Will the real Manchester City please stand up!
Frustrating.
Just as I was gushing about how well we’re playing, using words like “Machine” in one post to describe what a force we are amidst 3 back-to-back wins and a largely remarkable restart return; we produce a performance like that last weekend. In a lot of ways, we were well managed by our opponents at Wembley on Saturday and I’ll give them more credit soon enough.
But we just had no sparkle about us at all, particularly in the first half. The passing from our lads was largely awful for most of the game and it says a lot about just how off-colour we were on the day when Kevin De Bruyne was one of the biggest culprits.
No fizz at all – pass, pass, pass-backwards; pass, pass, pass-sideways…go nowhere, lose ball. That’s basically what I can remember watching for most of the first half. No-one penetrating with any real intent or threat.
Second half was better – the intensity increased and at least we forced Arsenal to defend in numbers. But even then…at Wembley and with another final within our reach, we could only manage 4 shots in anger and, here’s that tiresome story again, just 1 of those shots were on target! 71% possession…and just ONE shot heading between the posts in 97+ minutes.
And before anyone thinks I’m being too harsh on our team; this is a problem Pep himself has bemoaned more than once this season, as well as 2 or 3 seasons ago, I seem to recall. It’s a weird spectre that keeps coming back to haunt us for some reason; where we certainly see enough of the ball but then forget how to use it to devastating effect, as we know we can do so very well most of the time. I suppose, put another way, anyone can have an off day…it’s just that we’ve had far too many this season for such a talented squad of players.
I thought Ederson was good again though - pulling off some fine saves. One bad pass from him [also] certainly didn’t warrant a low’ish mark of 6/10 from the Manchester Evening News, in my opinion.
I must admit though and just to finish off looking back at our performance, I wasn’t too happy with Guardiola’s decision to start with Ilkay Gundogan and not include our best defensive midfielder, Rodri; nor with his decision not to introduce the creativity & threat of Bernardo Silva at any stage. Very odd…
Well done.
But ‘well done’ Mikel Arteta and the whole Arsenal team – I thought they largely stopped us from ‘playing out from the back’ whilst, at the same time, managing to copy our style of doing-just-that, so very well indeed. In fact, their first goal from back to front (19 passes!) was just sublime and very City-Pep like indeed.
The Gunners then managed to do what they’ve largely struggled with for most of the season, which was to defend so very well before they sucker-punched us with a 2nd, as Aubameyang exposed us for pace to kill the game off.
They definitely deserved to go through to the final and good luck to ‘em, I say. Shame…if we’d have done ‘our bit’ it would have been an all-blue Wembley after all! 😊
v Watford
So, we now enter a game where we can influence who survives in the Premier League and who, sadly, gets relegated – not a fixture, then, I can see our manager wanting to make massive changes for in term of ‘integrity for the game’. In fact, I’m just wondering if he’s going to ask most of his players to ‘go again’, in order to try an’ reset; put things back on track and get it out of their systems. There’s always next Sunday’s game at home to already-relegated Norwich to rest / protect players before the Champions League…and perhaps include a few youngsters in that fixture too.
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| Vicarage Road |
Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:
(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 9/11).
Fluid 4-1-4-1 / 3-6-1 / 4-3-3:
_____________________Jesus____________________
Sterling_________________________________B. Silva
____________De Bruyne______Foden______________
_____________________Rodri_____________________
Zinchenko_______________________________Cancelo
______________Stones______Otamendi_____________
____________________Ederson____________________
Subs: Carson, Mendy, Walker, Laporte, Harwood-Bellis, Fernandinho, Gundogan, D. Silva, Mahrez.
Ederson keeps the gloves for this one.
I think we’ll see a completely different back 4, with Oleksandr, John, Nicolas & Joao all getting starting run-outs.
Rodders, who as I’ve said didn’t see a second of our weekend defeat, likely to start, I would suggest.
Ahead of him in attacking midfield and on the wings, I can see Raheem & Kevin being asked to put in at least 45 minutes, with Phil & Bernardo joining them in ‘the 11’.
Gabriel gets another start again too, I would think.
Scott is the back-up keeper at the moment (I wonder if he’ll get a start on Sunday?), with Benjamin, Kyle, Aymeric & Taylor the reserve defenders on the side. Fernandinho, Ilkay, David & Riyad are the midfield / wing options from ‘the 9’.
Notable absences:
- Claudio Bravo – Injured.
- Eric Garcia – Not selected / rested.
- Sergio Aguero – Recovering from knee surgery.
Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?
Yep – for this fixture and in the current circumstances…yep.
Result? I find myself thinking that this game is all about how each team reacts and the more I think about it the less certain I seem to be about the potential outcome.
How will our players respond following the disappointment of last Saturday? How will Watford’s players respond to the bizarre timing of the sacking of their manager; with rumours also that some of the players knew days before Nigel Pearson did!
So, I’ve tried to brush past all of that and just at look at it as an 11v11 and in doing so, it’s a City win for me. I think they’ll fight like crazy and may well score in, what could also be, a closely fought game. But I’m going for us to move onto 78 points by around 7:50pm (BST).
Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result…
Prediction: Win
Result: Won
(Pre-match blog posting from that game)
Expected weather conditions during the game: Lovely evening for a match. It should be around 70F as the game starts with some sunshine too.
Announcement:
There may well be no pre-match blog-posting before our last league game of the season against Norwich on Sunday and on the day of the match itself, I'm going away for around a week and, so, won't be blogging during that time either.
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