please log in to view this image .............................................................................................................................. please log in to view this image Manchester City.................... vs .................... Swansea City The Eitihad Stadium Manchester Mon 15/8/11 8PM KO Referee Mike Dein For travel information to the stadium, click HERE Welcome one and all to the first match thread of the new season for two teams hailing from opposite ends of the footballing financial spectrum. I don't know about everyone else but I'm counting the seconds until the big kick off now, and this, to me at least, helps it seem that little bit closer. With a weekend of action having already passed, all eyes will be on this match for many reasons. Firstly, Manchester City have strengthened this season, and look likely to continue to do so... so the "Big 4" (as well as Spurs and a few others) will be watching with interest how the new signings are fitting in for Mancini's men. Secondly, Swansea are an unknown quantity. Playing fashionable football in an unfashionable area of the world, they have managed to almost (and I mean almost) sneak into the Premier League while the rest of the UK wasn't watching... however toward the end of last season exhilirating performances in front of the Sky TV cameras ensured our secret wasn't quite so well kept by the time the playoff final came around. Either way, there's going to be a lot of neutrals watching this game with a great deal of interest and curiosity. The Match; Manchester City will be looking, hoping, and only the most pessemistic City fan would fail to be expecting, to beat Swansea City easily at home in their first home game of the season. City have had a summer where they've been linked with just about every "world class" footballer on the face of the earth, and given the owners wealth you'd expect that to continue to be the case unless there's a drastic turn around in the current transfer policy. New signings Clichy, Aguero and Savic will hope to be involved, but with a wealth of talent at his disposal Mancini could still spring a few selection surprises. Swansea City come into the game hoping for... well... anything! It'd be fair to say that every fan is hoping for an upset, but no-one would bet their house on one, and for good reason. It's rumoured Aguero has an 8million annual salary, which is equivalent to what our entire squad earned last year, to give a sense of scale to the task at hand. The Swans will also have new signings looking to be involved... the most likely being Caulker, Vorm and Graham, although I feel Routledge and Lita will both feature at some point. Team News; Manchester City have more or less a complete squad to choose from, although Tevez could be a doubt to play given his slightly tardy return from the off-season. Swansea almost boast a clean bill of health, and the most pressing concern must be Garry Monk's niggling injury which looks likely to keep him out of the first game of the season. Ferrie Bodde remains sidelined, and it remains to be seen if and when he will make it back into the side. Our thoughts are with you, Ferrie. Trivia courtesy of Eurosport; Prior form; Manchester City enjoyed a pre-season tour of the US, picking up a "trophy" on the way... but the most enjoyable part of that was surely Balotelli's infamous backheel? As well as this, they sent a young team to the "Dublin Super Cup" before outplaying a lacklustre looking Inter Milan 3-0. Latterly, of course, they surrendered a two goal half time lead in the Community Shield to their bitter rivals Manchester United, so they'll be looking to hit back straight away. The Swans were probably hoping for an 8-0 City win to be honest... Swansea City started with a few games against local club sides with mixed results, before culminating against Celtic and Real Betis, who were dispatched 2-0 and 1-0 respectively. The nature of the wins was pleasing because, while probably not up to the standard that exists in the upper echelons of the Premiership, it was a good test of our defence going into what is a very difficult season, and two clean sheets will have done wonders for the confidence of our centre backs. Completely guessed lineups; Manchester City - Courtesy of Paulpowersleftfoot Hart Richards Lescott Kompany Kolorov De Jong Milner Yaya toure Silva Balotelli Dzeko Swansea City; Vorm Rangel Williams Caulker Tate Augustien Allen Dobbie Dyer Sinclair Graham Key Battles; please log in to view this image vs please log in to view this image Tate vs Silva/other right winger - After guessing what the possible lineups might be... it has to be said I'm terrified of the possibility of Alan Tate facing up against someone like Silva. Tate was schmullered, for want of a better word, a number of times when deputising at left back in the Championship last season, and it's not his strongest position. Our lack of cover there is a big issue, and it'll be nice to see Taylor back to add a bit of balance to our squad. Analysis; Well, this game has the potential to go two ways I feel. Either we're going to give Man City a game, and it'll be a really interesting contest, or Aguero & Co will have a field day and tear us a new one. I don't want to aknowledge the latter possibility, so let's talk about the former. In goals, we'll probably start with Vorm I'd imagine... and none of us have seen him yet! After 90 minutes you'll know as much as we do! Our defence has a rock in Ashley Williams... on a run of something like 120 games in a row without missing one. Epic. Alongside him expect Steven Caulker, on loan from Spurs, to start in the absence of Garry Monk through injury (which is possibly not a bad thing, given how highly rated Caulker appears to be). At full backs we'll have the "rhymingest defender in the football league - The Times", Angel Rangel at right back, hopefully, marauding up and down and helping out Nathan Dyer in attack. At left back we'd normally start with Neil Taylor but his record dismissal in the playoff semi final means Tate will get the nod, and I think we're all watching this with interest. He played really well there in pre-season... will he be able to contain a world class winger? Let's see... but you know he's backing himself. Midfield is where the game will be won and lost though, I feel. We'll be starting with three central midfielders (unless Buck has a secret plan B!), who I expect to be Augustien, one of Joe Allen and Leon Britton, and Stephen Dobbie. The two holding midfielders (Augustien and Joey/Leon) will have to have the best game of their careers so far if they're to contain, harry and compete with Yaya Toure and Nigel De Jong. Their combination of ability and physiciality is something our boys are unlikely to have faced until now, so they'll need to be up to it if we're to get anything from the game. As per usual, we'll hope that between Dyer, Sinclair and Dobbie they will create, be inventive, and occupy defenders, but I think we won't see as much of the ball as we're used to so they better be prepared to do a lot of tracking back and occupying the right areas of the field to help out the defence. Up front Danny Graham is likely to be up against Lescott and Kompany. Go get 'em son. Brendan Rodgers before the game; Roberto Mancini token snippet before the game; Obviously this article is more from a Swansea point of view, because I know more about my club than yours, but any info of interest will happily be edited in. Here's hoping for an amazing spectacle of free flowing football, with a few goals thrown in to boot! Scottswans famously biased (and ill-fated) prediction; Manchester City 2 - 3 Swansea City. Watch online; http://myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=124360&part=sports (then find a link where the software is "other" or "mediaplayer" and click "play" or http://www.footballstreaming.info/streams/todays-links/
Nice thread Scottswan. Can't wait for Monday. At least we won't be bottom of the table come saturday night. (monday night may be a different story though!). My Brain predicts 2-0 to Man City , my Heart wishes for a 1-1. (a win would obviously cause my brain to implode!)
Heh, I've only gone for 3-2 because that's what I put in the predictor league, so I thought "stick to your guns" and all that! If someone made me put a bet on with my own money, I wouldn't be betting on 3-2, put it that way! You have no idea how long I spent fiddling with the pictures to get them to line up right! Bloomin nonsense!
Can I just say that the honesty employed for 'completely guessed line-ups' has had me chuckling for the last half an hour. Great thread Scotty.
Another terrific match thread!!! Looking forward to being there! I'm predicting 1-3 to us. We're going to take 15 / 20 minutes to get into our groove as per usual against strong opposition then look out. And, as usual the 2nd half will cause nerves to fray but we'll pull through.
As information appears online/in the press over the weekend I'll edit it in if I can keep it under 10,000 characters. Believe it or not, 10,000 isn't that much! I had to shave off 500 characters to make this fit
There are 1,560 words in your post? (I counted em! Had to take my socks off so I could count in blocks of 20) Subscript note: ARGGHHHHH! just spotted that you said characters and not words....makes sense now...that'll teach me to try to be a smart-arse!
It's characters, not words! I'm going to message Mick to see if they're thinking about upping the character limit...
Great thread Scotty, excellent & interesting read. As the game gets closer, it`s getting more nervy. My prediction earlier was 3-1 to Man City, I just hope that that`s the worst scoreline, hopefully it won`t be that bad. Big test for us to see how we`re progressing, I think it`s better to play the "bigger teams" earlier rather than later, don`t know why, so don`t ask. We are favourites for relegation before a ball is kicked in anger, so we have nothing to lose, indeed, we might surprise a few people as the weeks go by, but not on Monday I don`t think. Good game to get a few pointers of how the team will react to the first "test".
Great thread Scott, thanks! I know Taylor has seemed out of favour lately considering the off season transfer antics, but do people reckon he'll be starting on Monday? Or do we think Tate will get the nod?
Taylor is still suspended Doey, last game of his 3 match ban for the red card against Forest in the playoffs.
Until then can I suggest when you start the thread you "reserve" the first 3 or 4 replies as well. you can then use these for further updates and maybe even a match report as well, it would be nice to keep al the important bits at the top of the thread.
Great thread Scotty boy. Although I am still pretty sure Dobbie won't start at Eastlands. I am impressed that you managed to use the words 'rhymingest' and 'schmullered', and one was a direct quote from the Times! You are right about Tatey being the biggest worry for competing in one on one situations, but he has had a couple of really good games in pre-season, so you never know. I fancy him to get a cheeky assist on Monday. My prediction would be 1-1 (Danny Graham) with a Tate assist.
Great match thread Scott, 5 stars! I was feeling confident we could sneak a result here, but as I read this thread, the more I realised that we're probably gonna get smashed by Man City. 3-0 to them I reckon - We always lose the first game of the season anyway. Taylor suspended? Ah crap. Tate against da Silva? ... Oh dear.
