Nitty-gritty City

Wow…we put ourselves ON the hook yesterday in my opinion and then, thanks to some luck in the form of a deflected shot into injury time, just about got ourselves off it.

That’s one of our ‘9 lives’ gone for this season…

Still doesn’t look quite right

 

We looked rusty in the heavy, persistent rain yesterday and most definitely laboured. Although, being there, it felt like we had more possession than the official figure of 53% in-which we just didn’t penetrate and look NEARLY dangerous enough at the end of any attacking moves we could muster; that figure, at home, does tell a story of how ‘out of sorts’ and jaded we look almost all over the pitch in every department. Joe Hart getting the MotM award by a mile adds to that story...

I personally – and this was a view shared by my match-attending mate – don’t think Pellegrini helped in the first half; when Yaya, not for the first time, appeared to spend most of his time in a sweeping-type role in front of our back 4.

He was WAY too deep and that was part of the problem in us not-causing Swansea too many issues. Thankfully I think our manager spotted this and sacrificed Raheem for Fabian at the intereval...and the deep-lying, hard-working England man’s involvement then allowed the big Ivorian more freedom to roam forward.

But why didn’t our ‘Engineer’ see this quite-obvious fact before the game?

We’re 'top of the league' for a few hours at least again but we're eking, creaking and leaking at the moment…and I’m sure, therefore, everyone connected to Manchester City will see a 9-day rest before a big test at the Emirates as an early Christmas present…hopefully by then Aguero, at least, will be back too [if not Kompany & Zabaleta].

Ahead of more “weekend” games to come…

…the Manyoo result was an excellent one for us of course. However, there’s a lot of games to play both today and Monday that will affect us.

A rallying Villa home win against Arsenal would be nice (and I’ve got a sneaky feeling The Villains might just get a much-needed [for them] win too). Hopefully The Baggies’ defence will continue to be solid at Anfield; Newcastle MIGHT, I suppose I’m being desperate in-saying, take a lifted heart - following their 2-0 win over Liverpool 'last time out' - to White Hart Lane.

Then, I can’t believe I’m saying - and would never have DREAMT I’d be saying – we could do with struggling Chelsea find it within themselves to get a now-unlikely-looking win away at Leicester City!

I think someone once said that football is a funny ol’ game…