We are welcoming Man City at Home today. With United and Spurs hardly relevant these days, we had got a new enemy and MLS made sure to remove your doubts about it with his Haaland celebration after scoring one last season. Today – it’s going to be the continuation of that.
Pep has lost some of his gems recently and has been trying to fix it. He hasn’t find a solution yet, but even at his worst, he can find a way to win. We have got two tasks today, to not let him win and because we are going for the title, to make sure we walk out of the game with 3 points. If you can’t beat the City or Liverpool at home, you don’t expect to win the league.
I was furious last week when Mikel picked up a midfield of Merino, Zubimendi and Rice against Athelti. We won the game but it was too slow in the transition and it took an individual brilliance of Martinelli to break the deadlock. Mikel has chosen the same midfield again today, and that’s the Mourinho’s way of handling Pep. I can understand the feeling that not losing it today is important to keep the confidence running in boys, but it doesn’t mean I agree with it.
If you gonna be best, you gotta take out the best. You can’t do that by going all defensive. We have got Eze, who is a natural Odegaard’s replacement, we have Nwaneri who was kept and given a new contract for that very position and yet, we go with two and a half defensive midfielders if not three.
That’s bonkers!
Anyways, Saka and Martinelli are on bench with Eze. Again, seeing Trossard doesn’t make sense ahead of Marts. Against City, you want to create chaos and who’s better than the Brazillian for it?
Gyokeres retains his place, at least Mikel didn’t go for an injured Havertz ahead of him, because hey, not losing is more important that winning these days. Saliba makes his way back to the team, so hopefully we would be able to contain Haaland today.
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It’s still too early for the hype but with 5 wins in 5 games, Liverpool at rocking at the top. We need to be as close to them as possible because at some point, they will run out of the luck (like we did in the past couple times) and we would be able to capitalize it. City will eventually pick their 10 games to go unbeaten at some point in the season.
We are going in the game with some positives. We haven’t lost to City in our last 4 games winning 2 of them and they have lost both of the visits to Arsenal recently. Lets hope we add another win today to these stats.
A very short one today but I will be available during the game. Cheers
even Cala and Merino are given more consideration than VG, Saka, Eze, Marts and Noni
Donaruma will be for City what Allison has been to Liverpool . Will get them 1-2 notches up with his dependable stability
This is why we need a Pink Card in football followed by a “get up you fucking girl”
I still believe that in order to get the best out of this particular side we need to deploy Saka on the left and Noni on the right, then have a combo of 2 of the following 3 in the midfield, Ode/Eze/Ethan…this would require that only one of our present starting midfielders to be in the first 11…likely Rice with Zubi coming in whenever we’re chasing a scoreline
TRVL
Can’t argue that as well.
Marc
For Trossard or Silva 😉
I still think Silva’s even more prone to such theatrics because he’s actually the weak link in this lineup when he’s deployed out wide right
I propose a change to that. If it’s Silva, the message should be ‘get up you fucking twat’.
TRVL
A real manager would do fine with Saka on the right and Rice and Zubi playing as a double pivot. The question over who plays wide left and as the creative midfielder is debatable at the moment.
If we started Saka on the left he’d look poor purely because of our fucking “inverted fullback” addiction.
Marc–no double pivot required, that’s why you have the inverted gig…just start two offesively-minded AMs and 1 fucking DM…remember Rice was coming here to be our version of City’s Rodri, that’s why we paid a 100+M for him…as an AM he’s worth 30M tops, maybe 35 if he was captain material
Eze on agree with.
Saka – is he fit enough?
Trossard hasn’t done enough to stay on.
TRVL
The double pivot is why our left side is so much weaker.
Either it’s too early for Saka to play today, or it’s too late to bring him in the 2nd half.
Partey would have scored that /s
Brilliant from Eze. Should have gone in.
Fucking hell who’d have thought having a creative player playing in an advanced midfield position would help create chances?
I don’t think this is going to end nil one.
Saka wincing. Is he fit ,or El B is a criminal ?
Pep’s doing the same thing that cost him more than 1 CL…getting too defensive too soon in a match when the play on the pitch doesn’t require it…should be good for us though…the fact that he changed his RB, even though Nunes is barely a better option, except that he’s a little less prone to screwing up, then whenever you see Pep swithcing Ake for Foden, you know he’s shitting himself…at least he has an excuse for such maneuvers, as they’re the road side
Has Trossard got hold of pictures of Arteta having sex with a Shetland Pony? Because I can’t see why he wouldn’t be subbed.