Manchester City travel to Birmingham today with the hopes of maintaining their pressure on the Premier Leagues top two. Yesterday saw both Manchester United and Arsenal bag wins and pull away from City and Chelsea also bagged three points to move them to within a point of City.
City are still without Balotelli, and of course Adam Johnson and Micah as they look to bounce back from the draw against Notts County at the weekend. Tevez is a doubt also as he has a back injury but knowing Tevez even if he has to move about the pitch in a wheelchair he will, and still get more chances than Jo!
In the fixture at Eastlands in November there were no goals and City do not travel well to Birmingham in recent times. In fact the last time City won at St Andrews was back in August 2005 when Barton and Cole provided the goals and overturned a Birmingham lead to grab the three points. Although to be fair City didn’t get to play Birmingham each of those seasons as they fluctuated from leagues.
On the plus side Manchester City have picked up 21 points away from Eastlands this season although they haven’t scored an away goal in the league since the turn of the year. Only Arsenal have a better away record picking up three more points along the way. Couple that with the fact that we have kept 11 clean sheets home and away, equal best with Chelsea and Sunderland and this could be a very interesting tie.
Edin Dzeko will be the big name on show again today and will be looking for his first league goal for City. Despite ‘City ruining football’ he was the only one through the ‘in’ door. Bridge, Adebayor and RSC the main ones to go the other way. In fact Birmingham were more active in bringing people in with former Newcastle and Wolfsburg (Dzekos strike partner) Obafemi Martins and of course Curtis Davis.
Boss Mancini will look to recall Kompany, DeJong, Silva and Kolo back to the line up as we push on in pursuit of silverware, in any and all guises!
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