Watford 0-0 Southampton. Some of you will take the result as 3 points gained from 3 games and will happily look at our 11th/12th place position with glee. Some of you will think that we have missed two good opportunities to get a win and will be frustrated with our play. Couple that with our 1-0 loss against Preston and some of you are starting to have your doubts over the formation &/ QSF. That doesn't matter now as the next game is here in a few days time for us to get our first win of the season from. Sorry, you're telling me we're playing Man City at the Etihad? Well, errrrm, time for all of you to go to your religious places of worship then (and don't worry my non-religious friends, you can pray to the football gods!) Horrifically poor pun aside (if it even counts as a pun), I'm not sure how to really to approach this with any excitement. City have won all three of their games; we've drawn all of our three league games. They've scored 8 goals so far and conceded none; we've scored two so far and conceded two. They put three past Chelsea a few days ago; we had three put past us by Chelsea a few months ago. Screw it, I'm going to be optimistic here. Man City have won all three of their games- they tossed aside West Brom at the Hawthorns 3-0, they discarded Chelsea at home 3-0 and they beat (just boring old "beat") Everton 2-0 at Goodison Park. So far the Citizens have had 7 different scorers with their top scorer being Vincent Kompany (although that really doesn't count for much this early in the season). They have scorers all over the pitch and seem to be able to score in any situation, be it a set-piece or in free-flowing football after a dozen or so passes. Apart from the new incoming signings, what seems to be different this time round is that David Silva has moved from the wing to the hole behind the strikers, which frees him and allows him to be more creative. :dismay: Expect the battle between him and Capoue and Behrami to be the key battle in this match. So far, they've signed Raheem Sterling (grass snake), Fabian Delph (boa constrictor), Patrick Roberts and Nicolás Otamendi for a total amount of £82.6m (from Wikipedia), as well as a certain David Faupala (remember him?). As for their outgoings, they've got rid of Dedryck Boyata (Celtic), Matija Nastasi* (Schalke), Micah Richards (Villa), Scott Sinclair (Villa), Frank Lampard (New York City), James Milner (Liverpool), Álvaro Negredo (Valencia), John Guidetti (Celta Vigo) and Karim Rekik (Marseille); Stevan Joveti* (Inter) and Edin Džeko (Roma) have left on loan. Make no mistake though, their squad is still oozing with quality. In terms of stats, I found one stat which is very interesting and will be the extremely tenuous ground for my optimism- City have equalled their longest winning in the Premier League with their win against Everton. There's something about us that just loves to stop new records being made (whether it's our own or anyone else's). When I found this out, I instantly thought of QPR's longest unbeaten record in their history in the 2010-11 season, which they equalled on the 19th game of the season and had to win an "easy" home game against little-old Watford on Friday 10th December 2010 to set a new club record. Somehow (and I have no idea for the life of me why) but I have a feeling we might see the same result. (I said I was going to be optimistic here, I didn't say whether the grounds for my optimism were going to have any logical founding). In terms of injury and suspension news , City only have one person out- Zabaleta, who has been out for some time now. Apart from Ekstrand and Doyley already being out with their long-standing injuries, the other addition (or should I say re-appearance) to the injuries and suspensions list is Britos, who will miss three games due to elbowing a Preston player in the head. It seems he wants to fill in the space that Gabriel Tamas left… On the Day When I looked at Man City's line ups from their last 3 games, there has been absolutely no change in the first XI apart from 1 person- Ag*ero for Bony, who started the first game and was on the bench for the other two. So why have I made two changes? I've put in Bony and Delph because, simply, they're playing us. Pellegrini will probably underestimate us a little bit and he'll feel it's ok to do that, seeing as we are going to be seen as the worst of their next three teams. He'll therefore rest Ag*ero for Bony and seeing as Fernandinho has already accumulated 3 yellow cards, Pellegrini will be thinking this is the best game to rest him and hopefully put a stop to that run. Fabian Delph (the boa constrictor) seems to be the only logical replacement for Fernandinho. Don't be surprised however if Pellegrini decides to continue with the same starting line up as he used against Everton and Chelsea, purely for continuity's sake. As for Watford, predicting our line-up is more difficult. I was under the impression that all three of our games were played using 4-2-3-1, but Transfermarkt has had us starting the Everton match in a 4-4-1-1 formation (which does match what I saw now that I think about it) and a 4-4-2 double 6 formation for the West Brom match. I've gone with a 4-2-3-1 formation in case QSF decides to match City's formation, but a part of me also thinks we'll be playing a 4-4-1-1 because that's what we played against Everton. I'm pretty useless when it comes to thinking which formation nullifies which (unless it's blaringly obvious) and anyways, we're facing a team with a hell of a lot more quality than us, so playing that formation game might be pointless. As for the players, I've put Anya at left-back because it seems clear that QSF favours him in that position compared to Holebas. The rest of our defensive line will stay the same, as will our defensive midfield pairing that's attracted a fair bit of attention. The only bit I'm unsure about is the 3 behind Deeney. My head tells me QSF will go with Jurado-Ighalo-Diamanti (Jurado on the right) because Abdi and Layun both played on Tuesday night. Personally, I would drop Ighalo and play Berghuis-Diamanti-Jurado (Berghuis on the right) or Berghuis-Jurado-Diamanti, because at least then there will be some kind of creativity from that three. Who knows what's going through Quique's head at the moment though…. I'm going to be bolshy and predict a 1-0 win for us. It'll be a goal mid-way through the first half against the run of play after withstanding 2 or 3 decent chances for them, followed by a backs-to-the-wall, Mourinho-style park-the-bus job from the Golden Boys that'll frustrate the City faithful. We'll then have a lot of praise on MoTD along with the usual share of patronising comments whilst Samuel highlights the match as a poor affair with two teams who are secretly planning to the destroy the England team. As for the hardcore fans making the trip to the not-so-grim-at-all North, these are the buildings they have to greet them: and if they so choose to get lost- Opposition Forums http://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk http://www.mancityfans.net/mcfnet http://www.mancityforum.co.uk/forum/index.php Other Matches and Current Table Newcastle United vs Arsenal Sat 12.45pm KO Aston Villa vs Sunderland 3pm KO Bournemouth vs Leicester City Chelsea vs Crystal Palace Liverpool vs West Ham United Stoke City vs West Bromwich Albion Tottenham Hotspur vs Everton 5.30pm KO Southampton vs Norwich City Sun 1.30pm KO Swansea City vs Manchester United 4pm KO 1 Man City 3 8 9 2 Leicester 3 3 7 3 Liverpool 3 2 7 4 Man Utd 3 2 7 5 Crystal Palace 3 2 6 6 Swansea 3 2 5 7 Everton 3 1 4 8 Norwich 3 0 4 9 Arsenal 3 -1 4 10 Chelsea 3 -2 4 11 West Ham 3 0 3 12 Watford 3 0 3 13 Bournemouth 3 -1 3 14 Aston Villa 3 -1 3 15 Stoke 3 -1 2 16 Tottenham 3 -1 2 17 Newcastle 3 -2 2 18 Southampton 3 -3 2 19 Sunderland 3 -4 1 20 West Brom 3 -4 1 COYH!
With our more effective defence I can't see a cricket score, but I expect us to lose by 1 or 2. However if we are still holding them after an hour they may push forward more giving us more opportunity to actually shoot.
A chance to see how good our new solid looking setup actually is. I'm sure we'll see a better attacking performance too as there will be more space for them with City pushing forward.
Man City 4-1 Watford Thankfully the Watford faithful are too busy singing Man United songs to really care about the result that much.
2-0 City I'd imagine. If anyone's going to break down our defence it's them and I don't see our disjointed attack causing them any problems they can't deal with unfortunately.
Assuming kick off is back to 3pm this weekend as we're not on the box? Expectations for this weekend are nil. A shot or two on target would be a step in the right direction though!
3-0 loss Expect Anya and Layun in the 'advanced 3' like at Everton so they can double up with the full backs
Manchester City vs Watford – 29/08/0215. Read that again. Manchester City vs Watford – 29/08/0215. Through all the b1tching and moaning some have been doing, come on, doesn’t that sound great? Looking forward to this one. Back to the Everton-esque opening day of being next to zero expectation from the moaning fans so we can all happily relax and be friends. vs Everton: Just started the season so we had no idea how we’d perform. Happy with a 2-2 even though we could have won it. All fans pleased. vs WBA: Everyone expected us to win. We didn’t win. Cue all hell breaking loose. vs Saints: Over expectation post WBA against what turned out to be a well-organised-defensively-but-pretty-timid-going-forward Saints. We didn’t win. Cue all hell breaking loose. Man Citeh to date: Won 3. Scored 8. Conceded 0. We have no chance right? We will get beaten right? We can all relax and revel in the repeatedly delightful orgasmifical sight of a Blue Winged Silva dancing around our forlorn midfield to deliver a defence splitting pinpoint pass to an in-flight Swallow-Tailed Aguero. Well maybe, but it’s a no lose situation for us, unless we get tanked 8-0. We lose by the odd goal or 2, so has everyone else they’ve played including last years champions – no biggy. We actually manage to draw! Fantastic. We win, un-frickin-believable! Their board’s scoreline guessing game pretty much portrays their feelings on the matter – averaging a 4-0 win to the hosts. They expect to win heavily; A cricket score if you will. Though one pleasant sky blue soul does actually grant us the honour of scoring a solitary goal: http://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/threads/guess-team-score-comp-session-1-match-4-watford-h.315256/ My hopes are that we play some good counter attacking football. Deeney up front, Ighalo supporting, and some sweeping attacking play with a few more balls into the mixer from Jurado and Anya than we’ve been doing, plus a few more efforts on target from outside the box. I can see Ighalo nicking a goal here or there as well. Just gotta feeling. Fantasy Footer-wise, this is the first time Watford have faced a team featuring any players currently residing in my team - Ags, Silva and Yaya (Happy Birthday lad) - So definitely hoping for an awful FPL week 4 unless Ighalo scores a hatrick… suffice to say that I will probably be resting Gomez for this one on the advice of his trainer. 1-1 COYH!!!!!
I think Leyun and Anya will start on the wing. Nyom will show his quality but we will eventually lose 2-0.
3/4-0. I'd play Capoue ahead of Watson & Behrami, with Anya tracking Kolarov & Jurado/ Layun on the left.
Do you know what, something in my water is sensing a shock. I've got a ridiculous feeling Anya will score!
Maybe 'Tanned' would be quite suitable? A double play on the word! As for the game, I think we may well get something out of it and I agree that we are likely to play Anya & Layun to help out the full backs with only Jurado picked for the central 10 role. Not a dull match though!
We need to play a DM in this game to stick to Silva like glue. Capoue as DM, Behrami and Abdi in CM. Jurado Left, Diamanti Right. Deeney up top
It'll be bold to match City player for player in a 4-2-3-1. I'd actually be tempted to go back to 3-5-2 for this...
My predicted line up. Gomes, Nyom, Cathcart, Prodl, Holebas, Behrami, Capoue, Watson, Jurado, Anya, Berghuis, Deeney. Our best possible starting XI right now IMO.
Where's everybody drinking? Drank in their fan zone thingy when we lost 4-2 but fancy something better than 1 plastic cup of warm vastly overpriced beer.
