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.



Newcastle United 0 - 2 Man City - Silva 38', Aguero 90+2' *Highlights Video*

Our first game of the season brought us our first three points and a first away win, it was a perfect result from a performance that can only be regarded as doing 'just enough'.

I felt like we were going to face a good test yesterday and I believe that was the case, Newcastle have some good players and I think they shown that they have the potential to be a very good team, a little bit more quality in defence and attack from the home side could have seen the game finish with a different result.

When the game started it only took me a couple of minutes to feel comfortable with the way we were playing, we weren't playing amazing but we were in control for the first fifteen minutes, trying to attack at every opportunity.
Halfway through the first half I felt like we let Newcastle back into the game, we were sloppy in possession and lacked any real determination and work ethic, luckily Newcastle failed to capitalise and didn't cause us any problems.
Towards the end of the first half our class shone through and we scored, Yaya Toure who may as well not have been on the pitch up until the goal decided he was ready to show his class, a fantastic ball forward to Dzeko was back heeled by the Bosnian into the path of David Silva who then slotted the ball into the net.

At half time I think as a City fan you could probably say that we deserved a narrow lead, we by no means hammered Newcastle but we were the better team and Newcastle gave Joe Hart an easy time, of course I think Newcastle fans probably thought they had done enough to deserve going in level and if I was in their shoes I might of agreed, after all we only created a couple clear cut chances ourselves and didn't truly impose ourselves.

The second half was a little bit more entertaining than the first and that was mainly down to Newcastle, they created a couple of chances that I would of expected City to finish off, although I have to give credit to our players for their defending, there was a couple of last ditch challenges but in the end Hart was left untroubled.

Overall looking back at the game we were more clinical, more organised, more disciplined and we did deserve to win the game, we could of performed a lot better and put the game to bed earlier but I am sure that will come once we have a few games under our belt.

I have to admit I was expecting us to stick a couple more past Newcastle yesterday, if we had just stepped it up a gear I think we could have exposed a vulnerable defence a lot more than we did.
I have to point the finger at the midfield, we had four players in the middle of the pitch but there was only two pulling their weight, Nasri started the game well but faded away and was very ineffective, then there is Yaya Toure who did absolutely nothing until he decided he was ready to show his quality with a great pass to Dzeko in the build up to our first goal, as some of you may know I have always been a critic of Toure because he frustrates me, he could contribute so much more than he does but if he doesn't want to then he wont.

On the upside there were some really good performances on show, Fernando had a solid debut, Clichy worked tirelessly and Silva was up and down involved in both defence and attack, there are three players though that particularly caught my eye.

Stevan Jovetic looked bright again, he was strong, worked hard and is clearly a class act, for me he was trying to hard to score at times and just needed to let his natural ability shine through, once he settles into the team he is going to bag plenty of goals.

Aleksandar Kolarov, this guy has improved no end compared to when we signed him. Last season he grew on me because he seemed to be getting better with every game and yesterday proved that he is continuing in that trend, he looks so confident in his ability and bosses the left hand side of the pitch, if he keeps maturing as a player I don't think we will see a better left back than him all season.

Edin Dzeko, he was fantastic yesterday, he attacked well, he held the ball up well, he defended well and his work rate was second to none, his man of the match award was thoroughly deserved. Now I have always maintained that Edin looks a far better player when he works hard and that is definitely the case but his main problem is being consistent, hopefully he will keep turning out these selfless performances for the team because if he does he is a certain game winner.

All in all it was a decent performance against a good team away from home, it is clear that we can play much much better but it is only the first game and the main thing was that we came away with all three points.