Sunday 11th November
1:30pm KO LIVE on Sky Sports 1
Referee: Michael Oliver
*Cough* 4th Official: Lee Mason *Cough*
[/center]Welcome to Crisis Week #3459! This week the Guardian made the revelation that Roberto Mancini was actually desired by other clubs to become their manager. Regardless of the fact the Mancini said that he was wanted by several clubs and that he has since signed a new contract they chose the MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER in which to reveal this ‘news’. The hack in question was the new Manchester Football correspondent Jamie Jackson who it appears was the front runner in a week long hatchet job run by the various ‘journalists’ on the Guardian’s Football Website. Personally it’s a surprising week to do it as I’d thought that they’d be have been busy booking Nuremberg for the 26th Annual Taggart rally.
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[/center]The frequency with which Mancini has been attacked this week is akin to season long media campaign against Hughes and is either the media looking to manufacture their own story or someone within the club is looking to engineer enough pressure of Mancini so that he exits the club prematurely. The media have made no secret of their belief that the new Barcelona men are attempting to build a Spanish contingent in the club (in their defence work with what you know is successful) despite their denial of this but City looking to build things from the ground up doesn’t make as good copy as City and Mancini in crisis.
It’s also worth pointing out that at no point this week did we actually lose a game of football. At West Ham I thought we played with a terrific tempo, everyone put a shift in, and after their goal was (incorrectly) disallowed we dominated for 85 minutes and one another day would have found the winner.
On Tuesday night we were undone for the 3rd time this week by our failure to deal with set pieces, how most of our goals are conceded now, and only the most blatantly incompetent piece of officiating since Lee Mason last rolled into Manchester where we unlucky to walk away with 3 points. If that had been our picnic blanket wearing cousins there would have at least been a mention of our ever increasing injury list and the quality of the opposition. Instead the media have used Paris St Germain’s victory over the might of a Hulk-less PORTO, DINAMO ZAGREB and DYNAMO KYIV (ok they beat us last time we faced them) to point out to Mancini that this Champions League lark isn’t so difficult. Yes, all three of those teams would walk over Dortmund, Madrid or Ajax.
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[/center]Anyway I like crisis weeks; I imagine the players walking into the dressing room each day and pinning the latest hatchet job on the wall for everyone to look at and it providing its own team talk. Usually someone from the opposition who has ‘snubbed’ us in the past comes out and talks about a lack of team spirit and you can’t buy class, the support gets behind the team a little more (or is on their backs a little quicker) and much to our delight and everyone else consternation we prove someone wrong.
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One of my favourite games of all time
The opposition
[/center]So it was interesting summer for Tottenham, the sacked media love child was replaced by Andre Villas-Boas and immediately found himself under pressure when they only picked up 2 points from their opening 3 games (defeat at Newcastle on the opening day). Since then they’ve won 5 of their last 7 leagues games including wins at Reading, Old Trafford and Southampton but loses at Chelsea and at home to Wigan leave Spurs 5 points behind ourselves in 6th.
In the transfer market it was another season of high turnover for Tottenham. Under ‘Arry the last days of the window were usually off-loading enough players so that they could register the 25 without having to leave someone on the sidelines to collect a wage and not play. This year they offloaded 13 players. Ryan Nelson was released, Niko Krancjar moved to Kyiv (£5.5m), Corluka moved to Lokomotiv Moscow (£5.5m), Ledley King retired, Steven Pienaar returened to Everton (£4.5m), Sebastien Bassong completed his loan move to Norwich (£5.5m) and Giovani Dos Santos moved to Real Mallorca (£1.7m). The most significant departures were Rafael Van der Vaart returned to Hamburg (£10.3m) and Luka Modric finally joined Real Madrid for £33m in the last days of August.
Spurs, never one to miss out on a deal, had a very productive summer bringing players in. Gylfi Sigurdsson was snatched from under the nose of Liverpool and Swansea for £8m before the transfer window even reopened. The highly-rated Jan Vertonghen joined from Ajaxk for £9.5m. Emmanuel Adebayor’s pension fund was topped up by finally completing a £5m move from the CHAMPIONS OF ENGLAND! It was in the final days of the window where they really excelled bringing in Moussa Dembele for a snip at £15m, the French no.1 joined from Lyon for £12m, seen as the long term replacement in goal for Brad Freidel and Clint Dempsey signed from the grasp of Liverpool for £4m.
Injury-wise the good news is Scott Parker is injured so there will be 14 less fouls that go un-penalised before he’s finally booked, the bad news is that since Dembele is also injured, Tom Huddleston will still probably commit 10 atrocities against man before he’s cautioned. Sando is also allegedly a doubt with a calf injury and Jake Livermore has an ankle injury so they’ll probably unusually ‘light’ in midfield with only Siguardsson to partner Huddlestone. Gareth Bale will be giving Maicon nightmares on the left hand side and blind alley man will take his place on the right hand side.
At the back Assou-Ekotto is also injured (knee) and Kaboul is out long term (Jan, knee) which has seen Vertonghen move out to left back, and Steven Caulker partner William Gallas at centre back. Fantasy Football let down Kyle Walker is the first choice right back. In goal Brad Frediel continued to keep out Hugo Lloris until AVB needlessly ended his 3 year streak of consecutive appearances.
Up front they’ve probably the thinnest strikeforce in a long time; although Adebayor has been injured he’s settled slowly into the countdown until the move to his next club (there aren’t many left), Dempsey hasn’t played every game and prefers to play in the whole behind the striker which just leaves Jermaine Defoe; one of the founding members of the strikers who’s made a career by scoring against City group. He was expected to leave in the summer as he’d been on the fringe under ‘Arry, someone who’d signed him 3 times, but under AVB he’s found himself as the leading striker and will likely start on Sunday with Adebayor who will undoubtedly score his obligatory goal against us on his first start of the season.
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Any excuse to show this
What about us?[/center]
The team selection at this stage has to begin with the injury list; Richards is the long term injury, Rodwell is out with his hamstring as is Milner. According to the Guardian Lescott, Maicon and Silva are allegedly still doubts despite two of the three sitting on the bench on Tuesday night.
At the back that could leave us with the same back line as Tuesday. Kolarov could come in for Clichy as he’s been in good form recently and was unlucky to be dropped when he was; the only concern would be Lennon’s pace but providing Kolarov sits deep enough to defend him to counter Lennon’s pace he’s better at closing the cross down than Clichy.
In midfield I thought the tempo was superb last week at West Ham for the majority of the 90 minutes but we may have suffered from it against Ajax. I’d be tempted to go with the same midfield as Saturday of Barry, Yaya and Nasri leaving for a 3 man midfield. It should be up to Tottneham to stop us playing and not the other way around.
Up front is anyone’s guess at the moment; part of me thinks that Mancini sticks the names of the strikers on a dart board and throws a couple of darts, as there all playing reasonably well at the moment, but I think Mario deserves to start based on the last week. I seem to be in the minority when I thought Dzeko didn’t deserved to be subbed at West Ham. One thing is certain; Tevez has been immense as a work horse over the last couple of weeks.
[center]Prediction[/center]
I always fear the worst against Spurs; I never forget playing them off the park first half in the last season at Maine Road and getting beat 3-2; it got worse when we moved, being played off the park in the League Cup when Berbatov and Malbranque ran the show; there have been some blood baths and we even once finished with 9 men and almost snatched a point but we’ve won our fair share! As always if we play to our best we will win the game and having just watched the filth scrape through this has become a must win.
My personal worry is the goals don’t seem as easy to come by as last year so I’ll go with a very conservative 1-0 City
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City have their own attmept at a preview[/center]
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