Manchester City Preview

Well, up today is the match with league leaders and nouveau riche billionaires’ club, Manchester €ity.  I’m sure we all liked Man €ity better when they were just Noel and Liam Gallagher’s club or for American soccer fans, when it was the club where Claudio Reyna plied his trade.

Now, they’re more known for the aforementioned billions from their UAE owner, Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and their seeming propensity to be in for every striker or player worth over £20 million in the world.  €iteh have a wealth of players in their attacking ranks including the likes of Edin Dzeko, Mario Balotelli, David Silva, Sergio Agüero and the now want-away, Carlos Tevez.  This isn’t even including their strikers on loan, ex-Gunner Emmanuel Adebayor (on loan to Sp*rs) and Roque Santa Cruz (on loan to Real Betis).

They have plenty in midfield and defense as well with players such as Adam Johnson, Gareth Barry, Nigel de Jong, Alexander Kolarov, Joleon Lescott, et al.  It’ll be interesting to see how Mancini sets out his charges as he can go a bit defensive. like a lot of Italian managers, when he wants.  Last year he was known to trot out no less than an entire midfield of holding midfielders at times.  They’ve been more open in their play this year but €ity may look to sit back a little and look to hit us on the break early as we only know one way- attack.

For Gunners this will be an interesting match to gauge how far we’ve actually come since The Game That Will Not Be Named.  Our Chelsea win recently was nice but despite Man €ity’s recent blip against the same club, the Sky Blues are the league leaders and still are setting the standard these days in the Premier League.  Yes, they have yet to follow through on a whole season of playing that well but again, they are the current league leaders.

This will also be interesting because of facing former Gunners, Ga룠€£ichy and $amir Na$ri.  Though €£ichy may miss the game due to being sent off last match out.  Ha, I seem to have forgotten if that suspension applies to this match or if  €ity had appealed it.  Either way, there’ll be ample reason to want to come out and play well and show a little fight and continue the progression back into the Top 4.  And with Chelsea’s 1-1 draw today with Wigan, Arsenal can pull level on points with the Blues albeit still behind on goal difference (barring a 18-2 Gunners win!).  Plus, if Sp*rs drop points against Sunderland, Arsenal can leapfrog Tottenshite into 4th place.

With it being a full 8 days since our last match you can expect Wenger to run out the best squad available.  So, if I had to guess I think our starting lineup will look like this:

Szczesny; Djourou – Koscielny – Mertesacker – Vermaelen; Ramsey – Song – Arteta; Walcott – Van Persie – Gervinho

Form guide
Arsenal: WWWDWW
Man City: WWWDWL

Referee: Phil Dowd

Come on you Gunners!