Tom Cairney: Fulham will go toe-to-toe will fellow great entertainers Man City

With their team flying high at the top of the Championship, Fulham fans have taken to singing, ‘Manchester City, we’re coming for you’, ahead of tomorrow’s FA Cup fourth-round tie at the Etihad Stadium.

But Cottagers captain Tom Cairney, who has played a leading role in the swashbuckling rise of Marco Silva’s men to the top of the table during an astonishing January run which saw them score 19 goals in three matches, takes that with a pinch of salt.

‘I heard it at Reading last month when we were 6-0 up,’ he says with a laugh, recalling that memorable 7-0 victory. ‘You can afford to laugh a bit on the pitch at the time but in reality that’s not happening.’

When the leaders of England’s top two divisions go head-to-head, the visitors will be looking to end a run of 17 games against City without a win, a sequence which stretches back to 2009.

Pep Guardiola fielded a strong line-up in the third-round win at Swindon but whatever team City send out this weekend will be expected to dispose of the best team in the Championship. Cairney is an admirer, naturally, of the reigning Premier League champions but not only of stars like Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Raheem Sterling or Jack Grealish.

‘They’re an incredible side but we are scoring goals and creating chances and confidence is flowing through the whole team,’ he tells Metro. ‘But just look at players like Oleksandr Zinchenko — a left-back who plays like a No.10 and who has a different role with his country (Ukraine) entirely.

‘You look forward to a game like this but it’s hard. You have possession all season and you go to City and they have the ball. But you want to test yourself against the best.’

Fulham totalled 24 goals in six matches during an incredible January with