Monday 20 October 2014

CSKA Moscow vs Man City - Preview

        CSKA Moscow vs Manchester City
      Tuesday 21st October, Arena Khimki
                         Kick Off 17:00
                     Referee: Istvan Vad


The games are coming thick and fast, next for us is a trip to a very cold Russia in the UEFA Champions league.

There isn't a great deal to say about this game apart from that we need to win it, this game must be the start of taking our destiny back into our own hands.

So, what kind of team are we facing? Well CSKA have won their last five league games, scoring 19 goals and conceding just 4, however in the middle of their fine league form they have been beaten twice in the Champions League, conceding 6 goals and scoring just 1.

So what have we learnt from that apart from the clear fact that the Russian league is a terrible standard of football? Well it does not matter what kind of opposition you have been beating in football, as long as you are winning then your confidence will grow and having confidence can help to win football games, so I think that we should be conscious of that.

I am obviously expecting us to win this game and I am expecting us to smash them without breaking a sweat, teams like CSKA need to be our bread and butter in the Champions League, they are no where near as good a team as us and I think that we need to use them to send a message out to Roma and Bayern.

I also feel like we have been disrespected by Ahmed Musa in the build up to the game with the striker stating the following, "As you can see, they are very weak this year. We are going to use that advantage against them.
"In a couple of games they haven't been that good. They are very weak in the defence, so we are going to do our best to work against that.
"I think we are going to have a great opportunity because of the quality of the players we have. I think Tuesday is going to be a very good game for us."
Is this guy for real, we are the current champions of England which is arguably the best league in the world, plus if we are 'very weak' then I have not noticed, it has really got my back up and should have done the same to our players, hopefully it will give them extra motivation.

Man City Team News
Samir Nasri remains out with a groin injury, Eliaquim Mangala has been training with the rest of the team in Russia and should return to the the squad, Frank Lampard misses out with a thigh injury.

CSKA Moscow Team News
Dzagoev and Wernbloom are suspended, Elm (stomach), Panchenko (knee) and Vitinho (ankle) are expected to miss out.  Fernandes (elbow) and Doumbia (thigh) are possible doubts for the home team.

Possible Man City Line Up
Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Mangala, Clichy, Milner, Toure, Fernandinho, Navas, Silva, Dzeko.

Possible CSKA Moscow Line Up
Akinfeev, Fernandes, V Berezutski, Ignashevich, Schennikov, A Berezutski, Tošić, Natcho, Eremenko, Milanov, Musa.

My Prediction
CSKA Moscow 0 - 5 Man City.

Worth A Bet
David Silva scores the first goal in a 0 - 4 Man City win @ 120/1 or you could go with Yaya Toure first goal and  0 - 4 to City @ 100/1.

Sunday 19 October 2014

Man City 4 - 1 Tottenham Hotspur

A game full of missed opportunities, bad passing, goals and penalties finished with us as the victors, it must have been a cracking game to watch for a neutral.

I will start with Spurs, I have to give Spurs credit, they came to try and win which is something we don't see a lot from the away team.
They created a few chances and although they messed up a couple of them, they also had Joe Hart in their way, England's number one was absolutely fantastic.
Ultimately Spurs lost the game because we were the better team but only just, neither team passed well or defended well, if I was a Spurs fan I would certainly feel like 4 - 1 was not necessarily a true picture of how they played.

As for us, as I mentioned our passing was poor and our defending was terrible at times, we attacked well but our end product wasn't good enough.
It has been a long time since I have seen us defend so badly, we looked panicked, were sloppy and were causing ourselves problems.
I am not concerned about it that much though, you just have to look at Fernando as an example because he was absolutely terrible yesterday, we know he can play much better than that and I think it can be put down to an off day.

It was much the same scenario with our passing because that was bad as well, the whole team were guilty of it but none other than David Silva was the main culprit and the whole world knows how good he is at passing a football, so yet again you have to let them off with a run of the mill bad day at the office.

We had a few players that played well yesterday and who kept us ticking over well we weren't at our best, Clichy, Navas, Milner for example but lets face it, Sergio Aguero was the difference.
Pochettino was bang on when he said that he is the best striker in the world, what attribute has Aguero not got because I can't think of any, he is a defenders worst nightmare, I think that if you want to stop him then there's not much more that you can do but kick him, a truly integral player for us who needs another new contract putting in front of him asap.

Overall we played decent enough, beat a good team that caused us problems, bagged another three points and can start to build some momentum again after being interrupted by the International break.

Friday 17 October 2014

Man City vs Tottenham Hotspur - Preview

        Manchester City vs Tottenham Hotspur
        Saturday 18th October, Etihad Stadium
                              Kick Off 12:45
                     Referee: Jonathan Moss


Finally the International break is over and we can get back to league football, it has only been two weeks but it seems like an eternity since our last game, hopefully we will be raring to go.
 
It always feels like its a fresh start after an International break and where that might work for some teams, I don't think that the break came at the right time for us this time around.
We have taken eight points from our last four games which included games against Arsenal and Chelsea, we brushed aside Hull and Villa without breaking much of a sweat and were clearly starting to click, hopefully the break will not break our momentum.
 
As for Spurs, well I haven't managed to see a great deal of them this season so I cannot possibly judge them to much, they clearly have a talented squad and some outstanding individual players and will surely pose a threat.
 
Last season we smashed Spurs twice and although I am not expecting that to happen in this game, I still think that we will win the game quite comfortably.
 
Like I said I haven't seen Spurs play loads this season but when I have seen them play I felt like they were lacking defensively, a lot of their midfield is attack minded and the defence is not protected well enough, once you do break through what is effectively a two man midfield then you hit two centre backs that lack the pace to keep up with the likes of Silva and Aguero and I think that we will capitalise on that.
 
Man City Team News
Samir Nasri continues to recover from a groin injury, Fernandinho is expected to miss out with a hamstring problem and Eliaquim Mangala is also set to miss out after returning from International duty with a muscle injury, Yaya Toure only got back from International duty on Thursday and may be rested.
 
Tottenham Hotspur Team News
Hugo Lloris (thigh) and Nacer Chadli (hip) did not feature for their Countries this week but are likely to be fit enough to make Tottenham's match day squad at the very least, Emmanuel Adebayor and Nabil Bentaleb only returned from International duty on Friday and may be rested, Kyle Naughton (ankle) and Kyle Walker (pelvis) remain sidelined.
 
Possible Man City Line Up
Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Demichelis, Clichy, Milner, Toure, Fernando, Silva, Aguero, Dzeko.
 
Possible Tottenham Hotspur Line Up
Lloris, Dier, Kaboul, Vertonghen, Rose, Capoue, Mason, Eriksen, Lamela, Chadli, Soldado.
 
My Prediction
Man City 3 - 0 Spurs.
 
Worth A Bet
Pablo Zabaleta scores the first goal in a 3 - 0 Man City win @ 200/1.