SHOW AND PROVE
Another Friday, another preview Legion.
It's like the movie Groundhog Day, but instead of Bill Murray in a time loop, you get us with a weekly dose of football anxiety.
And another huge match-up it is too. We can't remember a start to a season that had so many doozies straight out the gate.
We don't want to say the weekend after away to Newcastle is another one because that's giving them the attention and relevance they so desperately crave. Yeah, shots fired, and don't worry, there will be plenty more when it's their preview time.
Man City is a hard team to get a read on right now. Their form cratered last year after Rodri went down against us, eventually finishing third with 71 points. We're going to hazard a guess that was their worst-ever EPL finish under Pep.
This season, their form from the previous year seems to have carried over. They have been inconsistent, with two wins and two defeats in the league, with eight goals for and four against. Their late collapse away to Brighton, even with Rodri in the line-up, summed up their recent woes. Even their last league outing winning 3-0 in the derby isn't the flex it once was.
It's not like they didn't try to do a City and spend their way out of trouble. In the January transfer window, they spent £142m in a week on Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov, and Vitor Reis (who is currently out on loan). This summer, they added another £170m worth of talent with six players arriving in the shape of Reijnders, Cherki, Ait-Nouri, Trafford, Donnarumma, and the much-linked-with-us Norwegian wonderkid Nypan.
Apart from Donnarumma, who pretty much single-handedly (no pun intended) knocked us out of the Champions League semi last year with PSG, that's £312m worth of talent that, in all honesty, without tempting fate, isn't scaring us.
Reijnders looked really good in Serie A for Milan, but it's a slower, lower standard than the EPL. Marmoush looks a talent, but hasn't played for 90 minutes yet this season and is now injured. Cherki is prototypical of a player who is labelled 'mercurial'. This equates to being mega skillful/talented and a match-winner on their day, but lacking consistency. He is also out injured. Ait-Nouri was a good player at Wolves. Not great, but good, and has also missed time this season due to injury.
The disappointing one was Nypan. Tagged the 'new Odegaard', we were linked with him big time. City pretty much offered him way more wages, and that was that. Now he has the pleasure of playing in the north east with Middlesbrough for the season, when we offered him a place in our first team squad. Yeah, he's living the dream. Enjoy those winter midweek games. We'll keep an eye on how his season goes. So far, it's 89 minutes in 3 games with no goal involvements.
The Donnarumma transfer was a weird one from every possible angle. At the end of July, City signed Trafford to compete with Ederson for the number one jersey. Ederson then exits, and Donnarumma rocks up. You have to feel sorry for Trafford. He went from challenging for the number one spot to being number one to carrying Donnarumma's water bottle. All in the space of a month. Bonkers.
The even weirder part for us is, why did PSG let him go? You could argue he was the main reason they won the Champions League. His performances at Anfield and in both legs against us were outstanding, match-winning ones. Then, no sooner is the champagne dry in 'ole big ears, the Parisians sign French National Team number two Lucas Chevalier and tell Gigi to find a new club.
The rumour is that they wouldn't meet the wage demands in his new deal. Hmmmm. PSG haggling over wages? Does that sound right? His wage at City, if reports are true, is in the £250k/week range. Completely doable for the club from the French capital. Maybe their DOF Campos got bored with winning Ligue Ugh so easily every year and thought he'd make things more interesting?
The other weird part is, why would Pep sign a goalkeeper that, being kind, is just decent with the ball at his feet? His first big decision of note when he took over at City was chucking multiple Golden Glove winner Joe Hart in the bin because he couldn't pass a ball. It's like he's traded some of his philosophy for more defensive stability. All a bit strange.
They lost some high-profile names in the summer. Lots of City fans were saying the squad was ageing and needed revamping anyway. That is all well and good, but when you lose the likes of KDB, these kinds of players are extremely hard to replace. Other departures included the aforementioned Ederson, Akanji, Gundogan (again), and Jack Grealish. The evergreen Bernardo Silva remains.
On the injury front, missing for them will be Marmoush, Cherki, and Kovacic. There are also doubts over Stones and Ait-Nouri. We're guessing both make it because, of course, they will.
As for us? We go into this one unbeaten against them in our last four. This comes after an embarrassing run over six years where we didn't even muster so much as a draw with an aggregate score of 33-5. Our last defeat was the 4-1 game at the Etihad in '23 when we were top of the league, but got badly exposed by deep runs from midfield. Our goal scorer that night was Holdinho, filling in for the injured Saliba. We can honestly say it's one of the rare occasions that Arteta got brutally outcoached, and much to his credit, we can't remember it happening since.
Still missing for us are the trio of Gabi J, Havertz, and Saka. White and Saliba are doubts, as is Odegaard. If going by the timeline with Odegaard's last shoulder problem, we think he will be on the bench. If White is passed fit, he will also be on the bench. We think Saliba makes it and goes straight back into the starting lineup. Harsh on Mosquera? Absolutely. What would you do if you were Arteta?
Our guess at the lineup is further below. Despite Martinelli and Trossard's late show off the bench last Tuesday, we think Arteta goes with the same eleven, except for Saliba. One alternative is to move Eze to the 10 for Merino and draft in Martinelli. There are lots of lineup permutations. Hard to pin our starting eleven down, and that's a good thing.
We mentioned in a previous post about our bench being fascinating to see who gets omitted from the matchday squad entirely. Our subs against Forest were Martinelli, Trossard, Nwaneri, Rice, MLS, White, Kepa, and Dowman. That's eight players. You are required to have a backup GK, so that whittles it down to seven.
Now that Nordgaard is fit, who do you drop from the bench altogether to make way for him? Once our injured trio is back, that's three more spots to fight for. We know not everyone will be available at any one time through injury and suspension, but man, Arteta has some sleepless nights ahead.
We always feel the biggest battle when facing City is keeping Halaand quiet. We didn't mind him when he was at Dortmund, but he seems to have turned into a bit of a dick since his move to the Etihad. That whole "stay humble" and hitting Gabriel with the ball on the back of the head stuff was all a bit spoiled-brattish. Hopefully, Gabi at the back and Saliba/Mosquera keep a tight lid on him come Sunday.
Will the advantage of an extra two days' rest for us make much of a difference? We hope so, although City had an easy Champions League opener last night, playing ten men for most of the match. We'd defo rather have the advantage in our favour though.
Quick note about Sunday's man in the middle. We like to flag potential Arsenal killers masquerading as neutral referees. The guy in charge tomorrow is, ahem, Luton Town fan, Stuart Atwell, who hasn't reffed us since the infamous 1-0 defeat at St James Park in '23. Arteta absolutely skewered him post-game, calling the goal decision and his performance "a disgrace and nowhere near the top level." This guy has been waiting two years to extract his revenge. Let's see how it goes.
To finish off, we want to say there's always chat in football about 'power shifts'. Sunday is the perfect opportunity to SHOW and PROVE that the Man City dynasty is officially over.
COYG!!