Manchester City have it all to do in the second leg of their Europa league tie at Eastlands next week as they slumped to a 2-0 defeat away in the Ukraine. City started with Tevez on the bench and it showed as City were pretty much always second to the ball. Chelsea flop, Shevchenko scored the opening goal after 24 minutes as City failed to clear their lines properly. That was something that was the problem with City all game long as wave after wave of Kiev attacks developed. Second half and City started with only ten men as David Platt was sent back down the tunnel to retrieve Mario Balotelli and our whole substitution bench. In fairness it didn’t make a whole bit of difference and it wasn’t long before Balotelli was replaced by Tevez.
From that point City seemed a little more livelier but still looked very vulnerable when Kiev would counter. The second goal of the game came from almost comical defending from City, allowing Gusev to control then rifle the ball past Hart, all from just outside the six yard box.
In truth it was only a fine stop for Hart later on that stopped it becoming three and although City did have a few chances they will have to perform much better in seven days time if they want to continue in this competition.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
CITY v Villa (Preview)
Manchester City will be hoping to put the disappointment of Sundays draw with the FA Cup fifth round tie with Aston Villa at Eastlands tomorrow. City beat Villa in the league fixture earlier on in the season but the Villans have improved somewhat since that game after the appointment of Gerard Houllier as manager and
City fans will not need reminding of their new striker, Darren Bent scoring on his debut, against City. Again City will be without DeJong, Johnson, Given and Vincent Kompany although David Silva and Micah Richards may return to the squad as City pursue their first silverware since 1976. This will probably be the best route for City to progress to the final as some really big teams have already fallen by the way side and with Reading knocking out Everton yesterday that means we will face the Championship side on Sunday March 13th if we brush aside Villa.
Manchester City have the edge with our encounters with Aston Villa in the FA Cup with Villa last knocking us out in the Quarter Final stage in the 1938 season. The most recent meeting saw us win 2-1 in the replay at Eastlands. However as we all know, stats mean nothing and this could be a make or break game for Mancini with the Premiership title already out of our reach a defeat in the FA Cup will leave a very tough group of teams left in the Europa League for us to get past, if we beat Kiev.
City fans will not need reminding of their new striker, Darren Bent scoring on his debut, against City. Again City will be without DeJong, Johnson, Given and Vincent Kompany although David Silva and Micah Richards may return to the squad as City pursue their first silverware since 1976. This will probably be the best route for City to progress to the final as some really big teams have already fallen by the way side and with Reading knocking out Everton yesterday that means we will face the Championship side on Sunday March 13th if we brush aside Villa.
Manchester City have the edge with our encounters with Aston Villa in the FA Cup with Villa last knocking us out in the Quarter Final stage in the 1938 season. The most recent meeting saw us win 2-1 in the replay at Eastlands. However as we all know, stats mean nothing and this could be a make or break game for Mancini with the Premiership title already out of our reach a defeat in the FA Cup will leave a very tough group of teams left in the Europa League for us to get past, if we beat Kiev.
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