A team who had just 3 players at the World Cup, all of whom came home quite early, against a side with the most players from a Premier League club competing in Qatar; a lot of whom only returned very recently.
That could add an interesting twist to this one.
Advantage Leeds?
Well, clearly,
that’s what I’m suggesting in my subheading and in addition to that, I
understand while Jeremy Kyle Jesse Marsch has had his whole squad together for
most of the break in domestic play; the West
Yorkshire Whites even managed to arrange and play-out three friendly
games in that time; keeping the whole team ‘ticking over’ and ‘fine-tuned’
ahead of their restart against us.
Away at erratic but also aggressive, highly energetic Leeds is never going to be an easy ride and facing a side who has largely spent the last 6 or so weeks resting / not travelling, training and ‘being together’ could be something of a benefit to our hosts.
v Leeds United
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| Elland 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 / 4-5-1 / 4-3-3:
____________________Haaland____________________
Foden___________________________________Mahrez
___________Silva_______________De Bruyne_______
_____________________Rodri_____________________
Cancelo__________________________________Walker
___________Laporte_____________Akanji___________
____________________Ederson____________________
Subs: Ortega, Gomez, Lewis, Ake, Stones, Robertson, Gundogan, Grealish, Palmer.
Ederson returns in net.
I think we’ll see the ‘bigger guns’ in on the flanks of our defence tonight; that being Joao & Kyle. Same pairing in-between those? It’s hard to guess a lot of the time with Pep openly admitting that he will have to rotate his central defenders due to the often-fragile nature, injury / recovery wise, of the personnel in that department. For now, at least, that fragility doesn't include summer signing Manuel and with Aymeric’s last game being a good 6 days ago; I think we’ll see the Spanish & Swiss internationals ‘pair up’ once again.
Rodders to sit in front of those, while I think we see an attacking quartet of midfielders / wingers in the form of Phil, Bernardo, Kevin and recently improved, once again, Riyad.
Erling returns to the city where he was born to lead our line.
Manuel steps back as reserve keeper; Sergio, Rico, Nathan & John are the defenders waiting to come on if needed. With most positions having cover but with no natural back-up for Rodri, I suppose there is a space for recently-included [on the bench v Liverpool] Alex; a 19-year-old central midfielder who City describe as, “All-action”. Should I be right, the Scottish born, England Under-18 lad is likely to be joined by Ilkay, Jack & Cole as midfield / wing replacement options in ‘the 9’.
Notable absences:
- Ruben Dias – Out for an unspecified period of time with a hamstring injury sustained in his last match for Portugal.
- Kalvin Phillips – Will be absent from the squad until further notice after returning from the World Cup too unfit to even train, we were told by his manager last Thursday night. Pep did not look at all happy about that situation when asked about the England midfielder’s absence from our last outing in midweek; further describing the 27-year-old as coming back from Qatar, “…overweight”.
- Julian Alvarez – Still having ‘time out’ after reaching the final of the World Cup – it remains likely that he won’t be included in a match-day squad until at least our away-league clash with Chelsea on Thursday 5th January.
Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?
Result? Well, I’ve said all I need to about the advantage tonight’s opponents might have over us as we continue to regroup and gather ourselves together but on the ‘flip side’, it could leave them a little rusty too. Who knows, hey?
One thing is for sure, we should definitely go into this one with the mindset that we are about to face a side who is ‘raring to go’ after their time together. In fact, we should approach the game exactly how we did the last time we visited Elland Road; where we faced a very much ‘up for it’ home side but where we played so well and kept SO sharp that we came away 0-4 winners…and that was ahead of a vital Champions League clash where we protected three key players by leaving them on the bench too.
That attitude and level of performance again, please!
Now…having said all that I have about Leeds, whatever-exactly took place over the Pennines during the domestic break appears to have put some pressure on their medical staff and physio team; with around about seven or eight players either a doubt or definitely out through either injury or illness; on top of one suspension and two long-term injuries.
As for us, some of our players managed to get a decent-enough warm up game against Spanish side, Girona, just less than a fortnight ago before even more players got a much-higher intensive workout in a deserved victory against Liverpool on 22nd December. That last one really should have livened the senses ahead of this clash. 👍
So, as I say, if our lads go into this game with the right attitude and we’re sharp enough to control a side who, yes, concede a lot but also score aplenty (both scoring & conceding 11 in their last 4 Premier League outings), then I think this is an away win.
There’ll quite possibly be goals at both ends but I think we’ll score more. It’s a vital City win for me – “vital” now that we sit in 3rd place; 8 points off leaders, Arsenal, but with this game in hand and with a certain team from the Borough of Trafford on our coattails, just 3 points ‘off us’ having played a game more also.
Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result:
Prediction: Win
Result: Won
(Pre-match blog posting from that game)
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| Solidarity |
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