Sorry for the delay in getting a pre-match Wembley blog-posting out – I had no chance on Friday and then-following ‘an evening’ with friends that very night, which went on until around 2:00am; I had a full-on hangover yesterday. Ufffff…
Brief one / straight to it then.
v Arsenal
 |
| Wembley |
Predicted line-up, subs and outcome.
Fluid
4-5-1:
____________________Aguero____________________
____________________Toure_____________________
___________________Caballero___________________
Subs: Outfield player with gloves on, Kolarov, Zabaleta,
Delph, Fernandinho, Jesus,
Iheanacho.
Surely Pep has heard about the ‘Wembley Willy’ story?
In front
of (hopefully) him, Gael & Jesus at left & right-back; Vinny &
Nicholas in between those.
A mostly
attacking midfield 5; open pitch on our national stadium that Yaya
seems to enjoy playing on. Along with him is a deadly quartet of Leroy, David, Kevin
& Raheem.
All
supporting / supplying Sergio.
The slightly improving of
late ‘other fella’ as back-up to Willy; Aleks & Pablo the defensive
replacement options. Fabian, Fernandinho & Aleix on the side for when we
need to add midfield energy and possibly security if we’re ahead and feel the
need to ‘sure up’ but on the opposite side of that coin; we might see Gabriel
join Kelechi as attacking replacement change-possibilities!
Notable absences: Bacary Sagna (injured), John Stones (injured), Fernando (not
selected), Ilkay Gundogan (injured for rest of season) & Nolito (not
selected).
Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?
With a combined age of
90 between those 3 central midfielders (treating Yaya as 34 who is just a few
weeks away from his birthday don't forget!) it could be 'energy sapping' for the Ivorian &
Spaniard in particular; even though David lets the ball do the work and taking into consideration that
Pep has improved fitness & energy levels a lot since his arrival last summer.
Often-red-cheeked Kevin should be okay but I’d hope to see Leroy, Raheem and
even Jesus help out there a little when required.
I’m fine with that
line-up though and hope to see Gabriel get a go if / when needed or
appropriate if he’s deemed okay to get 'a little run out'.
Result? Who
can possibly predict a one-off game at Wembley when-facing similar opposition
in terms of a team packed with similar quality?
This is going to be more about ‘gut feeling’
than looking at league form too closely and although the Arsenal camp did
appear to have picked themselves up from the floor of low-moral following
Wenger speculation and a series of result that has seen them slip to 7; there
was something quite false & forced about their post-match celebrations
against doomed Middlesbrough last time out.
As for us? 2 back-to-back wins; a very
professional job done at Southampton, ‘our skip’ is back, possibly our
Brazilian Winter signing too and there was something in Pep’s croaky voice in his pre-match press conference that said to me he’d been drilling his
players EXTRA hard for
this game!
Gut feeling? A City win…and hopefully one in
‘the 90’ too.
Expected weather conditions during
the game: Decent day for footy. 13C with light cloud / chance of some sunshine outside the stadium will feel closer to 16 or 17C inside I’m sure.
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