Sunderland game

[Green & Blue]

I know its a few days away yet but on reading the match report on sky i noticed that Cattermole on his return from injury pulled up and had to be withdrawn.Should see him miss the weekend and Lorik Cana picked up an automatic 2 game ban with a tenth yellow.

Good that they got that much needed win out of the system today,that added bit of confidence might make it a more open game on the weekend.I think city need to be playing sides willing to play a bit.
You can see the frustration sides like Stoke have caused us by withdrawing themselves from an open game,i dont think Sunderland will do that home.I hope not anyway.

[Martinez]

I watched most of the game, they replaced Cattermole with equally tacklehappy Ex-rag Phil Bardsley in the holding position. He actually did quite well even though he's been humiliated at right back the last times we've played them. It sounded like the crowd at SoL booed Malbranque because of that disciplinary thing, but he played quite well also.

Bent had a blinder scoring three and hitting the inside of the post once. Sunderland finished the game with Bent, Jones, Frazier Campbell and Benjani all on the pitch in a kind of 4-2-4 formation. Oh, and the pitch looked crap!

[brite blu sky]

didnt catch the game, but this is good news. That win takes quite a bit of pressure off them right now.
Even if they do try to play like Stoke it wont cause us too much of a problem, cos they are not as good at it and we have had a fucl lot of practice recently. Hopefully as you say though it will be more open and more about football as result of their confidence boost.

For us i still think it will be a very difficult game, partly due the the pressure now on us in every game. Personally i am not looking for too much, what would please me as much as anything is more evidence that we can hold a defensive line high up the pitch and build more and better link play to the front off that. That would show continued improvement for us, and it is just what we need imo, steady and disciplined improvement in each game.