BOYHOOD Manchester City fan Adam Clayton is relishing the prospect of stepping out against his former club in Saturday’s FA Cup third round tie with Middlesbrough – even if it will divide his family.

Clayton spent 14 seasons with the Sky Blues after being scouted as a seven-year-old, but despite playing several youth team games at the Etihad Stadium, the midfielder never made a competitive appearance for his boyhood club.

The 26-year-old joined Leeds United in 2010 after struggling to force his way into the first-team picture as City’s spending powers increased and subsequently joined Huddersfield Town after loan spells at Peterborough United and MK Dons.

After impressing for the Terriers, Boro head coach Aitor Karanka identified Clayton as his top transfer target last summer and since arriving at the Riverside Stadium the midfielder has played a key part in driving the Teessiders to the automatic promotion spots in the Championship.

He is likely to be in Karanka’s starting line-up when Middlesbrough face the Premier League champions on Saturday afternoon and Clayton admits he can’t wait to step out in front of a big crowd inside the stadium he spent years watching the Citizens.

“I was born ten minutes from the stadium,” he revealed. “I've supported the club since I was six-years-old, so it'll be nice to go back and play a competitive game against top stars.

“That's what you want to do, play against the best, and if we can do that on a regular basis next year it'll be even better.

“I played in the stadium thousands of times, just not a competitive game with 40,000 in there, so it'll be good.”

The Clayton family will be in attendance on Saturday, but they won’t necessarily be cheering for a Middlesbrough win. The 26-year-old will have the backing of his Manchester United-supporting father for once, but that won’t be the case with his mother.

He said: “I went for eight or nine years without missing a single home game.

“It’ll be nice to go back. It’s a bit of a strange one because my dad’s a United fan but my mum’s a City fan and all her side of the family are City fans.

“I signed there quite early, when I was seven-years-old, and I kind of went that way from then, much to my dad’s disappointment. I’m looking forward to it.”

Clayton was in the youth team when Man City were brought by the Abu Dhabi United Group led by Sheikh Mansour and at the time of signing a new two-year contract at the club the Mancunian spoke about training with Brazilian striker Robinho, who City signed for £32m in 2008.

Most recent signing Wilfried Bony, who joined in a deal worth £25m from Swansea City, won’t be available this weekend as he is playing at the African Cup of Nations, but the Boro star admits he can’t wait to line up against his big-spending former club.

“It’s a totally different club now,” he said. “There’s nobody really there player-wise that I was there with, maybe just Joe Hart.

“They’re absolutely massive now, they’ve spent millions and millions of pounds and have just signed another striker (Wilfried Bony) in the current window.

“I think he’ll be another good signing for them. What can you say? Man City are massive, they play in the Champions League, but we’re going to go there and enjoy ourselves. We’ll be playing on a good pitch, in front of a load of Mancunians, and it’ll be good.”

Middlesbrough conceded for the first time in 581 minutes in the 2-1 win over Cardiff City on Tuesday night in a result that moved Karanka’s men up to second and within a point of leaders Bournemouth after their defeat to Leeds.

Ben Gibson admits the team was disappointed to concede despite winning, but the defender believes that is a sign of their progress under Karanka.

“We’re actually really disappointed as a defensive unit,” the England Under-21 international said.

“We were going to concede at some point – that was inevitable. Dimi Konstantopoulos was really disappointed because we don’t concede many goals, but that’s good, it just shows the marker and the high standards we set ourselves.

“We want to stick to those high standards and we don’t think we should be conceding goals.”