Things We Think We Think #246

1. Given our Premier League form against Burnley at home, perhaps we should just be happy that we didn’t lose on Saturday, but still a draw felt like a disappointment. Losses for Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Swansea and Bournemouth meant that a point, though useful, represented an opportunity missed against a side whose away form is stinkier than a fishmonger’s apron.

2. It could be down to enforced changes, as three players who featured at Arsenal (Lazar Marković, Evandro and Sam Clucas) were unavailable on Saturday, but this was the first time that Marco Silva’s Tigers looked unfocused and lacking in purpose. Silva himself put it down to nerves, though it’s odd that City can play at Old Trafford and the Emirates with Vince McMahon-ian swagger and then seem psychologically undone by Sean Dyche’s Clarets.

3. Dieumerci Mbokani has waited a while for a chance to show Marco Silva what he can do, and frankly he blew it. Impressive when played as a lone frontman by Mike Phelan, the Congolese striker was unavailable when Silva arrived, called up for international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations. Against Burnley though, he gave the Portuguese head coach no reason to consider him for the Leicester game whatsoever, and he may find himself pencilled in with the kids and stiffs against a Sportpesa XI.

4. Shaun Maloney is another one who hasn’t had much of a look in under Silva, but he didn’t just fail to impress given a start against Burnley, he was near anonymous. Back to bench duty for him, most likely.

5. If we’re to extract positives from Burnley – and it’s hard, given the game’s remarkably uneventful nature – it’s that City rarely looking like losing. The visitors did flay a few shots wide, but concerted pressure on the City goal materialised infrequently. Given our ability to haemorrhage both goals and points in the 2016 bit of the 2016/17 season, that’s a plus point. Even if, two days on, it still doesn’t quite feel like it.

6. Leicester, then. They’ve been in the news lately after sacking the man who created a miracle for following it up with the expected. Since undertaking the sporting equivalent of butchering Bambi and violently dismembering its cervine remains, they’ve slipped into the bottom three, a position the horrified world probably hopes they remain in. They’re next for City, and it’s a game we cannot afford to lose.

7. That’s assuming they lose tonight, while we’re recording the Amber Nectar podcast (which we’re sure you’ll be watching instead of the football itself). It’d be handy – if they start their next home game in the relegation zone having just committed heroicide, it’ll be a febrile atmosphere at the King Power stadium. One that City can hopefully capitalise upon.

8. We’ve noticed that the Hull City twitter account, while still resolutely declining to use the club’s name as per the instructions of the owner’s dismal offspring, has become a little more interactive of late. We congratulate them on this and for finally realising that the owner’s view of City fans as “militant hooligans” is slanderous rubbish – however, our query about the restoration of concessions next season went ominously unanswered. It’s getting close to the point at which clubs begin to annouce their pricing for the following campaign, and you’d have to be an idiot of unfathomable proportions to look at the membership scheme and conclude anything other than that it’s been an act of colossal, avoidable self-harm. So why aren’t the club eagerly promising to ditch it and end the ludicrous practice of punishing seniors, the disabled and the next generation? Unless…

9. Paul Merson has now, unbelievably, suggested that Leicester should chase Marco Silva up as their new manager. Where do you begin? In Merson’s world a few weeks back, Silva was a know-nowt foreigner who had no place taking a job that was tailor-made for the numerous out-of-work English coaches (who, at the time if you remember, included that well known English gent Thierry Henry) that deserved an opportunity at a Premier League club despite their various previous failings. Now, apparently, Silva is worthy of being headhunted by the reigning Premier League champions. Just shut your face Merson, you are clearly as thick and entirely unaware of yourself as you come across.

10. Concessions, City, will achieve more than five games for the price of four offers, and make you Premier League rules compliant.

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