footed and a good 30 yards from goal, which is flying goalwards before hart tips it around the post at full stretch. 34 mins: From the corner, Bamba thunders a header at goal that Hart does well to push away, and then scoops another effort from the rebound that Hart collects. "He's a better centre-forward than centre-half," we're told. 36 mins: Daryl Paskell reports that City's backwards bouncing is in homage to the Lech Poznan fans who were at it in a recent European tie . So there you go. 36 mins: And from another LCFC corner, another Bamba header – despite Boateng's muscular marking – doesn't quite lead to another goal. 38 mins: Chelsea now 7-0 up against Ipswich with 10 minutes to play. Roy Keane unlikely to be too displeased to miss it. 38 mins: Lovely ball by Wellens to play in King, but his first touch isn't great and takes him away from goal, and his shot is fairly easily saved. 39 mins: Hilarious miss by City. Boateng runs clear on the right, and he sends the ball low across the six-yard box towards Jô at the far post. But at the last moment Adam Johnson arrives and, at full stretch, slides in to toe-poke the ball away from his team-mate and wide. 42 mins: "Is Bamba the new Steve Walsh?" ponders Foxes fan Jim Harris. "Average defender but soon to be successful striker. Remember the play off final against Derby in 94?" Er, not especially but I remember Walsh well enough. GOAL! Leicester City 1 Manchester City 2 (Carlos Tevez, 45 mins) Another short corner poorly cleared, Milner is released by Johnson's clever reverse pass and his low, hard centre is backheeled in at the near post by Tevez. 45 mins: We'll have two minutes of stoppage time here. 45+2 mins: And that's the first half over. Breathless stuff, and all rather entertaining. Half-time: Incidentally, City were " doing a Poznan " in support of Neil Young, who scored the winning goal in the 24th minute when MCFC beat LCFC in the 1969 FA Cup final and has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Full(ish) story here . More at half-time: "From corners and free-kicks we've not been at our best, which normally we are," says Brian Kidd, who adds that MCFC should desist from their long-ball habits: "If we want to play behind, play behind just to drop it behind." 46 mins: Peeeep! We're off! Again! 46 mins: In team-sheet news, De Jong has replaced Shaun Wright-Phillips. 46 mins: Gallagher's excellent ball finds Dyer running across the penalty area, right to left, but his eventual shot is blasted wide. 49 mins: Noel Gallagher is here, but seems to be saying goodbye to whoever he's with. 50 mins: To avoid being drawn into referring to either side as "City" when they obviously both are, I will henceforth be referring to the teams as "Sven" and "Mancho", unless someone can suggest a better plan. 53 mins: Another Sven corner, another on-target header, though the latest header is a loopy little number that Hart cautiously beats away. 54 mins: Mancho do appear to think that marking is a little bit beneath them. 55 mins: Another Sven corner, another free header – this time Hobbs, who doesn't have to break his stride or even jump but still sends his effort well off target. 56 mins: After a niggly foul in the penalty area the ball rolls to Gallagher about five yards inside his own half and, just as the referee blows the whistle, he sends a glorious long-range looper arcing into the net. No goal, and he probably wouldn't even have tried had the whistle not gone, but a good bit of skill all the same. 60 mins: "With your tale of two cities dilemma, why not avoid confusion by calling them Manchester and Leicester?" suggests Mark Guthrie. Hmmm. But I like Mancho. 62 mins: Sven-Goran Eriksson's team seem set to rely on set-pieces or optimistic balls over the top for Vassell to run onto. 'Twas ever thus. GOAL! Manchester City 2 Leicester City 2 (Andy King, 64 mins) That's also dismal from Mancho. Gallagher's cross misses everyone but bounces awkwardly in front of Hart. He should really have caught it, but the ball bounces off his chest, King nips in and is left with an empty net to bosh the ball into. 66 mins: "A staggering number of tributes to Neil Young," says Colin Davidson. "And I was silly enough to believe that I was one of the few who thought he was elegant/fantastic." Before my time, I'm afraid, but the red-and-black-scarf tribute – to match the colours the side were wearing in the FA Cup final – seems to have been pretty much universally adopted. 68 minutes: "Why not go all Charles Dickens and name the MBM 'A Tale of Two Cities'?" suggests Shreerang Sarpotdar. "Highlighting as it does the gulf in living between the French aristocracy and the peasantry? Rather appropriate, I thought." 69 mins: Sven's equaliser was preceded by a few minutes of lah-de-dah passing down the left flank by Mancho. Pretty, but punished. 70 mins: But the last five minutes or so have been all – all – Sven. They're absolutely hammering on the Mancho door. 74 mins: De Jong has trodden on Wellens' finger, and the Sven midfielder is rolling around currently. Jô goes off, replaced by Zabaleta. He and Wright-Phillips were both very poor today. 77 mins: A special mention for Naughton, who just sprinted 40 yards at impressive pace to win a corner-he-shouldn't-have-got off Kolarov. Sven have replaced Gallagher with Waghorn. Hang on, no they haven't. They put up the board, he ran over, and then they put down the board again. 78 mins: Another Sven corner, another Bamba header, and Milner on the post heads the ball off the line. Sven's success rate at corners has been astonishing today. I'm honestly not sure I've ever seen a team win such a high proportion of headers from set-pieces. 79 mins: And now Waghorn is on, but Lloyd Dyer's the man to make way. 80 mins: Lovely move by Mancho, terrible miss. The ball is worked down the left, Tevez collects it in the penalty area, turns, lays it off for De Jong, arriving at pace, to side-foot straight into the keeper's arms from 12 yards. 83 mins: Now Steve Howard comes on for Vassell, who's done a pretty good job for Sven today. 85 mins: For those without televisions, or with televisions but without ESPN, here's Leicester's equaliser , in all it's Hart-humiliating horror. 87 mins: Shots on goal: Sven - 15; Mancho - 8. I'm willing to wager than Bamba has, on his debut, had more efforts on target than half Sven's squad have mustered all season. 88 mins: This time Bamba's doing his stuff at the other end, cutting out Kolarov's low centre before anyone can tap in. 90 mins: Bamba's had six shots, apparently, of which five on target. As Duncan McDonnel points out, Mancho should really be spelled Mancio, and certainly would be if I were Italian. 90 mins: There'll be three minutes' stoppage time. 90+1 mins: A decent build-up by Mancho, Milner plays in Tevez but his shot from an acute angle is turned past the post. 90+2 mins: Sadly the game's ending poorly, with lots of misplaced passes and Leicester, who started the half so strongly, camped in their own half. 90+3 mins: And the game ends with Berner hobbling off, and Robbie Neilson coming on. 90+4 mins: Peeeep! That's yer lot, and we're replay-bound! Final thoughts: Overall, a more than decent game, at least until it petered out with 10 minutes still to play. Very competitive, and if neither team managed to sustain a great level of performance for long, the pitch has to take some of the blame for that. Sven were impressively organised in defence, but for Bamba's disappearance before Mancho's equaliser, and the Swede remains unbettered by his erstwhile protege Mancini. "The stuff of dreams – they have a replay at Eastlands," hurrahs ESPN's presenter, which seems to be pushing it a little. Mancho's marking at set-pieces was probably the worst I've ever seen over the course of a single game, but by securing a replay they just about got away with it. Anyway, enough from me. Thanks for your company, and may I suggest that you continue your evening by following Real Madrid v Villarreal with John Ashdown here ?