Due to feeling decidedly unwell, there will be no pre-match blog-posting ahead of our F.A. Cup clash with Arsenal tomorrow night – I just don’t have the concentration for it, sadly.
C’mon Blues!
…a side who have been known to inflict some damage on us in the last few seasons; a side, also, who are showing some improvement under their very experienced and still-new manager.
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| Etihad Stadium |
Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:
(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 8/11).
Fluid 4-1-4-1 / 4-5-1 / 4-3-3 (possibly 3-6-1 at times):
____________________Haaland____________________
Foden___________________________________Mahrez
____________Silva______________De Bruyne________
_____________________Rodri_____________________
Ake_______________________________________Lewis
___________Laporte_____________Akanji___________
____________________Ederson____________________
Subs: Ortega, Cancelo, Walker, Dias, Stones, Phillips, Gundogan, Grealish & Alvarez.
Warning: There are numerous question marks to follow… 🙄
Ederson to continue in net? I’d say it’s likely but he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory last Thursday night…and that’s despite an (another) assist to his name. There might be raised hopes in Stefan Ortega’s head that he can get two, back-to-back games as the 4th round of the F.A. Cup looms large next and there may well be extra scrutiny from Pep about Ederson’s next few performances…but I’m going for Guardiola to give this one to the Brazilian over the German.
Aaahhh…the defence – the guessing game continues. Does our manager say, well done Nathan and well done Rico (two excellent performers in midweek); ‘go again’ or does he say to both Joao & Kyle, right…now you show me what you have to offer us. I would imagine that despite getting buffeted by some of the Spurs players on Thursday that Rico should have the [young] legs to be able to start; perhaps the physios will have a greater say when assessing Nathan. Does Pep give recently-returned John two games in less than 72 hours or does he instead go a little softly-softly on the England central defender and pop Aymeric back into ‘the 11’? All answers on a postcard.
SO…I’ve settled on a back-4 of Nathan, Aymeric, Manuel & Rico but I’m also bracing myself to be very wrong.
Rodders gets the deep midfield position once more and I think we’ll see a few attacking / creative changes, with Phil, Bernardo & Kevin all coming in to join ‘go again’ Riyad who, on top of some good performances and form; truly excelled last Thursday. THAT performance but also this kind of form is what the Algerian is capable of and THAT is the reason I get so frustrated with him when he goes though one of those spells where he looks like he’s both forgotten how to play football and / or can’t be bothered. Keep it up Riyad…please!
Erling ‘up front’ hoping to add to his 2023 goal tally, having scored his first for the calendar year last time out.
Stefan is likely to be on the bench as reserve stopper; Joao, Kyle, Ruben & John provide a wealth of defensive experience on the side. Kalvin, Ilkay & Jack are the midfield / wing replacement options in ‘the 9’, while Julian might feel a little disappointed to find himself reserve striker once again after his run-out the other day.
Notable absences:
- Benjamin Mendy – Suspended by the club until further notice.
- Sergio Gomez – Not selected.
- Cole Palmer – Not selected.
Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?
Result? Just 1 defeat in in our visitor's last 4 league outings, which includes 2 wins, is enough to suggest improvement in itself; conceding just 3 in those 4 games also suggests a tight, organised and hard-working Wolves side. Even when they’ve been beaten in recent weeks in either the league or F.A. Cup it’s only been by a single goal. Yes fellow Blues, this looks to be another potentially frustrating game of-having to hammer repeatedly on their portcullis, whilst at the same time having to be prepared for surging counter attacks.
Hopefully without the opposition scoring, there’s potential for this match to go the way of our last one in the first half; testing both the nerve and patience of the home crowd once more. If so, we’ll need the kind of step-up in gear and strong mental attitude that we saw from our lads in the second half against Tottenham.
I think we are in for a testing afternoon but whether we’ll be in for a tough ‘first 45’ or whether we’ll take control earlier in the match this time; I think we’ll grab all the points. It’s a City win for me.
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: A damp-feeling day without necessarily seeing any rain. A rather dull / murky day and chilly too at just 3C. Added motivation for the bare-legged players to move around more…
Solidarity
Only the players themselves will truly know what the issue is, or issues are, with us at the moment; there certainly appears to be something and I think the only two things that are up for debate is when it quite-possibly started and why.
One thing is for sure, if they’ve not already done so then I think it’s time for the players to get together; do some soul searching and perhaps tell a few truths to one another. Perhaps it’s time for Captain Ilkay and Vice-Captain Kevin to orchestrate any such conflab(s). However, since I typed that, Pep dismissed outright in his pre-match press conference that no one needed to ‘step forward’ as a leader in the dressing room.
A glance backwards…
Whatever might be the issue this season, and certainly more so at the moment, didn’t, or hasn’t yet, interfered with our Champions League campaign – that could hardly have gone any better in the group stages. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to suggest that whatever is hindering our ability to find good form, domestically and certainly in the league, has been going on since the start of the season.
Don’t agree? Fair enough. But did you know that of the 18 league games we’ve played so far, the most back-to-back wins we’ve mustered is 3? I’m sure you’ll agree that when compared to the majority of our recent history, certainly under Pep, that’s quite underwhelming.
We have-actually managed a really good unbeaten run in the league, consisting of 2 draws, and that was ‘right from the off’ at the start of the season…
W W D W W D W W W…
…before Liverpool put a stop to all that by defeating us 1-0 on ‘their patch’. We were firing goals in for fun in the run-up to and including ‘game-week 9’ too; scoring an incredible 33 league goals, which was an average of nearly 3.7 goals per game; with most being netted by a certain Mr Haaland. Of the two ‘non-wins’, I actually believe that one of those draws was avoidable because of the way we set up and the other we simply played quite poor for large parts but, overall, that was great stuff back then! 👍
However, the following 9-league matches, the results of which look like this…
L W W W L (World Cup break) W D W L…
…we managed just 13 goals, which is an average of almost 1.5 goals per game. Now I’m not saying for one moment that a vastly-reduced number of goals scored is the [only] issue but I think it’s a big contributing factor. I’m sure I’m not alone when-noticing in recent matches in particular that we appear to be struggling to get creative Phil Foden into games and are increasingly NOT finding the right pass for Erling Haaland to run onto.
And speaking of passing, how woeful has it been of late for good periods and in numerous games? Why would that possibly have ‘reared its head’? Are there any coaches / ex-coaches out there reading this who could explain to me why that would suddenly start happening to us?
If you saw the Southampton defeat and thought our passing was poor but, for whatever reason, didn’t watch the derby last Saturday; then I suggest you watch (or perhaps not) the first half. 😲
In that last set of 9 results, I’ve underlined one. This was a home game against Fulham and although, yes, we were down to 10 men from the 26th minute; it took a 95th minute penalty for us to grab all-3 points. Was this the beginning of our issues…again assuming we have anything specific and whatever that or they may be? I say that because having just about squeezing past Fulham to get a home win, we then lost at home to Brentford, who out-foxed in our last game before the World Cup, before-then being held at home to Everton; all of which preceded our derby-day defeat just the other day. We can’t even blame the World Cup break looking at those set of results, which is something Pep Guardiola flatly refused to do anyway when it was suggested to him by a journalist post-last-match.
We can’t even point the finger at injuries, seeing as we’ve hardly had any for a good while now. So…not being able to rest / rotate isn’t the problem – could it be, instead, that there’s been a little bit too much rotation?
Pep said on Wednesday afternoon:
"Sometimes I didn’t choose properly the players or maybe the way, it depends on the way we defend, the way we have to do, and this is the only concern".
"I like the challenge because it makes me feel I have to come back again and have to find something to help the team get better because I am the man responsible. When the players don’t play good and they have the desire to do it, it’s because there is something wrong in my decisions and I have to find it - because here people don’t wait, people don’t live off memories about how good we were”.
It still leaves the question(s) – has something changed / is there something wrong; what is it, when did it start and why? As I say, I hope in recent days there has been time allocated in-between training sessions for the players to get their heads together to try ‘n’ work it all out before our season starts to dissolve any further to a point beyond repair, trophy-wise at least.
Pep Guardiola’s advice in his post-match press conference on Saturday was to not waste energy focusing on the past. Ooops! So, looking forward…
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| Etihad Stadium |
Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:
(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 8/11).
Fluid 4-1-4-1 / 4-5-1 / 4-3-3 (possibly 3-6-1 at times):
____________________Haaland____________________
Grealish__________________________________Mahrez
____________Silva______________De Bruyne________
_____________________Rodri______________________
Ake_______________________________________Lewis
___________Laporte_____________Akanji___________
____________________Ederson____________________
Subs: Ortega, Cancelo, Walker, Dias, Stones, Phillips, Gundogan, Foden & Alvarez.
Ederson continues in net.
Of course, there’s lots of defensive computations as our manager continues to both experiment and monitor the recovery levels of certain central defenders who can be fragile at times. However, with both John & Ruben only just returning from fitness and injury issues respectively, I must assume that they will find themselves starting on the bench for this one. Therefore, I’m going with Nathan on the left, with Aymeric & Manuel in the middle and with me predicting attack-minded Rico to be on the right, that will allow all of those 3 to shuffle over, at times, to create ‘a 3’; with left & right-footed Ake & Akanji in reasonably comfortable positions either side of Laporte.
Rodders to sit the deepest of our midfielders, with a quartet of attackers ahead of him in the form of Jack, Bernardo, Kevin & Riyad; all supporting Erling up front.
Stefan is the back-up stopper; Joao, Kyle, Ruben & John provide a wealth of defensive cover from the side. Kalvin, Ilkay & Phil are the midfield / wing options in ‘the 9’, while Julian is the striker option alongside them.
Notable absences:
- Benjamin Mendy – Suspended by the club until further notice.
- Sergio Gomez – Not selected.
- Cole Palmer – Not selected.
Very notable - we have no injured players!
Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?
Result? Slightly ‘tongue in cheek’…shall we just allow Harry Kane to walk through us unopposed straight from the kick off and tap in ‘a freebie’ in order to get it over with? He does seem to have a nasty habit of hurting us - even when he’s not in good form he appears to-somehow find it again when-facing us. 🙄
In my derby pre-match write-up, I described that meeting as a home side with really solid form against an away side with a ‘run - run - slip’ refrain. This time it’s more straight forward – it’s a home team struggling to find form against a very-much-likewise away side. It’s so difficult to call.
Have we ever lost 3 in a row under Pep? I had a vague feeling that it might have happened in his first (2016/17) season and, so, I looked it up. No…not in that season, at least, and I didn’t pursue any further. I don’t think we have ever lost 3 back-to-back games with the Spaniard at the helm and I hope, of course, that doesn’t happen to us / him tonight.
But despite our visitor’s own form issues, we’re gonna have to not-only fight hard to ensure that doesn’t happen – and to-hopefully claim all-3 points too, of course – but we’re gonna have to flippin’-well tighten up that passing; as well as pick up the tempo a little. We need to ‘find ourselves’ again.
It’s gonna be tough and perhaps a little edgy for a time…but I’m going for us to get our wheels in motion once more. It’s a home win for me.
Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result:
Prediction: Win
Result: Lost
(Pre-match blog posting from that game)
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| Solidarity |
