Unless there have been some niggles picked up during
training in the 10-day break, our ‘Engineer’
has all the tools available at his disposal this Saturday. All personnel fully
fit & available and ready to be unleashed on a Newcastle
Without wishing to tempt fate or “assume”
– I’m really looking forward to this one…
Me v Manuel
Although I have recently done so, I very rarely do a ‘who I would pick’ as well as a ‘predicted line-up’ etc. However, with
two goalkeepers; 2 left-backs, 2 right-backs, 4 central defenders, a whole
array of defensive and attacking midfielders / wingers AND 4 strikers to chose
from, which includes the returning Yaya Toure and
new-signing Wilfried Bony; wide-eyed and
slightly salivating I just couldn’t resist the temptation to put on paper my
11.
Me v Newcastle
4-4-2:
____________________Bony__________
__________Aguero__________________
____________________Toure________
__________Milner__________________
________________Hart_______________
I’d love to be able to say
Mangala in for Demichelis as I want to see the fella ‘in there’ for the
long-term partnership with Vinny. But I just don’t trust the guy from what I’ve
seen so far.
And neither Mancini nor Pellegrini see Milner as a central
midfielder but I think he’d do a cracking job next to Toure.
And although, with 2 days of
further training to go, Wilfried has said that he still has some way to go to be
100%; he’s surely not far off and, therefore, I’d stick him right in there
alongside Sergio at home.
On the bench…
Right and left-sided defensive
cover available and I’ve saved Lampard for his
experience in the Champions League on Tuesday
night; where a subs-bench-appearance might prove very useful.
v Newcastle
4-4-2:
____________________Dzeko_________
__________Aguero__________________
Nasri_________________________Silva
____________________Toure________
_______Fernandinho________________
Clichy_Demichelis__Kompany_Zabaleta
________________Hart_______________
Subs: Caballero,
Sagna, Mangala, Fernando, Milner, Lampard, Navas, Bony
Update - 21.02.2015: James Milner out with a knee injury. So not ALL the tools available...
I'm fairly certain that our
manager will go 4-4-2 for this one and we agree here on the back 5 (keeper
included). I’ve got a feeling he’ll use
the more-pacy Mangala against Barcelona
Almost the same midfield 4
too but, as I say, I just can’t see him giving a starting place to
soon-to-be-out-of-contract Milner. Fernandinho to get the nod ahead of both
James and Fernando who both make the bench.
Now I’ve got a feeling here
that he’ll want to introduce Wilfried a little more gently; both allowing him
to observe play for the first 45 or so as well as to give Edin a (one last?) chance to prove himself – a pressurised kick up the backside for the
Bosnian with the new signing ready to step in…
And with our manager’s love
for Navas, who drops to the bench, there’s no place for either Frank or
likely-summer-deportee Stevan.
Result? With
all those weapons in our armoury, I’d be truly shocked if we didn’t win this
one…and by a comfortable margin.
No comments:
Post a Comment