MAN CITY v FC Red Bull Salzburg – THE PREVIEW
30 Nov
The next round of the Europa League is in sight. A win for Man City here, combined with a victory for Lech Poznan against Juventus, would see the Blues progress along with the Poles to the round of 32, where the twelve group winners and runners-up will be joined by the third placed sides from the Champions League group. But that may be looking too far ahead at the moment. Let’s concentrate on the game at hand.
Despite a disappointing away loss to the afore-mentioned Lech Poznan, the Blues have generally performed adequately in this competition and should progress. Roberto Mancini has used the Europa League to hand playing time to a number of his fringe squad members, including the likes of Patrick Vieira and Dedryck Boyata. He is again expected to deploy the rotation policy for the game on Wednesday, with that duo, along with people such as Joleon Lescott, Adam Johnson and Jo sure to see action on the pitch.
The is the side I would expect Mancini to select:
Hart
Boyata Kompany Lescott Kolarov
Zabaleta Vieira
A. Johnson Milner Jo
Balotelli
Subs: Given, Boateng, Richards, Barry, de Jong, Silva, Tévez
Our visitors should not be underestimated, and are arguably more experienced in European competitions than us. They won the Austrian Bundesliga last season, and although they have failed to reproduce that sparkling domestic form this time around, they won all six of their group stage matches in the Europa League last campaign, defeating Lazio and Villarreal to name but two prestigious sides. In this year’s Champions League play-off round, they were narrowly defeated by Israeli team Hapoel Tel Aviv, meaning they were demoted to this competition. In the return leg, City comfortably brushed Salzburg aside, by a margin of 2-0.
Referee: Libor Kovarik - The official from the Czech Republic is, during the day, a financial analyst, who also enjoys a spot of modern architecture.
Prediction: MAN CITY 3 – 0 FC Salzburg. After my perfect prediction against Stoke, let’s hope I’m right again with this! Goals to be scored by Mario Balotelli, Adam Johnson and David Silva.
If we win and there’s a draw in Poland we would still go through, and given that Juventus have drew all of their games so far in europe, it’s a fair bet that could be the result there. I would agree with your team selection apart from giving either De Jong, Barry or Silva the night off and demoting Jo to the subs bench instead of Adebayor. Play a 4-4-2 with Zabeleta and Viera in the middle and Balotelli and Ade up front. We need to get at Salzburg and try and get a couple of goals in the first half hour and then we can settle down and play some possesion football. I, like Mancini feel as though this period is the most important period of our season so far, and if you look five of our games in the next month are at home. In the coming six weeks we have something like 10 games to play and we need to use our squad, even if it means playing the likes of Ade, SWP and Given who are seemingly on the way out. There’s still a long way to go this season, hopefully with us having a couple of good cup runs, but I feel if we can have a good month this December we will be well on our way to having an excellent season.
Imust admit that my favourite part of this blog has to be, bar far, the section on the referee! What a lovely touch, including his hobbies for us to! Haha!
I do hope we can beat them and am predicting a much tighter game than you anticipate, with 1-0 as my prediction, but thatmay change to my original 2-0.
I do disgaree with you over team selection though. After having heard what Mancini has had to say to the press, it excites me to think that he is taking this very seriously, so I stillthink the likes of Tevez will play, but albeit only for 60 minutes or so. I feel we will take the lead and then relax, and think Paddy V will have to play an influential role in proceedings. He needs to keep up with the pace, and so long as Zaba finds the rich vein of form he has inherited, we should be ok. We have a lot of players who are finding their touch, and this European Game will probably suit the likes of Silva more because it will probably not be as physical. One man we ought to keep an eye on too is Balotelli….will be bubbly and boil and bounce over the edge, or keep his nerve and anger concealed? Only time will tell…
Lovely read, thoroughly enjoyed it
I LOVE VIEW FROM A BLUE x
Love your nick, & totally agree: he will be big! Meanwhile super Mario can well do the buisness, but we’ll never keep him 4 long…. Thats when gidetti will b ready to step on to the big scene…. future is blue
GG Mal! this turned out really good! hope to see more great artwork in the future!
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