MAN CITY v Watford – The PREVIEW: City’s Probable Team
4 Jan
Devoid of the services of the Touré brothers and Abdul Razak, Roberto Mancini is also missing a whole host of squad members due to injury. It means that he may not be able to rotate the side as much as he ideally would have done, but there should still be more than enough quality to dispose of Watford.
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Costel Pantilimon could be given an opportunity in goal, as he was for last season’s FA Cup third round match against Manchester United, whilst Karim Rekik is likely to replace Gael Clichy on the left of defence. Scott Sinclair should be handed a very rare start, whilst Sergio Aguero’s absence means that Carlos Tévez is scheduled to partner Edin Dzeko. Mario Balotelli could be named on the bench.
Here is the side Mancini could select:
Visitors:They are likely to deploy a 3-5-2 formation, with their possible starting XI something along these lines: Bond – Ekstrand, Hoban, Nosworthy – Cassetti, Hogg, Abdi, Chalobah, Pudil - Deeney, Vydra. (thanks to Dan Cohen for this information.
Referee: Phil Dowd – This will be the first FA Cup game that Dowd has refereed City. His most recent Premier League match involving the Blues was last season’s pulsating 3-3 home draw with Sunderland.
Prediction: MAN CITY 3 – 1 Watford – It could be quite an open, entertaining affair with plenty of chances. City’s extra quality should shine through, with goals to be scored by Edin Dzeko, James Milner, Carlos Tevez and Troy Deeney.
William Hill have some excellent odds for this match: Edin Dzeko score first and City to win 3-1 is hugely tempting at 33/1, whilst Scott Sinclair to score the final goal of the game is 7/1.
‘pantillimon will be bamed in goal’ made me laugh that one. Pretty sure you mean launched in goal but cant find it on google, either way, wonderful.
Would really like to see Guidetti and Balo up front for the start. Would be nice to see Guidetti get some time and for Balo to play to shut people up about his “fight” with Mancini
You have a quite strong team up there. Bobby should include a couple of players from Youth academy. Not sure what all talk on producing home-grown talents come from if they can not feature in a 2 or 3 games during the season. Denis Suárez, Luca Scapuzzi and Guidetti are just a few who can play a part in the game tomorrow.
Guidetti has been out or months with a virus to a nerve. He may be able to return before the end o the season at best
Guidetti is understandable. However; they have to seriously start thinking on how to integrate our Youth. Lescott, Barry, Kolo are in their 30s. Yaya is almost there. Tevez would be here at most by end of his contract [which also put him on the edge of 30 years old]. All it suggests that majority of the above players would not playing for City in 2 or 3 years and are passed their prime. I do not think it is sustainable to spend another 200 million pounds or more to replace those folks unless they plan to integrate our own home-grown talent.
And the talent does not grow on a cookie jar, they need to nurture it by giving them first team options.
I was just commenting on guidetti, not whether we should blood some youngsters or not. Goodness
does anyone know what time the team arrives, I’m taking the kids and they want to see the boys get off the coach???
Cheers