Wednesday 21st March 2012
Etihad Stadium, Manchester (KO 1945 GMT)
Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes
It says absolutely everything about the fundamental (and, as a fan, quite surreal) transformation of Manchester City since the arrival of Sheikh Mansour that as City enter the last 10 games of the Premier League season in 2nd place, four points behind the leaders (with a game in hand AND superior goal difference, with the leaders still to visit the Etihad) that the majority view appears to be that the wheels have come off City’s season to some degree.
Let me put the record straight from my own perspective as a City fan of 37 years (of primarily turgid football and abject misery)….this remains the best season of my City-supporting life by some quite significant extent. This is the season I actually never thought could ever possibly happen in my lifetime. This is a season where City have played some devastating and often sublime football.
However, in light of the relative paucity of quality amongst our title rivals in the 2011-2012 season when balanced against our strength, this really is a season when City should have been well out of sight of not only the chasing pack but United as well.
Let’s not beat about the bush, United have had the rub of the green, they have had the usual quantum of teams turning up already beaten and/or rolling over and the every-predictable assistance from the men in black and “Fergietime”.
That said, they have been blighted by some serious and significant injuries and have looked pretty average so, all in all, the fact that City are not hastily constructing an extra shelf in our 21st century trophy room is entirely the fault of those representing Manchester City Football Club.
The uncomfortable truth is that, although our home form has been largely sensational, our away form has been (absent our notable barnstorming victories at WHL and the Swamp) pretty poor. Even if we continue to excel at home (starting with this match against Chelsea and running to the season’s end) we do not have a hope of lifting our first PL crown unless we buck up on the road.
Same faces, different places
This game against Chelsea is, on paper, one of the two big games (outside the near end-of-season derby at the Etihad) that City absolutely have to take maximum points from to stay in touch with United and maintain the club’s title chasing fate in its own hands (the other being the 8th April trip to the Emirates).
It seems highly probable (from the usual end of season run-in form we have seen previously) that both City and United may drop unexpected points in the 7 “other” games against “lesser” teams but Chelsea and Arsenal are the two fixture rounds where City are facing manifestly stronger opponents to those lining up against United (where Wolves have been already despatched 5-0 this weekend and struggling QPR visit the Death Star as City face Arsene Wenger’s unpredictable Gooners).
Aside from the quite clear need to push strong to the end of the season to keep our title dream alive, there is the small factor of City wanting and needing to deliver a bit of payback to the boys from Stamford Bridge after the 2-1 reverse the boys from M11 suffered on their trip down the King’s Road just pre-Xmas.
That game saw City take an early lead from the incomparable Mario Balotelli before Raul Meireles pulled a goal back as the game headed towards half time. The game was quite evenly poised before Gael Clichy (who Daniel Sturridge had given quite a torrid time all game) picked up a second yellow and an early bath for a foul on Ramires. Then it was the predictable end with Fat Frank coming off the bench to beat Hart from the penalty spot and take maximum points for Chelsea.
Chelsea’s season kickstarted
As befits our beloved Manchester City it would seem that the spectre of Typicalis Cityitus is never far from our sky blue horizon and, in this instance, it seems that we will be facing a newly resurgent Chelsea rather than the shambles that stalked the PL under Andre Villas Boas but a few weeks ago.
A forgiving opener for Di Matteo saw his new/old team travel to St Andrews to send Birmingham City out of the FA Cup before a tight 1-0 win over Stoke at the Bridge took them to a quite fantastic comeback over two legs against our Neopolitan Nemesis before a nice romp at the weekend to send Linekar’s Foxes crashing out of “our cup”.
A sight for Roman Abramovich’s sore eyes and lightened bank balance must have been Fernando Torres finally remembering what scoring a goal feels like at the weekend but it remains to be seen whether Di Matteo feels able to trust him to translate that form against weak Championship opponents into the same performance at the league’s stingiest home ground.
Bad news for Chelsea is that serial philanderer and Wayne’s best mate JT will miss tomorrow’s contest but otherwise all seems reasonably rosy in Roman’s garden currently.
Send for Savic…or will he Rekit(/k)
Team selection for Roberto Mancini tomorrow appears altogether less clear currently (and shrouded in a fair amount of mystery and intrigue) due to a number of rather significant factors.
City had to get through the last couple of matches absent their twin defensive monsters in Vincent Kompany (calf) and Joleon Lescott (groin) who have both been absent through injury. Reports from former ladder artistes suggest that one of the two may just, as a slight outside bet, figure tomorrow but the smart money must be on another makeshift central defensive partnership.
In addition to those two big misses, it is entirely likely that Pablo Zabaleta will again remain unavailable; although Gareth Barry seems to have shaken off the back problem that had him off his ga*me and then out on the sidelines for the last few weeks.
In central defence it seems most likely that Mancini will persevere with the non-dieting Kolo Toure and the (I will be very kind…..) “raw” Stefan Savic. Although Savic looked semi, half decent in the latter stages of the Sporting Lisbon game as City pushed the Portuguese right back and all he had to do was pick the ball up and bring/pass it forward…he has looked as shaky as a Balkan Parkinson’s patient virtually every single time he has come under the remotest pressure so far this season. I’m sure I’m not alone in preferring the prospect of Micah Richards at centre half or even the mad, option of the untried Karim Rekik over Savic but Mancini bought him and seems hell-bent on persevering. I just hope it doesn’t cost us…..again.
Creatively City need to get back in their groove as Silva has looked off-colour of late and Nasri still seems not to have really found his feet in a sky blue shirt with any degree of consistency to date. Obvious to most blues though is the fact that Yaya Toure has been mostly wasted being stationed back deep for the last couple of games and if we are to finish the season strongly we need all of our most potent players to pick up their games for the big push.
The final teaser is what will be the part played by our favourite touchline exercise fan. Will Tevez feature? Will the thought of Tevez ousting them from the starting line-up be enough to propel Balotelli and Dzeko up a level in terms of application and consistency? There are some fascinating questions and I, for one, cannot wait to see the team sheet tomorrow.
I frankly have no idea what our team will be tomorrow so I’m not even going to try to Hazard a guess.
What I will say though is that I fancy us to rediscover our spark against all odds tomorrow night and I will go with a very bold 2-0 prediction.
I hope to our sky blue god that I am right.
CTID.
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