All change.

After a superb, Champions League comeback in midweek and ahead of our second leg against PSG just over 72-hours later; I’m expected big changes in the starting 11 for this early, Saturday afternoon kick off (12:30pm BST).

v Crystal Palace

Selhurst Park

LOTS of guesswork here with this one…more than usual, I’d say. And I will explain my reasonings both now and further down the piece as to why I think he might go with the selection below.

The first explanation is quite simply this – I don’t think there can be any doubt that our manager has to rest / protect most, if not all, of those he intends to use for this very, VERY important game coming up on Tuesday night. That being the case and without dipping into the EDS, who have a game to play tonight (7:00pm KO BST); I think Pep needs to fill the pitch as best he can without using those said-11 who are surely ‘pencilled in’ to face the French side.

SO…

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

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

Fluid 5-4-1 / 3-6-1 / 5-2-3:

_____________________________________________

____________________Jesus____________________

 

__Sterling_____________________________Torres__

 

___________Zinchenko_________________________

________________________Fernandinho__________

Mendy_________________________________Cancelo

 

_________Ake_______Laporte______Garcia________

 

 

___________________Ederson____________________

Subs: Steffen, Walker, Dias, Rodri, Gundogan, Foden, De Bruyne, Silva, Aguero.

A player who is almost certain to ‘go again’ is our keeper. Ederson is in net.

I could be WAY off here but, for reasons I’ve already mentioned and further more to follow soon, I think we MIGHT see a back-3 / 5 starting tomorrow and for that I’m going for Benjamin, Nathan, Aymeric, Eric & Joao; the latter, which, got something of a rest after being withdrawn in the last fixture after 61 minutes on the pitch.

Now, similarly, I’m going for Oleksandr, who only played 34 minutes last Wednesday, to get a rare, central midfield job; a position he is more-naturally used to, especially for his national side. Alongside the Ukrainian is likely to be our rested-in-midweek skipper, Fernandinho.

Ahead of all of those is a likely 3 of Raheem, Ferran & Gabriel.

Zack is the reserve keeper; Kyle & Ruben are the only defenders on the side. Rodders, Ilkay, Phil, Kevin, Bernardo & Sergio make up the rather impressive midfield / attacking options in ‘the 9’.

Notable absences:

-       John Stones – Suspended for the 2^nd of a 3-match, domestic ban.

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

Definitely for this one and between two-crucial, non-domestic matches.

My second point about the changes also comes because…having-had to make so many changes due to the sandwich of the Champions League games; I think we also have to ‘give a nod to’ the fact that our hosts do have a left-wing threat in Wilfried Zaha and a big presence in Christian Benteke. Yeah, Palace aren’t doing particularly great and I’m not saying that those two are exactly ‘ripping up trees’ either - and we have to be mindful of other dangers, not least Andros Townsend – but if we do make so many changes; I think we need to ‘fill up’ that space which those players can exploit if we’re not careful.

Other than that, and, if I’m right with the line-up of course, I think it’s a nice balance for this fixture; even if Joao & Eric don’t necessarily have the pace / height to deal with the aforementioned attackers too comfortably.

Result? I think a lot of it depends on how this side - a largely, ‘second string’ 11 at the moment - perform; how much they want to impress their boss.

I think they’ll want to do that and, of course, they’re mostly ‘fresh legged’ too. I’m going for a City win and, of course, if we do that and Liverpool win on Sunday, we’ll regain the league title!

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: A largely nice day ‘down there’, as it will be ‘up ‘ere’ too. Clear-blue skies up to about noon gives way to fluffy white things and the still-visible sun leaves the ground bathed in a…pleasant enough temperature of around 11 to 12C. A slight, northerly breeze might take the edge off any heat but for the players, that should be perfect conditions once again for ‘peggin’ it’ around.

Few changes for this one, I reckon…

…and then many for our weekend, Premier League fixture, I’m guessing.

v Paris St. Germain

Le Parc de Princes

 

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 7/11).

Fluid 4-1-5-0 / 4-6-0 / 4-3-3:

_____________________________________________

 

 

Foden_____________De Bruyne____________Mahrez

 

__________Gundogan_________Silva_____________

 

_____________________Rodri____________________

Zinchenko_______________________________Walker

 

____________Laporte___________Dias_____________

 

 

____________________Ederson___________________

Subs: Steffen, Carson, Cancelo, Mendy, Ake, Garcia, Stones, Fernandinho, Sterling, Torres, Jesus, Aguero.

Notable absences:

-       None.

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

Absolutely.

Result? There’s no doubting that our hosts have talent aplenty; not least attacking wise.

And, in a game like this where it’s essentially two finals wrapped into one tie, the French side can be devastating and are more than capable of destroying most opposition.

But I have to look at the fact that, in their domestic league at least and despite their quality; they sit just second but, crucially for us, have not won 11 of their 34 league games so far. Better informed, French football fans than me could tell me why that might be the case but, for me, that says that they have vulnerabilities and if Pep does go with my predicted set up plus the confidence that we must-surely take from our League Cup final win and fine league form; I honestly believe that we can come out of this first-leg tie with something.

In fact, call me overly confident if you will…but I’m going for us to go into the second leg with a lead of some description. It’s a City win.

Prediction: N/A

Result: N/A

Expected weather conditions during the game: As the game kicks off local time 9:00pm (8:00pm BST), the sun will have all but disappeared in the sky; leaving the temperature at a not-too-bad, 13C. That only dips to around 11 or 12C as the game moves on and there’s only a light, north-westerly breeze. Fine conditions for a game.

Please…no repeat of ’81.

Different competition but facing Spurs at Wembley brings back some sharp & life-changing memories for me form our meeting in May 1981.

It was a painful moment, football-wise, as a 9-year-old at the time but also a defining one; the details of which can be seen in bold print in the “About me” tab on my blog.

v Tottenham Hotspur

Wembley Stadium

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 10/11).

If Pep wants any chance of winning this and equalling Liverpool’s League Cup record of winning the final 4 years running, then surely, he has to put out a strong side despite the semi-final first leg of the Champions League coming up on Wednesday night.

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

____________________Jesus____________________

 

 

Foden__________________________________Mahrez

 

__________Gundogan_________Silva_____________

 

_____________________Rodri____________________

Zinchenko_______________________________Walker

 

____________Laporte___________Dias_____________

 

 

_____________________Steffen____________________

Subs: Ederson, Cancelo, Mendy, Ake, Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Sterling, Torres, Aguero.

Zack has the ‘cup gloves’ and will be keen, I’m sure, to make amends for his ‘slip up’ in the F.A. Cup semi-final last weekend.

‘Going for it’, as I’m guessing Guardiola will; possibly our strongest back-4 sees Oleksandr, Aymeric, Ruben & Kyle all start (I think Pep will recognise that we’ll need Walker’s pace with the threat of Gareth Bale playing at least some part tomorrow afternoon (4:30pm KO BST)).

Then, I’m basically going for the same 6 ahead of the defence that played so very well against Aston Villa last Wednesday – Rodders, Phil, Ilkay, Bernardo, Riyad & Gabriel.

Ederson steps back as keeper cover; Joao, Benjamin & Nathan are the only defenders on the side. Fernandinho, Kevin, who may even be fit enough to start, Raheem, Ferran and even Sergio could all make up a decent-looking 5 that provides back-up to the midfield / wing / forward departments.

A reminder that should the match go to extra time, both teams are permitted 1-extra substitution this season and teams can hold back 'normal time' subs to add to that should they wish to.

Notable absences:

-       Eric Garcia – Not selected.

-       John Stones – Suspended for the 1^st of 3, domestic games and is now-only available, domestically, for our last 3 games of the season. As for European competition, I’m just wondering whether he may also only make the bench; so that his manager can build some consistency / a partnership with Laporte & Dias for most of the remainder of the season. John could well have effectively ended his otherwise-excellent season early…

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

Sure do.

Result? The word…“depends” springs to mind.

Depends…

·         …whether Pep is gonna make wholesale changes from our last domestic outing like he did last Saturday.

·         …if he does, whether the incoming players ‘step up’ and give a better account of themselves.

·         …whether Kev will have any involvement and, if he does, how close to 100% he is given that he was only injured 8-days earlier.

·         …whether Harry Kane plays a part and, likewise, how fit he is after HIS ankle injury.

·         …what impact their 29-year-old, interim manager has on the team / how the players respond to him-being in charge of a cup final so soon after taking charge.

·         …how well we can nullify the attacking threat of, not just, but Son in particular.

In short? I think it’s so hard to call.

SO…I’m going for our manager to be bold ahead of our PSG clash this midweek coming and although he may not go with my full predicted side; I do believe he will pick a stronger one that he did against Chelsea. Obviously, there’s always a chance of injury to players but if we’re talking about recovery time / energy levels; then they’ll have a full 3 days to recover that includes just a short, 1-½ hour plane hop over to Paris.

Go into this match with some of our best quality and I’m going for us to win this in normal time, although it could be a close one. It’s a City win and a record-equalling 4 League Cup trophies ‘on the trot’, for me.

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

Prediction: N/A

Result: N/A

Expected weather conditions during the game: Perfect conditions to keep the players cool as they ‘leg it’ around on a big pitch. Sunny intervals and 12/13C with a brisk, easterly breeze throughout the game.

Should this have been the game…

…where Pep rotated / rested our main players and not last Saturday’s F.A. Cup semi-final?

Pep knows best?

Of course, he and his staff will have been monitoring the recovery levels of their players following the 2^nd leg game against Borussia Dortmund and, yes…the Chelsea game did only come less than 72 hours after the final whistle in Germany, which then included travel time back to the UK…before then travelling from Manchester to London.

And if they had spotted that some players were struggling a little and weren’t quite ready then yeah; I suppose it was wise to leave some of ‘em out seeing as we’re already in another domestic final and have eyes firmly set on both regaining the Premier League and at LEAST giving ourselves a crack at the Champions League by trying to get to the final for the first ever time.

But to change 8 players when we were so close to the F.A. Cup final? Eight?!

In our manager’s defence, some of those players brought in are, of course, very good – I thought Laporte had an excellent game, for example, and it reminded me how daft some City fans online sounded when the pairing of Stone & Dias was working so well; where some of ‘em effectively turned on the Frenchman by suggesting that he had ‘lost a yard’ and was a ‘spent force’ at City (WHAT THE HELL?!).

But c’mon…we were 90+ minutes away from the final of a world-famous cup final and he picks Benjamin Mendy; an out of form Joao Cancelo, a terribly out of form Raheem Sterling, a barely-played / yet to impress Ferran Torres and two defensive midfielders who are hardly blessed with pace against a pacey, counter-attacking side.

The only reason I wasn’t terribly gutted as the final whistle blew was because a certain resignation & disappointment had already wafted over me when I saw the team sheet before kick-off…and my mood didn’t improve much during the game.

Now here’s the thing for me…

Give your (much) better players 55 / 60 minutes against Chelsea; try to win the game / progress to the final and then give ‘em a full, well-deserved week off before the final of the League Cup. It might not have worked; we may still have lost but I don’t think we would have done if we’d have played Zinchenko, Walker, Foden & Mahrez at the very least for 2/3s of the match.

It would have to be a monumental disaster, now I would suggest, for us to not win the Premier League; despite the ‘closing gap’ in recent weeks. That being the case, in my opinion we could have “risked” resting some key players in THIS fixture and before another trip to Wembley; a game that’s now got an extra ‘air of uncertainty’ about it with Tottenham having dispensed with their manager on Monday, in terms of how their players will react either way to their interim manager. Of course, we’d then have the dilemma of who would be fit & raring to go once again against PSG just 3 days after facing Spurs on a big pitch / in a big occasion but, hey; that’s what happens when you’re successful in all-four cup competitions.

And now?

And now…we face a scenario whereby, come another one-off game this-coming weekend - a fixture where ‘anyone can win it on the day’ - we could find ourselves down to “just” two trophies to aim for come Sunday evening and, where, we’re now attempting that, for however long, without a back-in-form Kevin De Bruyne.

And what does Guardiola do now - play his strongest / near-strongest 11 against Villa and then repeat a ‘Wembley wobble’ by largely selecting a ‘second 11’ once again; so that big players are rested before the Champions League semi-final first leg 3 days later?

I just think that with his team selection last Saturday he’s now got the game / player rotation all ‘a bit out of kilter’…

v Aston Villa

Villa Park

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: A shocking 4/11!).

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

____________________Jesus____________________

 

 

Foden__________________________________Mahrez

 

__________Gundogan_________Silva_____________

 

_____________________Rodri____________________

Zinchenko_______________________________Walker

 

______________Ake___________Stones____________

 

 

____________________Ederson___________________

Subs: Steffen, Cancelo, Mendy, Dias, Garcia, Laporte, Fernandinho, Sterling, Torres.

Ederson in net.

I have to believe that they’ll be full rotation in the defence from last Saturday to-both give Ruben a much-needed rest and to stretch the legs of those who haven’t played for a week or so and, therefore, I’m going for a back-4 of Oleksandr, Nathan, John & Kyle.

Rodders gets the defensive midfield role and just ahead of him - and just like my predicted defence - I can see a completely different attacking midfield department with Phil, Ilkay, Bernardo & Riyad all being asked to try 'n' provide the assists / goals in this encounter.

Will we go with a striker tonight? There’s a chance we may not but I’m going for our manager to give Gabriel another go ‘up top’.

Zack is the reserve keeper, I would think; Joao, Benjamin, Ruben, Eric & Aymeric make up the rather large contingent of replacement defenders from the side. Fernandinho – another player who has played in defence – Raheem & Ferran make up the rest of ‘the 9’.

Do you know what that bench says to me…it says that when we have just 2-key, attacking players unavailable and all other first-teamers are fit; we do seem, oddly, to be lacking in the attacking / creative department and, therefore, resort to filling most of bench with defenders; short of dipping into the EDS for a midfielder / winger / striker. I’ll be talking more on that in a close-season piece that I have swirling around in my ‘ead…

Notable absences:

-       Kevin De Bruyne – Injured with a foot / ankle issue. However, due to chatter about another matter in the pre-match press conference, there has been no update from Pep as yet as to how long our creative mastermind will be out for. Hopefully they’ll be an update soon after dust has settled over a certain football-related story.

-       Sergio Aguero – Similarly, no update from the last one we received, which was that he was still suffering with “niggles” and, so, I’m just gonna assume that although he may have made some progress; this game comes too soon for the Argentine. It’s hard to get my head around the fact that as we approach May, Serg has only played just over 6 hours of football!

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

Yep.

Result? Our hosts are having a strange season. They started off so very well but then tailed right off as the season progressed. I think it perfectly sums ‘em up that they sit in mid-table having lost almost as many as they’ve won.

Even Sheffield United managed a 1-0 home win against The Lions at the beginning of last month, just to add to the weirdness of their season so far.

Want more ‘Twilight Zone’ material about the Midlands side? Okay…so they’ve played one or two less games than most teams around ‘em but I don’t recall ever seeing a side sitting in (or around) 11^th place whilst, at the same time, having the 3^rd-best defensive record in the division. Teams just either side of them in the table have conceded 8 & 17 more than the ‘claret & blues’!

 

So, we’re facing a team with a good defence and a very much in-form & respected goalkeeper, in Emiliano Martinez; a much-travelled / loaned-out stopper who seems to have found stable ground at Villa Park since his £20M summer move.

I’ve said it before recently and with good reason – we’ll need both our decision-making heads & shooting boots on tonight.

Having looked at their defensive record and keeper’s form, I think it should be some cause for concern that in our last 4 domestic games we’ve “only” managed 5 goals. Why? Well…we’re better than that, putting it bluntly.

When we’re in ‘slipstream mode’ we seem to make goal-scoring look as natural as breathing but when we hit one of those periods where it looks like some of the players have blurry vision, it looks like their taking their first ever breath; with passes going astray and shots flying anywhere but ‘between the sticks’.

I think, despite expected personnel changes, we might start this one a little shakily and if we do, Villa also have attacking players who can ‘punish with ease’ (not just him but I do like the look of versatile forward, Ollie Watkins).

But it’s not like us, this season at least, to have back-to-back defeats and I’m sure they’ll be a collective desire from our lads to both get the last game out of their systems and take another step towards Premier League glory.

It could be an interesting game and perhaps even a close one but I’m going for a City win in the end.

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: For this ridiculously-late KO, 8:15PM BST, the temperature starts at around 10C; with the sun so low in the sky that the interior of Villa Park is likely to blanketed in shade and feeling cooler than that. As the sun disappears completely, the temperature drops off quickly to around 7 or 8C. There’s also a fairly brisk, north, north-easterly wind of around (average) 9MPH but the Doug Ellis Stand should shield the pitch from any wind-gust interference.

Has there been anything else happening in football this week effecting our club that needs mention?

Can’t think of anything…