Make do & Mend(y).

I have never sworn in my blog-postings in the 5 years and 8 months since its launch…but I was flippin’-well close to filling this pre-match post with expletives all about our left-wing back, after the ‘schoolboy error’ he made!

 

It was his dreadful mistake which completely undid all of the hard, excellent work his teammates produced to defend - and go 0-2 up – against a home side who had 1 extra man, following Ederson’s 12^th-minute red card.

 

What an absolute tool!

Never been a fan…

I do not hide – and regular readers will know this all-too-well – how very little I rate the French, left-sided footballer (I purposely avoided using the term “defender” there) and its sort of for a collective set of reasons, really.

When I first set eyes on the man, I remember thinking, ‘Wow…he looks a brute of a player! If reports are right and this guy is fast as well as being as strong as he appears to be - as WELL as being able to both defend & attack equally well – then this could be one HELL of a signing that might, finally, be the answer to our long battle to find someone decent for that position’.

Then…

·         The stupid pillock (not a swear word in ‘my book’) made a completely over-the-top and unnecessary tackle just 6-games into his first season in a sky-blue shirt and ‘that was that’ for the recently-purchased, £52M twit. Of course, anyone can get injured but from my seat in the Etihad, I clearly recall, as if it was yesterday, instantly thinking, ‘What the HELL did he think he was doing?!’ He’d already been booked just 4-minutes earlier and on 29 minutes, that was the last we saw of him until April of that same season; where he was brought on for 5 minutes so that he could qualify to receive a Premier League winners medal. Well-done him…

·        So, we saw little of him in person but, sadly, he wasn’t too far away. As he was recovering, he didn’t just do what a lot of footballers do these days by updating fans about his recovery, which is fine and, even, nice of ‘em to do; no…he became a social media joker and I was sick of seeing articles about what he was “tweeting” about next.

·         Weirdly, and perhaps this is where I’m starting to get ‘out of date’ / ‘out of touch’, a lot of City fans – mostly young ones I’m guessing – really enjoyed his various posts and video clips. I just thought he looked & sounded like a moron and he began to remind me of another, seemingly popular, embarrassing moron that used to play for us, Mario Balotelli. Sharks were his ‘main thing’ and, he explained, it was because he was likening Manchester City Football Club to a shark in-that, whenever teams swim up alongside us, we gobble ‘em up. What a balloon. I’m not sure if I was - and still am - alone in-thinking this; but I instantly thought that was not-only one of the most unfunniest things I’d ever heard but it also screamed, “arrogant” from the Frenchman...and as a representative of our football club; a collective ‘us too’. Weirdly, and to my horror, thousands thought otherwise…

·        Having recovered, the following season, he played 10-games early on and got 5 assists, which is more-than-decent for a left-wing back. Well-done him. But still, as he was doing so, I seemed to watch him through a frowny glance as he ran clumsily up & down the wing; blasting balls across the opposition box with an apparent lack of thought. There was certainly no finesse as his bullet-like crosses which, more often than not, bypassed not only the defending team’s players but our own too, who often struggled to keep pace with both the man himself and his crosses.

·         Leroy Sane too appeared far less potent and far less happy whenever both he and Mendy were on the same wing – our highly skilled, German winger was somehow being disrupted by, in my opinion, a player who seemed to be on his own mission most of the time; rather than being a team player.

·        Then we had his defending. Absolutely appalling! I’ve already used the word clumsy and that’s exactly what he, apparently, thought “tackling” was all about. Time and time again did I hear the ref’s whistle whenever he ran back to challenge the oppo’s right-sided attacker; more often than not, barging into his man rather than attempting to steal the ball off his feet. Perhaps 3 or 4 times have I seen him make a successful tackle…and that’s a £52M left-wing back I’m talking about!

·         And WHY did he often have to bomb it back so fast and so often to make those desperate ‘challenges’? Well, it could be argued that he has been tasked by his boss with both attacking as well as defending and, perhaps, more of the former and less of the latter. But the guy has absolutely no positional awareness whatsoever! In fact, I would actually go as far as saying he just doesn’t have a ‘footballing brain’ full stop.

·        And whilst recovering from one of his 2, major knee / ACL injuries, he thinks it’s a good idea – and dead funny – to go running up the touchline along with his on-the-pitch teammates to celebrate a late winning goal against Southampton. Now, I can understand a lot of fans thinking that this fella must, therefore, love being at this club and…“Good on him” for being like that, they might say. I just thought it was completely irresponsible, having-shelled-out so much money on the man with a childlike brain. I was hoping, in fact, that he’d get fined for such an irresponsible act.

·         So, he gets over his second injury but is used sparingly - often breaking down for short periods; often looking rusty whenever he got a ‘run out’. This season’s analysis of the man? Ropey for the most part; still getting exposed a lot of the time, in a defence that needs ‘all heads focused and disciplined’ for reasons we all know about.

There are probably other things he’s done both on & off the pitch that’s had me bowing & shacking my head, such as the time he was filmed in a stand in Barcelona taunting Liverpool by celebrating their defeat and the time he upset his manager for going AWOL somewhere during one of his recuperation periods.

Even Guardiola finally got fed up of the social medial prat a while ago and told him to calm it down. It should have been said a lot soon, in my opinion…

Now that’s a pretty damming set of words to throw at one player and perhaps some of it is borne out of sheer frustration and his stupid, IDIOTIC decision not to hoof the flippin’ ball out of the stadium on Friday night; after his team worked SO hard up to that point keeping the 11-man home side out.

His teammates were the sharks, gobbling up the Wolves’ attacks…he was more like seaweed.

But I like to think that I’m not a knee-jerk-reaction sort of fan but, instead, one who simply tries to tell it how I see it and be as fair and impartial as I can be.

I do, therefore, give credit where it is due and as if to prove that, I made my praise of Mendy perfectly clear to anyone who cared to listen after his performance against Leicester City recently; where I thought, for once, his crosses were measured, his passing was considered and his positional awareness in defending and ‘support for the winger’ in front of him showed improvement.

And then he has to go and do that on Friday night.

And so, once again, we find ourselves in a position of ‘make do & mend’ at left back / left-wing back, with ‘the big guy’ being backed up only by a youngster that was sold and then re-signed again and, who, isn’t exactly convincing most of the time since his return (Angelino) and a converted left-wing back in Oleksandr Zinchenko; a more-natural, left-sided, attacking midfielder / winger who was very nearly sold 2 summers ago…to Wolves!

When will we EVER get that position sorted?! Why can’t our scouts find a young, left-sided Zabaleta-like player. There must be one or two out there and if we’re willing to spend £52M on Mendy…

Other than that, on Friday night…

…I’ve already said how very well I thought we did to cope with the loss of our keeper just 12 minutes in; particularly our central defenders and midfield.

VAR is, somehow, managing to get worse and worse and worse – it’s single-handedly managed to make football not feel like football anymore. 7 minutes extra playing time in the 1^st half!

Yeah, Raheem also made a mistake that lead to Wolves pulling it back to 1-2 and if he was ‘Mendy like’ the rest of the time; perhaps I’d be writing a damning piece about him too. But he’s not.

But I want to finish ‘blowing off steam’ about last Friday night by saying this – THE EDERSON INCIDENT WASN’T A FLIPPIN’ SENDING OFF! Even Manyoo fans in our local were screwing their faces up at the replay and their various reactions were somewhere between “That was soft” and “That was nothing”.

It was nothing…but that poor decision went a long way in-deciding the shape of the game. We, as a football club, have a lot to blame ourselves for with the way this season is panning out, league-defence-wise at least, but the ‘Gods of Football’ (whoever they may be) are also most definitely not on our side this season either…

v Sheffield United

Etihad Stadium

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

(Number correct from starting line-up in the last game: 9/11).

Fluid 4-5-1 / 4-3-3:

___________________Aguero____________________

Sterling________________________________Mahrez

__________De Bruyne________Foden_____________

__________________Gundogan___________________

Zinchenko______________________________Cancelo

____________Garcia_________Otamendi___________

_____________________Bravo____________________

Subs: Carson, Angelino, Walker, Harwood-Bellis, Fernandinho, Rodri, B. Silva.

Due to the quick turn-around in games, which is less than 48-hours apart, this is going to be a tricky one for me to work out who Pep might and might not start and leave out altogether etc.

Easy one first - Claudio takes over the gloves for this match.

I think we’ll see Oleksandr start on the left-flank of our defence this evening (6pm KO GMT)…surely. Again, because this game comes so quickly after our trip to Wolves, I can imagine Joao starting on the opposite side of the back-4. I would guess, also, that Eric will have to step in for Fernandinho who, I would doubt, would have the legs to ‘go again’ against The Blades. However, I think Guardiola will insists that we have the ‘grit’ of Nicolas ‘in there’ against the Yorkshire side and will ask him to play form the start.

Likewise, I can’t see our manager asking Rodders to start this one and, so, Ilkay gets the slightly deeper midfield role. Raheem might have to start on the left of the attack, although I can’t see him lasting the ‘full 90’; for tactical reasons Riyad didn’t see the second half so should be fresh to start on the right. Surely this is a game starter for Phil and with him being withdrawn on 67 minutes last Friday, Kevin should have ‘enough in his tank’ to start alongside him.

Up top, I think we’ll have to go with a still-recovering Sergio who was the player to make way on 12 minutes when Ederson ‘saw red’ and we needed a replacement stopper. Extra recovery time, then, for the Argentine but if he does start, then, like Raheem, I can’t see him lasting the full game.

Scott finds himself on the bench for a Premier League game; Angelino, Kyle & Taylor make up defensive replacement options from the side. Fernandinho & Rodders give us defensive midfield-shield choices, whilst Bernardo might be the only attacking option we have in ‘the 7’.

Notable absences:

-       Ederson – Suspended for this game (not a 3-game ban despite the ‘straight red’, is my understanding, as it wasn’t a red card for ‘violent conduct’).

-       Benjamin Mendy – Not selected / rested (no, I’ve not done that “because of”…).

-       Aymeric Laporte – From last we heard; the French defender should be about 2 to 4 weeks away from a return.

-       John Stones – Still not recovered from his latest injury but, apparently, will be assessed before the game.

-       David Silva – Like John, will be assessed before the game so MIGHT make it, I suppose.

-       Leroy Sane – Still working on his comeback fitness following serious injury.

-       Gabriel Jesus – Another one to have a late fitness test, following illness that struck the Brazilian just before the Wolves encounter.

Big ‘red list’ again!

Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?

I do…but not without some concerns.

I really do like Eric Garcia but he’s not a strong, robust kind of central defender and I’m not sure this would be his ‘game type’, just yet anyway at his age. Fernandinho has the height, at least, but should he not feel he can start this one so soon after Friday’s clash, then perhaps Harwood-Bellis would be more suited than the Spaniard. Still…Garcia has played with Nicolas before and, in fact, often looks the more mature, experienced of the two defenders whenever they are paired.

Ilkay in for Rodders would concern me a little too in-defending any counter attacks sprang upon us. However, I could understand that selection-choice to a degree also, as we’ll need as much ‘craft’ as possible to unlock our opponents. Rodders, though in fairness, has a good pass or three ‘in his locker’…

My only other concerns are about injury / burnout of Kevin, Raheem and the recovering Sergio.

Result? So hard to call. I think it’ll be a real tuffy and, yes, partly to do with the lack of time between games.

Our visitors are not the ‘hoofing’ team some might think – in fact, the now-sacked Pellegrini made that mistake when his West Ham side faced Sheff U earlier in the season. From what I know, they like to ‘zip’ the ball around and counter attack with pace; often using the wings to good effect.

But what I DO know for sure, is that they defend very, very well indeed and they could be a very tough nut to crack this evening, especially if Kevin & Raheem are a bit ‘leggy’ and Sergio is only firing on half-thrusters.

I’m gonna say it folks – this could be 1 point from 2 games. I’m going for a frustrating draw.

Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result…

Prediction: N/A

Result: N/A

Expected weather conditions during the game: Nice evening for the end of December. 7 or 8C would mean a warmish coat on but there’s hardly a breeze and no ‘wet stuff’!