…no end product / little threat and, more worryingly, no fight in many of our players. Those were the very words of a fair number of Manchester City fans just after last weekend’s game, who had all travelled to Nottingham Forest to support our lads.
No fight? No FIGHT after a week’s rest and with a very important top-4 (5) place to scrap like hell for?! That both worries and angers me somewhat.
v Brighton & Hove Albion.
City in the Community Etihad Stadium
Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:
(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 9/11).
Something a little different, I’m going to suggest…
A very fluid 4-2-3-1 / 4-4-1-1 / 4-4-2:
____________________Haaland____________________
___________________Marmoush___________________
_______Nunes_______________________Foden______
_____________Kovacic_______Gonzalez_____________
Gvardiol___________________________________Lewis
____________Dias_______________Khusanov________
____________________Ederson____________________
**Subs:**Ortega, Reis,O’Reilly, Gundogan, Silva, De Bruyne, Doku, Grealish and Savinho.
Ederson has the gloves.
A back-4 of Josko, Ruben, Abdukodir and Rico, I reckon.
I’m going for a central, largely defensive pairing of Mateo and Nico.
Ahead of the Croatian and Spanish internationals are an attacking three of Matheus, Omar and Phil in my predicted tweaked team.
Erling tops the lot.
Stefen continues to provide keeper insurance; Vitor and [attacking midfielder] Nico are in ‘the 9’ to give us central and left-sided defensive options. Ilkay, Bernardo and Kevin bring a wealth of midfield experience on the side, while Jeremy, Jack and Savinho give us big formation change-options from the subs bench.
Yes, fellow Blues, I’m going for neither Doku nor Savinho to start this afternoon and I’m very much braced to be very, very wrong with this stupid bold prediction.
Notableabsences:
-John Stones– Out with a thigh injury for 5-½ to 7-½ weeks, going off the initial assessment and information given.
-Manuel Akanji– Possibly out for the rest of the season after badly damaging his abductor muscle, for which he had surgery on 15th February. Best case scenario is that he could be back around the end of April / beginning of May.
-Nathan Ake– Recovering from a fractured foot, for which he has had surgery. This one sounds like it could be a season-ending injury.
-Rodri– Back training alone and spending time in and around the squad otherwise, with some suggestions that we might see the 28-year-old midfielder back playing before the end of the season; with Pep himself saying that the return of Rodders to light training is a huge boost for everyone at the club.Steady at it goes but… 👍😃
-James McAtee– Not selected.
-Oscar Bobb– Back in training and making his long comeback from a fractured leg that he suffered last August. As part of his rehab, he’s even taken part in a friendly game with oursecond team.
Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?
Should our manager go a little rouge and try something ever so slightly different (unlikely, I know, but what the hell) then yeah; I think that looks quite good for this fixture, I don’t know about you.
These are predicted line-ups that I do, not suggested ones. However, I’d be lying if I said that on this occasion I’m not letting my heart have a small say in what my head is telling me.
I think this lineup adds strength to certain areas. For example, this would allow both Gvardiol and Lewis to invert or use the wings in support of the attacking midfield but with both Gonzalez and Kovacic there to help the two central defenders; it shouldn’t leave us quite so vulnerable to counters as we have been for most of the season.
At the other end, it would see Nunes in the most effective position we’ve seen him in a City shirt and on the other side, not quite shoved out wide on the wing, it looks like a good position for FodenIF he can rediscover his mojo that is.
Lastly, it brings Marmoush into the game and in his apparent favoured position. The addition of the Egyptian international could also have the effect of taking some of the unwanted opposition attention away from Haaland.
I do believe this, or something like this, could be in Guardiola’s considerations for this coming Saturday afternoon and of course we’ll find out soon enough.
Result?
“Slow” seems to be a recurring theme whenever I take on the views of other City fans. What I witnessed against Forest last Saturday concurs with that - I saw over and over again lots of City players trotting off the ball in these tentative “attacking” build-ups. No fast interchange of passing / running…just no intensity for the majority of the time, generally.
Well, we’d better find some intensity against an in-form Seagulls side because that’s exactly what they employ when they have the ball going forward. And as I optimistically – and all-too-briefly, sadly – began to peer UP the league table before our trip to Nottingham, I now find myself looking nervously over our shoulders to see a Brighton side now just 1 point off us. This, just as last weekend was and the next several weeks to come will be, is a must win game.
But I find myself scratching my head a little now.
Aside from our defence, which has HUNDREDS of games-worth-of-experience missing due to the absence of John Stones, Manuel Akanji and Nathan Ake; we now have the numbers of available players to the point where we’re starting to see the odd player not being selected in the matchday squad because there’s no room. So, personnel shortage is not the issue. We also had a fairly young, yet-still very experienced midfield last weekend so the aging midfield argument simply can’t be used now. And despite having Doku on one side, Savinho on the other and Erling Haaland up front we drew a blank at theCity Ground.😧
All of that, plus listening to the concerns of fellow Blues last Saturday, just leaves me with the rather worrying conclusion that it’s a mentality thing; as though they don’t believe that they have it within themselves to grab a top-4 (5) place. Either that or, worse still, some of ‘em don’t believe it’s a big enough goal to be motivated for.Surely not but…🤷 ♂️
One thing is for sure, despite the lovely warm sunshine last weekend, the early kick-off appeared to catch some of our players cold. Yes we had the possession (awhopping 69.1% to their 30.9%) but it looked like we were participating in a casual training, “keep ball” exercise.
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Here’s something interesting or, perhaps more accurately, concerning.
As I was looking for my pre-match blog-posting ahead of our last home-league match against Brighton, I thought I’d have a quick scan-read of the piece. I sometimes do. It was just after an away defeat toArsenal, our third league defeat on the trot last campaign. After what we witnessed last weekend and for large parts of this season, these words really stood out, somewhat alarmingly.
Friday, 20th October 2023 :
You know what frustrated me about our defeat to Arsenal a fortnight ago, it was that our hosts looked so off-pace and almost nervous in the first half and if we’d have stepped up our tempo; we could / should have put ‘em out of sight, in my opinion. We didn’t; their tempo DID increase, they brought on some dangerous players and thanks to a cruel deflection, the rest is unwanted history for us.
We’ve had a pretty good start to our season to say the least but we need to get last season’s attacking pizzazz back and soon.**
·An opposition that looked off-pace that we failed to put to the sword.
·No step-up in tempo from our players / team.
·Lacking the previous season’s pizzazz.
Tell me you’re not even slightly concerned that this drip, drip, drip of falling off the pace has been creeping into our side for quite some time now.
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In addition to all of that and bringing it right up to date, Ruben Dias himself said very recently that a mentality shift was required in the City dressing room. His comments went a long way to cement my fears that our current failings are now more of a mentality issue.
That just leaves me to say that a lot of this fixture outcome depends on what mindset the majority of our players are going to be in this coming Saturday afternoon and having no way of knowing that, of course, I’m gonna sit on the fence; call this one a draw and while I’m perched on that very same fence, hope like hell for a City win.
I’ve fought off the pre-match optimism that was willing me to suggest a City win - it’s a ‘points shared’ prediction from me but with…🤞
Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result:
Prediction: Win
Result: Won
(Pre-match blog posting from that game)
Expected weather conditions during the game :Nothing much doin’ really – slightly overcast with some sunny periods and a light northerly breeze making 8C feel a tad chillier. A cool feel but dry at least.🧣🧥☕🥧🍺⚽
Solidarity