One suspension but a long-term injury return as well.
There’s a blog announcement at the end of this piece too…
v Chelsea
 |
| Etihad Stadium |
Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:
(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 9/11).
I think if we’d have drawn a lower-league club in this round then we might have seen more youth & fringe players involved in the starting 11. However, this is Chelsea and depending on how seriously our manager wants to take this competition this season, we may need to practically treat this fixture like a Premier League game…
Fluid 4-1-4-1 / 4-5-1 / 4-3-3:
____________________Alvarez____________________
Foden___________________________________Mahrez
_________Gundogan___________De Bruyne_________
_____________________Rodri_____________________
Ake_______________________________________Lewis
__________Laporte_______________Dias____________
_____________________Ortega_____________________
Subs: Ederson, Gomez, Akanji, Stones, Phillips, Grealish, Palmer, Silva, Haaland.
A swap in keepers sees Stefan take the gloves for this one.
In an ever-changing back-4, I think tonight’s fixture sees Nathan, Aymeric, Ruben & Rico protecting our goal.
Rodders to ‘go again’…again, as our defensive midfielder while both Kevin & Ilkay might have to start once more too ahead of the Spaniard in attacking midfield; joined by both Phil & Riyad on either flank.
I did originally have Haaland starting up front AND, in fact, almost slipped Alvarez in there at the same time; either ‘just off’ or left or right as an attacking 3 behind the striker and ahead of 2 ‘holders’. However, Pep sounded a little cautious about the Norwegian striker’s recovery when he told us that they’re still monitoring his foot / ankle area, where the 22-year old had damaged some ligaments recently. I’m sure our manager would like ‘the big man’ to start in the Premier League on Saturday at home to Brentford before he joins his international colleagues for two friendly matches; just ahead of a winter holiday. Julian to start once again ‘up top’.
Ederson steps back to the bench as keeper insurance; Sergio, Manuel & John are the back-up defenders on the side. Kalvin returns to the match-day squad after a long injury lay-off and is joined in ‘the 9’ by Jack, Cole & Bernardo as midfield / wing cover. Erling waits on the side for possible minutes on the pitch as reserve striker.
Notable absences:
- Benjamin Mendy – Suspended by the club until further notice.
- Kyle Walker – Still out for an unspecified period of time following surgery on his groin. We were last told on Saturday evening that although he is making progress and feels good, the fact that his surgery was still not that long ago / was more recent than Kalvin Phillips’, means that the England international right-wing back still has a little more recovery time to go. He sounds fairly close to a return 🤞 but it seems like a real ‘race against time’ to convince Gareth Southgate to include him in his World Cup plans…
- Joao Cancelo – Suspended for this game after his sending off at the weekend.
Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?
Result? Of course, I have absolutely no idea what possibly-changed side our visitors from ‘down south’ might put out…and that’s on top of some considerable uncertainly about our own 11. It’s almost a ‘flip of the coin’ when trying to predict a result tonight (8:00pm KO GMT).
The Pensioners aren’t in good league form at the moment, drawing 2 back-to-back before-then losing 2 in a row as they slip a little to 7th and just 6 points of 13th. Unbelievably, I even heard rumblings via radio media sources suggesting that some Chelsea fans have already questioned the capabilities of their still-new manager, Graham Potter!
I think he’s a good manager and when you list the players he has at his disposal, there’s no way we should be discounting these tonight if we want to progress (more on that soon). Besides…this is a cup game and more often than not, league form can go right out of the window.
Will our manager want a victory tonight? Well…Pep is a winner and although the League Cup might be the lowest of 4 trophy targets, of course he’ll be sending out his players with instruction to win the match…and that’s despite the ludicrous fixture situation in the next round which is likely to be played before Christmas; when some of the players might have only just returned from a 5-week international campaign.
Coin tossed? It’s a City win from me.
Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result…
Prediction: N/A
Result: N/A
Expected weather conditions during the game: Dry, a little bit chilly (9C) and breezy.
This will be my last blog-posting until after the world cup ☹. I’m going on a long weekend holiday for my wife’s special birthday celebration and won’t even get to watch The Blues against Brentford whilst we’re away (C’mon City!)
Enjoy the World Cup, whatever team you support, and I hope you ‘tune in’ to my blog again for our first fixture after Christmas (Leeds United away on Wednesday 28th December, 8:00pm GMT). Of course, I might be blogging again just before Christmas should we progress tonight…
 |
| Solidarity |
No comments:
Post a Comment