Southampton vs Man City - Sat 7th Dec 2013 KO 15:00

Two down one to go, a tough trip to Southampton is the last of three games before the big one against Arsenal, if we win this one we will be ready to make a full blown assault on our title rivals.

Southampton have had a run of bad results recently after starting the season really well, everyone can have a bad patch though as we well know and considering two of their recent defeats have been against Arsenal and Chelsea that doesn't make them a bad team all of a sudden.
I have seen Southampton a fair bit this season and I have always been reasonably impressed, Pochettino has built a strong, well organised, attacking team, unfortunately for them and luckily for us they are struggling with injuries and may not be able to display those attributes against us.

Unlike Southampton we are on a very good run of form, 12 goals in our last 3 league games and only 2 conceded makes good reading. We haven't performed to the best of our ability well we have been winning lately and there is certainly work to be done on the midfield and defence but I suppose it is not worth dwelling on until it contributes to a bad result, right now winning is all that matters no matter how we go about it.

I am looking forward to tomorrows game, if we win I think we will have turned the corner properly and the significance of winning three games on the bounce and twice away from home will be huge for the teams confidence, I just hope that we can do it and its not another false dawn.

Man City Team News:
David Silva and Stevan Jovetic are believed to be over their calf problems but are not expected to risked for tomorrows game, Matija Nastasic is also said to be nearing fitness after also struggling with a calf problem but will not be available for tomorrows game.

Southampton Team News:
Gaston Ramirez is expected to return from illness but Nathaniel Clyne (hamstring), Morgan Schneiderlin (groin) and Jose Fonte (knock) are all doubts for the home side whilst Victor Wanyama, (ankle), Artur Boruc (hand), Danny Fox (hamstring), Guly Do Prado (knee) and Kelvin Davis (back) are all expected to be absent.

Possible Man City Line Up: Pantilimon, Zabaleta, Kompany, Demichelis, Clichy, Toure, Fernandinho, Navas, Nasri, Aguero, Negredo.

Possible Southampton Line Up: Gazzaniga, Clyne, Yoshida, Lovren, Shaw, S Davis, Ward-Prowse, Lallana, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Lambert.

My Prediction: Southampton 0 - 2 Man City.

Worth A Bet: Fernandinho scores the first goal in a 0 - 2 Man City win @ 115/1.

West Brom 2 - 3 Man City - Quick summary and Goals video

The score line looks close but the game was not, West Brom were gifted two goals through poor defending towards the end of the game.

I have to start with team selection, Dzeko started the game and was involved in the first goal but contributed nothing else, Kolarov started because Clichy was absent and fair play to him tonight, he played a part in two of the goals but he really does need to work on his defending badly. Then there was the decision to play Demichelis, he was leaving big gaps down the middle and kept getting caught wrong side, he was at fault for West Brom's second and just should not have been playing as a left half ahead of Lescott.
I mentioned it in my preview to the game about Demichelis playing alongside Kompany because I knew that Pellegrini would do just that, it was clear from his performance that the manager made the wrong decision again, same goes for starting Dzeko again because he shouldn't be playing ahead of other people who deserve a chance more than he does.

Although everything about tonight's performance wasn't great as I just touched on, we did play quite well as a team, we controlled the game and West Brom were not a bother to us until the 85th minute, I don't even think they had a shot on target until Anichebe scored, we certainly didn't deserve to concede two goals anyway.

The bottom line is that we won and we won away from home, hopefully we can take some confidence from that and go on to beat Southampton before that all important Arsenal game.

GOALS.

West Brom vs Man City LIVE STREAM INFORMATION

Up to now there are 18 stations that should be available to watch todays match against West Brom.

I know a lot of people are familiar with online streaming now but for those that are not, this should help.

If you go to the following link http://www.wiziwig.tv/broadcast.php?matchid=232201&part=sports then you will see the page that will display the links to watch today's game, the links to the streams will not be displayed until one hour before kick off.

Each link will be run via a different type of software, for example, you may just be able to click one that will load on your web browser or there will be some where you have to download software.

Each stream will tell you which software it is being run on, for example, if next to one of the links it says Sopcast then you will need to download the Sopcast player software. All software is available via this next link http://www.wiziwig.tv/software.php?part=software .

The best streams to watch are the ones with the higher Kbps rate, so if one stream says 150 Kbps and one says 2000 Kbps then you choose the latter, this is the best way to chose which software to download, as different streaming clients will run at different speeds.

A little heads up I always find Sopcast the best software to use, so it would probably be worth downloading that in preparation for when the game links are announced.

Hopefully this was helpful and not confusing, I think everyone should be able to understand once you explore the links, it is quite straight forward.

Enjoy, hopefully!

West Brom vs Man City - Wed 4th Dec KO 20:00

The first of two important away games sees us travel to the Hawthorns to play West Brom, the baggies haven't been good at home and we haven't been good away so we could be in for an interesting game.

I have only seen a minimal amount of West Brom this season so I can't give a valid opinion on them, all I can say is that the little bit of them that I have seen, they looked decent. I have studied their results this season and whilst there was fixtures that I would of thought that they were capable of winning, there are others that they have done really well to take points from. A draw at Chelsea, a draw at home against Arsenal and a win at Old Trafford suggest that they have got the ability to compete against the better teams in the league.

As we all know, we haven't achieved the right results on the road this season, but that's not to say our performances have been all that bad when away from home. Our performances against the likes of Chelsea and Cardiff were not worthy of a defeat and then there was the defeat to Aston Villa which was quite astonishing, however reasoning's are only as good as excuses and the bottom line is that we have to start winning away games.

I am positive that we are going to start winning away from home and when we do it is going to spell bad news for the rest of the league. Just winning this game against West Brom would start making teams sweat, our title rivals know as well as we do that if we become consistent away from home that they are going to have a job on their hands to compete.

Good news ahead of the game tomorrow is that Vincent Kompany is back in the squad, whether that means he will play or not remains to be seen, I would imagine it does. I just hope that Pellegrini doesn't try to accommodate Demichelis along side him, he hasn't done anything wrong as such, I just don't want to see him shoved on the left hand side of Kompany ahead of Lescott whose natural position is left half, plus Lescott played well there against Swansea.

Man City Team News:
Vincent Kompany gives us a much needed boost in defence by returning to the side, Matija Nastasic, David Silva and Stevan Jovetic are all still absent from the team with calf injuries.

West Brom Team News:
Youssouf Mulumbu is missing for the home side as he serves a one match suspension for picking up five yellow cards, Scott Sinclair has a hamstring injury but would not have been eligible to play against his parent club anyway, Ben foster is in light training but is not expected to be ready to return to the team.

Possible Man City Line Up: Pantilimon, Zabaleta, Kompany, Lescott, Clichy, Toure, Fernandinho, Navas, Nasri, Aguero, Negredo.

Possible West Brom Line Up: Myhill, Jones, McAuley, J Olsson, Ridgewell, Amalfitano, Morrison, Sessegnon, Yacob, Brunt, Long.

My Prediction: West Brom 0 - 4 Man City.

Worth A Bet: Man City win the game 0 - 4 with Sergio Aguero scoring the first goal @ 66/1 or Alvaro Negredo scoring the first goal @ 75/1, also any first goalscorer bets involving Vincent Kompany have good odds, may be worth a quid on the returning captain.

Man City 3 - 0 Swansea City - Goals and Highlights.

Another home game finished, another home win in the bag and another three goals, a perfect result on the face of things but there are certainly still issues that need ironing out.

We started well today, we looked sharp, organised and up for it, when Negredo scored a free kick it was easy to think that we were going to go on and score a hat full again, however we tailed off and to be fair some of that was down to Swansea.

After going one up we seemed to take our foot off the gas, our intricate through balls weren't coming off and we just couldn't take hold of the game. Swansea were also playing a smart game, they knew they didn't have much of an attack due to injuries and instead were happy to sit inside their own half and wait for us to come at them, their midfield was crowding us out and when they saw a chance to break they went for it.
The first half finished with us leading but it could of easily been the other way round, Swansea had some really good chances and if their finishing had been better they could have gone in at the break having scored a couple of goals.

The second half started almost identically to the way the first half did, we had the bit between our teeth and immediately set out to put Swansea under pressure. We weren't spectacular in the second period but we took a hold of the game a lot more than we did in the first half, don't get me wrong Swansea never looked like they were out of the game at any point but we were putting them under a lot more pressure and creating chances. Stepping it up a gear going forward ultimately proved too much for Swansea to handle and two goals from the impressive Samir Nasri were the rewards for putting in a tad more effort.

It wasn't the best performance today, the midfield was being bypassed too easily again, we were untidy and we are still sacrificing possession of the ball in favour of a direct approach far too much at times, but after feeling very frustrated with the team lately, I am quite happy with today's result.

Don't get me wrong I am never going to be happy when there are issues that need ironing out, however the most important thing today was that we won the first out of three games leading up to the Arsenal match, especially with Spurs, Utd and Liverpool dropping points.

I just really hope that Pellegrini can sort out these little problems that the team have and that we can go on and get the away game monkey off our back, if that happens and we get six points from our next two games and then beat Arsenal, I am convinced that no team will be able to get in our way and stop us from winning the title.

Goals and Highlights.

Man City vs Swansea City - Sun 1st Dec 2013, KO 16:10

Can anyone stop us from winning at home? Swansea City are the next team with the task of trying, Swansea are a very capable team but I don't think that we will relinquish our home record to the Welsh club.

Swansea are a decent team, they have a few good players and a very good team ethic, they are one of the few teams in the premier league that I enjoy watching. Unfortunately it is because of Swansea's positive style of football that I am 99% sure that we will beat them, they like to play football and press forward, if they do that against us we will open them up and more than likely have a field day.

As I mentioned, I am quite positive that we will win this game, but there is no doubt that our defending will have to improve if we are to take three points without any scares. Our defending is awful at times without Vinny and teams like Swansea who play good fluent football are more than capable of punishing us, Pellegrini needs to solve the issue because plan A to outscore the opposition is a dangerous game to play.

Today's game could be more important than it seems as it could prove pivotal when it comes to the title, this is the first of three important games before we welcome Arsenal to the Etihad. Winning all three of these games and then beating Arsenal is obviously very possible for a team of our quality, if we can do it then we could be top of the league before the new year and maybe even by Christmas day.

Man City Team News:
Vincent Kompany has recovered from his thigh injury but is not match fit and Pellegrini is said to be edging on the side of caution and is not expected to play our captain, David Silva (calf) and Stevan Jovetic (calf) are both expected to miss out as they continue their recovery from injury, Matija Nastasic is also suffering with a calf injury and will not play. Jack Rodwell is available for selection after recovering from a knock.

Swansea City Team News:
Wilfried Bony (hamstring) and Michu (ankle) are both expected to be missing for the visitor's, Angel Rangel picked up a knock on his calf against Valencia in midweek and is also expected to miss the game, Garry Monk continues to recover from a knee injury.

Possible Man City Line Up: Pantilimon, Zabaleta, Demichelis, Lescott, Clichy, Toure, Fernandinho, Navas, Nasri, Aguero, Negredo.

Possible Swansea City Line Up: Vorm, Davies, Williams, Flores, Tiendalli, Hernandez, De Guzman, Shelvey, Dyer, Pozuelo, Vazquez.

My Prediction: Man City 3 - 0 Swansea City.

Worth A Bet: Fernandinho scores the first goal in a 3 - 0 Man City win @ 100/1.