Premier League almost ‘shot’ in terms of us-having a chance at 1st place (following Leicester City’s 1-0 win last night); there’s now, in fact, a bit of a scrap for 2nd to 4th brewing nicely. But, for now at least, it’s 'all focus' on the Champions League.
v Dynamo Kyiv
Predicted
line-up, subs and outcome…
4-5-1:
____________________Aguero____________________
_____________________Toure____________________
_________________________Fernandinho___________
_____________Fernando__________________________
______________________Hart______________________
Notable absences: Martin Demichelis (not selected), Kevin De Bruyne (injured), Fabian Delph (injured), and Samir Nasri (injured)…all
3 injured players, however, are about to step-up their return to first team action soon by
participating in a behind-closed-doors friendly during the international break,
which starts just after our weekend Manchester v Trafford match.
Hart
to continue in net.
Having
just played on Saturday and with the game against Manyoo coming up on Sunday, I’m going for our manager to rotate
both the left & right-backs, with Aleks & Pablo 'stepping in'. However,
as important as this game / progression is, I don’t think they’ll be a rest
for the two centre backs.
Neither
do I believe there’ll be a rest for Fernando, Fernandinho or David across the
middle; although we should see fresh legs [from last Saturday] in Raheem and
the return-from-injury Yaya.
Sergio
to continue up front.
Willy
as keeper insurance; played-at-Norwich pairing Gael & Bacary to, possibly, sit on the side
for this one, with Mangala returning to the bench also. Attacking options
likely to be Jesus, Bony & Kelechi.
Little bit concerned
about playing more-attack minded
Kolarov against a side needing to ‘come at us’ but, apart from that, I’m happy.
Result?
I think they’ll score one – hopefully no
more than one – but I think we’ll score too (and / or two). A home win; a win over the two legs, of course, and
progression into the quarter finals for the first time in our history!
Expected weather conditions during
the game: Dry, mostly overcast, around 7C but with a nagging & 'testing' North-Easterly breeze.
Hi Steve...
ReplyDeleteDoes it seem like that, offensively, everything is random? After watching the match Sunday, I could only find a couple good chances out of the 26 shots. Mostly just desperate shots from outside the area.
Gary Beesley
Hi Gary.
DeleteI think the problem is 2-fold.
1. No City fan I've spoken to can understand, whenever we need more 'punch' up front, why Pellegrini seems to be insisting on using Bony instead of Iheanacho. Not only does the youngster have more goals and assists than Bony but he's far more fluid and runs the line better.
2. Our play in general, this season, has been more slow and 'plodding' and less free-flowing and devastating in attack. This often means that with Sergio playing as a lone striker most of the time often then gets surrounded / swamped by defender before any serious support arrives. I'll also stick in there 'THE' most frustrating winger in Jesus Navas; one with bags of pace and energy but 'THE' worst finisher for a forward I've ever seen and one who just CANNOT cross a ball 95% or more of the time. That doesn't help...
Thanks for continuing to read and for commenting again Gary. Hope you are well. I'm about to release a fairly big piece about our 8-game, league run-in...