MAN CITY v Wigan: The FA Cup Final PREVIEW – City’s Probable Team
10 May
Scott Sinclair is the only memeber of the first team squad unavailable for selection as Roberto Mancini prepares for this FA Cup final. Costel Pantilimon is likely to be picked in goal even though he admitted recently that he will look to leave in the summer, while the back four should see Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany, Matija Nastasic and Gael Clichy return after they were all rested against West Brom.
Yaya Touré and Gareth Barry will form the central midfield partnership, with David Silva, Sergio Aguero and Carlos Tevez offering attacking options. The only dilemma Mancini has is between James Milner and Samir Nasri, with the former a safer bet thanks to his greater work ethic and team spirit but the Frenchman, having shown a more incisive streak recently, is favourite to get the nod.
Here is the side Mancini could select:
Referee: Andre Marriner – The highly regarded official has been in charge for three City fixtures this season, those being the 2-2 home draw with Liverpool, the 3-1 away victory to Newcastle and the 2-0 win against Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium.
Prediction: MAN CITY 3 – 1 Wigan – It has the potential to be a very entertaining, open affair but with Wigan missing a number of key defenders, City should be able to pose a constant threat going forward. Goals to be scored by Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tévez, Yaya Touré and Arouna Koné.
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I would be gutted no to see Rodwell in the starting lineup. I would pick him over Barry.
No chance. How can you take a chance on a semi fit young (ish) lad who more than likely cant last 90 minutes against a seasoned England international who virtually never let’s us down! Barry has been one of our best players this season and there is no way he should make way for a lad who is currently a lightweight and who will probably not even make it anyway!
This is a game where you need attacking talents more than a defending one esp knowing that 5 of the Wigan’s main defenders are out. There is no question on Barry’s excellence this season and he is hugely underrated, however; Rodwell attacking prowess and his ability to be in the right pockets of spot within the opponent’s box along side Wigan’s injury list make a strong case for him.
it would be a mighty call to put rodwell before Barry, not one I think can be truly justified. Every team in every game needs a player to tidy up in front of the back 4, and I would suggest Barry is the best player at our club at doing that
That mighty call cost you the FA cup. The tepid deep lying pairing of Barry and Yaya not only gave Wigan too much space in the midfield where they dominated the area but also it was Barry who caused Zab’s red card thus tipping the game in favor of Wigan
Will anyone from the club for heavens sake fire mancini ?!! The man is not a coach at all he changed tevez for rodwell (and don’t you ever tell me again that rodwell was good at everton, for us he is rubbish two goals gifted from him at the start of the season and virtually anonymous in each and every game he played except with chelsea). Mancini do you have to be that clever to understand that yaya is great and can show his quality only when he pushes forward ?? At that deep position he is completely useless !
we need serious improvement. first of all mancini must get the sack not today but yesterday. mourinho or klop won’t come to us so pelegrini would be great for us he created that great malaga team from nothing. hopefully because of pelegrini isco could come too. reus from borussia would be exactly the all mighty winger we need the last three years. also a great anchor man barry is too slow not the mention the england patient named jack rodwell. a great forward is needed too but I can’t see anyone available (60m for cavani would be just too much) and a central midfielder like benat from bilbao. muniain would be a great winger too. or maybe I could play better than many of them call my agent if you wish. we should sell dzeko and all the players we don’t need to lower our salary payments with financial fair play coming. players who didn’t play at all like maicon rodwell kolarov pantilimon
and lescott kolo toure and of course garcia should be sold even for less than 5millions.generally all the players we signed at the summer were simply rubbish with the exception of nastasic. but mancini knows to buy only when he is provided with a check of 500millions
dude rodwell is pretty good too ya know
man rodwell sucks. that simple. he is not a good passer he does not have a good shot, not the physical power, not the tactical vision and the strength that is required to play as an anchor man. and most important he is injured all the time. just one player would do for me with so many injuries and he is alexandre pato. not someone named jack rodwell.
to be honest, what we should do is invest a lot more on our youth systems so that he have a good long term plan. and i know its a pain in the !@# to admit but bacon face was a really good manager. Now, I realize mancini is not a good manager for CITY, but he was a good manager in italy. You have to understand that If we sell Dzeko and people like that, they could be much better in the future. for example, we dont play Dzeko right (i know it sounds like a broken recorder but) to be fair,if we played him like wolfsburg did, he would possibly be netting 20+ goals a season. You also should realize that many players wont come, I sincerely doubt reus will ever come to city, not at this point in time. Cavani is hopeful and to be fair, the financial fair play is only one year right? to be honest, dont hate me for this but if City insist with the money wins everything motto than we should not follow the fair play rules for one year, and compeletely dominate the next 10. for example, what would be better, 1 year with winning the premier league and the next 10 winning 4 CL, or 1 year winning the premier league the the next 10 never winning the CL, losing to bayern 50-0 on agregette.
honestly, if city had a good manager like guardiola or somthing, they would be champions league contenders, heck most players do way better when they arent in city,
ballotelli (remmember him right) is scoring a goal per game even though a lot are from penalties, he is one of their key players right now.
Man city last year had the best roster in europe. That simple. does anyone know other team that has players like balotelli or dzeko or de jong on the bench? we just don’t have a good manager. this year if we didn’t have hart at the champions league with dortmund and real we would have lost 5 or 6-0. (remember who gifted the goal to gotze ?) mancini almost lost the title last year when we were by far the best team and united sucked
A knee jerk reaction to a cup loss is not what we are about. May be you need to take a look back to see where we were and how far we have come. It was not long time ago in 30th May 1999 in League One Play Off Final at the old Wembley stadium and City are 0-2 down to Gillingham. United did not win a thing last season, it does not mean that Sir Alex had to be sacked. A thinking like yours fits more like a team like Chelsea who change coaches at whim with any bad results. No team has continuous success even United with all the glory has gone some years like last year with nothing. Being a runner up in EPL and FA cup is still not a bad thing.
my opinion and aproach about mancini was the same from his time at inter until now. the low ambitions of the “old” city fans have been quite stressful. it has not been just the loss of the cup I don’t give a damn about the cup when we are humiliated in this way from ajax sunderland qpr everton west ham and all these teams from whom we are many levels above. when we spend a billion or so and we can’t go past the group stage or we can’t win wigan something’s going wrong. And at this point the root of all our problems is one. the (so called) coach mancini. He is a loser at players management he doesn’t have the slightest idea about tactics even though he is italian, he don’t train the players well, he buys players well above their quality (15m for garcia 15 for rodwell 25 for lescott 7 for maicon) paying them exorbitant wages. balotelli left us he is the leader of ac milan de jong left us he was a pleasure to watch before his injury adam johnson left and he was great at times for sunderland. he buys players just in case who he do not even trust like sinclair. As for chelsea last year they won the champions league and the next year the will sign the best manager, mourinho. Do you really think we can catch them with mancini? NO WAY!
May be
you need to take a look
back to see where we
were and how far we
have come
it is obvious that when you spend a billion or so you will improve even without a manager (or perhaps I should have said even with mancini ?)
In four years Mancini has won 3rd, 2nd, 1st in EPL and FA cup and community shield. By any standards, this is great results. As far as Murinho, he is the only coach I do not want in Manchester City, as he is nothing more than football whore who thinks he has to be treated like a virgin!
At the end of the day, whatever club owners decide I am behind them even if it does not bode me well and as the news suggests by BBC, etc, it seems Mancini is a goner
coaches are not made and are not judged only by the titles they have won but by other factors as well. You very strongly support mancini so I should remind you some things you seem not to take into account. Mancini was fired by inter after mourinho and with juventus still at serie b milan not existent and inter full of quality players at their best like sneider milito maicon eto he won the league just on the finish line from roma. The next year he got the sack. He was signed for us, he is the puppet the europe laughs at, he failed to progress from the group stage for two consecutive years. This year he came fourth not even managing a win, scoring only 5 goals in 6 matches while he was managing the premier league champions, the winners of the best league in the world. And now I ask YOU. If this is not a failure then what the hell you mean by the word failure??!
honestly, just give the guy (mancini) one more chance. This might have just been a sloppy season. though to be fair, our squad should be able to match the likes of dortmund. hopefully we will do better next season. but we need to win our remaining games to build in momentum. In my opinion, if he does this again, sack him to friggin jakarta but he might impress next season, you never know.
mancini in order to impress must be granted a blank check again and buy all the star players to make a team. he does not know other way. he is a noob tactically too