Yet another Villa Park defeat last weekend and that was largely down to deficiencies at both ends of
the pitch; most notably in our defence once again. ☹️
It
came against an in-form Villa side and,
tonight, we face yet another team with their ‘tails up’; despite losing their
last outing at the weekend.
v Brighton & Hove Albion
With five players (Gianluigi Donnarumma, Josko Gvardiol,
Ruben Dias, Elliot Anderson and Erling Haaland) being given a 3-day break following the Villa defeat, presumably from Sunday to Tuesday; there’s no way
of telling if some or all of those players will appear on the bench tonight.
Following yesterday’s pre-match press conference, there
was also little understanding as to whether Matheus Nunes had recovered from
his recent knock / possible groin issue…unless I missed a mumbled question /
answer.
Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:
Number correct from the starting
line-up in the last game: 11/11.
A fluid 4-2-4-0 / 4-5-1-0:
_______________________________________________
_____________________Samba____________________
__Ait-Nouri_______________________________Elias__
_____________________Foden____________________
___________Kovacic_____________________________
_____________________________Bouaddi___________
O’Reilly___________________________________Lewis
______________Reis_____________Khusanov_______
______________________Rulli_____________________
Subs: Bettinelli, Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol, Fernandez, Cherki, Ndiaye, Doku and Haaland.
Geronimo steps in as keeper for this domestic cup competition.
I’m going for a back-4 of Nico, Vitor, Abdukodir and Rico.
Ayyoub and Mateo sit the deeper of a ‘midfield 3’ with Phil given licence
to attack down the middle.
On the wings I think it’ll be Rayan-A- and Allan and we could see 17-year-old
Floyd slightly advanced / working with Phil up front in a fluid 2 format.
34-year-old, Marcus, could find himself as the reserve stopper tonight; back-up
defenders may come in the shape of, possibly Matheus, Ruben and Josko.
Enzo and Rayan-C- are two midfielders on the bench; Iliman and Jeremy give us
two wide options in ‘the 9’ and Erling might get a spot on the side as striker reinforcement.
This is a
hard one to call, personnel wise, and we may well see more players brought in
from our EDS than just Floyd Samba.
Notable absences:
-
Gianluigi
Donnarumma – Not selected.
-
Marc
Guehi - Not selected.
-
Elliot
Anderson - Not selected.
-
Antoine
Semenyo – Out for 2 months from 17th
October with a knee injury.
Do I agree with Enzo’s (predicted)
line-up?
If fit, I would much prefer the
experience and defensive competency of Nunes on the right but other than that,
for this ‘Last 16’ domestic cup tie, yes.
Result?
I’ve mentioned needing
a little reset and following on from that…what on earth has happened to Marc Guehi?! A player I
have had so much confidence in during his time at Manchester City so far, as
well as previous respect and praise for prior to his signing in January 2026.
At the moment he
looks to have so many errors in him for both club and country. Of course, I’m
not suggesting for one second that he’s suddenly turned into a bad player.
However, there’s definitely some kind of confidence issue happening with the
26-year-old from my observations.
I also think that he’s starting to look a little
exposed when up against a really pacy attacker. Is he carrying an underlying
injury niggle? This was particularly noticeable against Ipswich Town, when Marc was beaten for pace twice
and chose to go to ground to challenge the attacker; one time leading to a goal
from open play and the other a penalty as a direct result of his desperate tackle.
Last Saturday, he grabbed an attacking player whilst going to ground once again
and got a yellow for his troubles; almost giving away a 32-minute penalty in
the process. 🤔😕
As for Gigi
Donnarumma, I’m starting to go a little cold on the 6’ 5” Italian International
keeper after a decent’ish, 7/10 debut season from the 27-year-old. 🫣 For the moment at least, he’s certainly far from his often-used
description as being one of the best keepers in the world.
On a final note
about last weekend’s game and result I have to say, “Well done” to their keeper…and to the Aston Villa woodwork
around him as well. We absolutely had our chances despite our various failings
on the day.
So this Wednesday
night fixture is the League Cup – often a
chance for teams to rotate their squads to varying degrees and I think, in
some ways after an largely excellent start to our season, we need that
alternation at this moment in time.
There just happens
to be a big “however”…however.
We’re facing a well-drilled
and dangerous side in Brighton so I’m left with the question…can we afford too
many changes if we want to attempt to win this competition whilst, at the same
time, prevent our first defeat of the season turning into two, back-to-back losses?
Well, I believe
that we have to give chances to the talents that are Khusanov [in his natural
position], Reis and Bouaddi tonight – three players I think can step up to this
challenge with the right supporting experience around them.
Step forward also 34-year-old,
Argentine international, Geronimo Rulli. Bags of top-level experience there.
I’ve mentioned that
our visitors are in good form but also, looking back at last season and just as
was the case with Aston Villa; we also failed to beat the South Coast side both
home and away last season, with a 2-1 away loss followed by a 1-1’er at our
place. This is gonna be another tough one for sure.
How does our
manager react following a defeat? Simply put, I don’t know because last
Saturday was his first loss as Manchester City Manager and that makes it quite compelling
for me.
Another important
factor when deciding how this clash might play out is whether – and how much
– their manager makes changes
to his team. That’s something I just can’t answer.
On the one hand, he
would be the first manager ever to bring a major trophy to Brighton & Hove
Albion, should they progress all the way to the final and then win that 90+
minute contest. On the other hand, they’re going so well in the Premier League with 5 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats
(one of those losses being just last Sunday) that he might decide to wrap his
players in cotton wool ahead of league clashes against us, once again at our
place on Saturday, Brentford at home, Hull City away and a Europa Conference League trip away to Getafe
in between all of those. In what order, if any, does Fabian
Hurzeler place those three trophies?
Additionally, when
considering tonight’s game, The Seagulls are the league’s top goalscorers (3
more than we have) and, probably a little less surprising after our defensive
performances of late, have concede fewer goals too. In fact, from 8 leagues
games, last Sunday saw them concede only their 6th and 7th
league goals. 🧱
Throwing all of
that up into the air to see how it lands? It’s landed on a hard-fought, perhaps
narrow City win and progression to the Quarter Final stage in the third week of
December…providing our visitors do make considerable changes
themselves, I‘m keen to add.
Some of our fringe
players need this competition to roll on a bit longer. 🤞 for both them and us.
Last season’s, corresponding pre-match
prediction and result:
Prediction: N/A
Result: N/A
Expected weather conditions
during the game: Finally some calm! Like so many
parts of the country, many areas way worse than East Manchester, we’ve been
battered by nature for a good number of days recently. After the seemingly
endless storms, named or otherwise, Wednesday was a day of gentle
breeze, sunny intervals and occasional showers. For the fans in the stands for
the 7:30pm KO (GMT), it’ll be still, dry but a little chilly (it is a
night match in October). 11C is your temperature. 🧥🧣☕🥧🍺⚽
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| Solidarity |
