Manchester City v Newcastle – Match preview.
Posted on October 2nd, 2010 | 61 Comments |
The task is an unenviable one and I would happily shake hands on a point now without us having to play the match. Somehow I don’t think that City will quite go for that mind!
As Paul Reece highlighted in his ‘Top ten facts and stats to know about Manchester City’, Newcastle are without a win in at Man City in the last 17 visits. Given the quality on show at Manchester City currently I don’t hold out much hope of that run coming to an end come Sunday afternoon. Mind you, most of us said the same thing about the Everton and Chelsea matches, and look what happened there!
Pablo Zabaleta will miss the game after picking up a hamstring injury during the Europa League match against Juventus midweek whilst Nigel de Jong, David Silva and former Magpie, James Milner, will be pushing for a recall to the starting XI after being rested midweek. Adam Johnson, goalscorer in midweek, will be looking to start the match against the team he supported as a boy.
Last time out it was Manchester City who came out on top in what was billed as a title tussle by some. Whilst that tag may be a bit premature it should be noted that City stifled Chelsea and ground their way to a 1-0 win. They played in that game with a team of;
Man City – Joe Hart, Dedryck Boyata, Kolo Touré, Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta, Yaya Touré, Nigel de Jong, Gareth Barry, David Silva, James Milner, Carlos Tevez.
Newcastle could soon welcome back Danny Simpson and Danny Guthrie as they have both stepped up training and are scheduled to play in the reserves during the week whilst Sol Campbell is fit to feature after recovering from a slight thigh injury that kept him out of the game against Stoke. Steven Taylor is still a couple of weeks away from resuming full training leaving only Steve Harper and Dan Gosling as long term injury casualties for Newcastle.
Team selection has been a hotly debated topic all week and from what I can tell by the noises that Chris Hughton has been making I don’t envisage there being too many changes from the team that played in the Stoke debacle. I think that Jonas Gutierrez may be recalled to the starting line-up at the expense of Hatem Ben Arfa and wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only change. That would leave us with a team looking like;
Newcastle – Tim Krul, James Perch, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique*, Wayne Routledge, Cheick Tiote, Joey Barton, Jonas Gutierrez, Kevin Nolan, Andy Carroll.
* Jose Enrique will make his 100th appearance for Newcastle if he plays.
As I alluded to earlier, I’m personally not expecting us to get much out of the game. I would like us to have a go and put in a good performance, and if we could sneak a draw it would be a fantastic result.
Unfortunately I feel that Manchester City will have too much for us and that we will be on the end of another defeat as we head into the international break.
My prediction: Man City 3-0 Newcastle.
Howay the lads!
Date – Sunday, 3rd October, 2010.
Kick-off – 1:30pm.
Venue – The City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester (obviously).
NUFC Blog’s “Opposite View” on the Man City Blog (by workyticket).
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
Good review fella; I write for a City site and stumbled upon this whilst checking newsnow. I went for a 3-1 City win. Toon aint had anything at Eastlands/Maine Road in recent years and don’t think that’ll change on Sunday.
That being said this is not the easy tie that some City fans would have us believe. And Andy C has real potential (is in my fantasy footy team so he must be good)and I like your manager.
Hope you have a good day in rainy Manchester – mostly a good set of fans at The Toon – but also hope you go away with no points in the bag.
Hope you stay up (and you should, way too much crap in the PL and NU aint included in that IMO) but that first season back is always tough. But if you do stay up, I reckon you’ll be established in the PL again (after that dreadful relegation season)and can build on it. Always had a soft spot for The Toon – great to watch (mostly) and a massive club that warrants success (but NEVER at City’s expense – CTID).
Keep up the good work. Love quality fansites.