An opportunity and time for a little reset?

Yet another Villa Park defeat last weekend and that was largely down to deficiencies at both ends of the pitch; most notably in our defence once again. ☹️

It came against an in-form Villa side and, tonight, we face yet another team with their ‘tails up’; despite losing their last outing at the weekend.

v Brighton & Hove Albion

Etihad Stadium

With five players (Gianluigi Donnarumma, Josko Gvardiol, Ruben Dias, Elliot Anderson and Erling Haaland) being given a 3-day break following the Villa defeat, presumably from Sunday to Tuesday; there’s no way of telling if some or all of those players will appear on the bench tonight.

Following yesterday’s pre-match press conference, there was also little understanding as to whether Matheus Nunes had recovered from his recent knock / possible groin issue…unless I missed a mumbled question / answer.

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 11/11.

A fluid 4-2-4-0 / 4-5-1-0:

_______________________________________________

_____________________Samba____________________

__Ait-Nouri_______________________________Elias__

 

_____________________Foden____________________

___________Kovacic_____________________________

_____________________________Bouaddi___________

 

O’Reilly___________________________________Lewis

______________Reis_____________Khusanov_______

 

 

______________________Rulli_____________________

Subs: Bettinelli, Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol, Fernandez, Cherki, Ndiaye, Doku and Haaland.

Geronimo steps in as keeper for this domestic cup competition.

I’m going for a back-4 of Nico, Vitor, Abdukodir and Rico.

Ayyoub and Mateo sit the deeper of a ‘midfield 3’ with Phil given licence to attack down the middle.

On the wings I think it’ll be Rayan-A- and Allan and we could see 17-year-old Floyd slightly advanced / working with Phil up front in a fluid 2 format.

34-year-old, Marcus, could find himself as the reserve stopper tonight; back-up defenders may come in the shape of, possibly Matheus, Ruben and Josko. Enzo and Rayan-C- are two midfielders on the bench; Iliman and Jeremy give us two wide options in ‘the 9’ and Erling might get a spot on the side as striker reinforcement.

This is a hard one to call, personnel wise, and we may well see more players brought in from our EDS than just Floyd Samba.

Notable absences:

-       Gianluigi Donnarumma – Not selected.

-       Marc Guehi - Not selected.

-       Elliot Anderson - Not selected.

-       Antoine Semenyo – Out for 2 months from 17^th October with a knee injury.

Do I agree with Enzo’s (predicted) line-up?

If fit, I would much prefer the experience and defensive competency of Nunes on the right but other than that, for this ‘Last 16’ domestic cup tie, yes.

Result?

I’ve mentioned needing a little reset and following on from that…what on earth has happened to Marc Guehi?! A player I have had so much confidence in during his time at Manchester City so far, as well as previous respect and praise for prior to his signing in January 2026.

At the moment he looks to have so many errors in him for both club and country. Of course, I’m not suggesting for one second that he’s suddenly turned into a bad player. However, there’s definitely some kind of confidence issue happening with the 26-year-old from my observations.

I also think that he’s starting to look a little exposed when up against a really pacy attacker. Is he carrying an underlying injury niggle? This was particularly noticeable against Ipswich Town, when Marc was beaten for pace twice and chose to go to ground to challenge the attacker; one time leading to a goal from open play and the other a penalty as a direct result of his desperate tackle. Last Saturday, he grabbed an attacking player whilst going to ground once again and got a yellow for his troubles; almost giving away a 32-minute penalty in the process. 🤔😕

As for Gigi Donnarumma, I’m starting to go a little cold on the 6’ 5” Italian International keeper after a decent’ish, 7/10 debut season from the 27-year-old. 🫣 For the moment at least, he’s certainly far from his often-used description as being one of the best keepers in the world.

On a final note about last weekend’s game and result I have to say, “Well done” to their keeper…and to the Aston Villa woodwork around him as well. We absolutely had our chances despite our various failings on the day.

So this Wednesday night fixture is the League Cup – often a chance for teams to rotate their squads to varying degrees and I think, in some ways after an largely excellent start to our season, we need that alternation at this moment in time.

There just happens to be a big “however”…however.

We’re facing a well-drilled and dangerous side in Brighton so I’m left with the question…can we afford too many changes if we want to attempt to win this competition whilst, at the same time, prevent our first defeat of the season turning into two, back-to-back losses?

Well, I believe that we have to give chances to the talents that are Khusanov [in his natural position], Reis and Bouaddi tonight – three players I think can step up to this challenge with the right supporting experience around them.

Step forward also 34-year-old, Argentine international, Geronimo Rulli. Bags of top-level experience there.

I’ve mentioned that our visitors are in good form but also, looking back at last season and just as was the case with Aston Villa; we also failed to beat the South Coast side both home and away last season, with a 2-1 away loss followed by a 1-1’er at our place. This is gonna be another tough one for sure.

How does our manager react following a defeat? Simply put, I don’t know because last Saturday was his first loss as Manchester City Manager and that makes it quite compelling for me.

Another important factor when deciding how this clash might play out is whether – and how much – their manager makes changes to his team. That’s something I just can’t answer.

On the one hand, he would be the first manager ever to bring a major trophy to Brighton & Hove Albion, should they progress all the way to the final and then win that 90+ minute contest. On the other hand, they’re going so well in the Premier League with 5 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats (one of those losses being just last Sunday) that he might decide to wrap his players in cotton wool ahead of league clashes against us, once again at our place on Saturday, Brentford at home, Hull City away and a Europa Conference League trip away to Getafe in between all of those. In what order, if any, does Fabian Hurzeler place those three trophies?

Additionally, when considering tonight’s game, The Seagulls are the league’s top goalscorers (3 more than we have) and, probably a little less surprising after our defensive performances of late, have concede fewer goals too. In fact, from 8 leagues games, last Sunday saw them concede only their 6^th and 7^th league goals. 🧱

Throwing all of that up into the air to see how it lands? It’s landed on a hard-fought, perhaps narrow City win and progression to the Quarter Final stage in the third week of December…providing our visitors do make considerable changes themselves, I‘m keen to add.

Some of our fringe players need this competition to roll on a bit longer. 🤞 for both them and us.

Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result:

Prediction: N/A

Result: N/A

Expected weather conditions during the game: Finally some calm! Like so many parts of the country, many areas way worse than East Manchester, we’ve been battered by nature for a good number of days recently. After the seemingly endless storms, named or otherwise, Wednesday was a day of gentle breeze, sunny intervals and occasional showers. For the fans in the stands for the 7:30pm KO (GMT), it’ll be still, dry but a little chilly (it is a night match in October). 11C is your temperature. 🧥🧣☕🥧🍺⚽

Solidarity