City 4 (Four) Villa 0 (Nil, zero, zippo, natta, zilch)

Manchester City continued on their quest to constantly annoy the ‘big boys’ and their dominance today as they dispatched a poor Aston Villa side 4-0. I am sure all the pundits not used to seeing sky blue at the summit of the Premiership will look more towards it being a case of Aston Villas poor defence rather than City’s slick attack being the reason for the victory today. Credit is seldom given to the Blue side of Manchester.
In truth it was both, Villa were poor when it came to repelling the City attack and more often than not it was a stray pass from us that broke down our attack rather than decisive tackling from the Villa back line. However, you still have to score, and despite having Tevez on the bench we still scored four without reply. That deserves credit from pundits in itself, considering most of them said we could only score through Tevez.
Even when City were three or four goals up you still witnessed players tracking back and chasing to win balls. Agbonglahor was limited to two or three runs into Kompany and Downing and co were almost non participants. In fact 4-0 is somewhat of an injustice to City and I feel that if the game was not in the busy Christmas schedule of thick and fast games then maybe City would not have eased off toward the end.
Job well done by Mancinis men and despite the fact we may not be top at the end of the day, with United playing later today and Arsenal tomorrow, the fact still remains is that we are still very much in the mix, and that is going to continue to annoy and frustrate a lot of people.

Barcodes V City 1-3!!!

So it appears that City were not ‘slow starters’ against Everton in the last game but merely learning as it was City who started the brightest this go around scoring two goals in the opening five minutes. Gareth Barry opened the scoring for City on minute numero 2 before Carlos Tevez doubled the lead after five.
To say that City were then comfortable from there on in would not be swallowed by any City supporter reading this as even against Huddersfield all those years ago, we did need the tenth to secure the points!
City, as the away team, had less of the possession, less shots on goal and less shots off target than Newcastle. In fact only the foul count was higher, but with it being City it means any trip or unbalanced run resulted in a foul on a City player, meanwhile Tevez is molested in the penalty area and the referees arms wave play on like he just hasn’t seen a re-enactment of the shower scene in American History X!
But I digress, truth is Citys stats point to this, our possession doesn’t have to be much, we still create. Our attempts on target half the time today resulted in goals and our shots off target were a minimum, meaning we don’t rush and take our time, (sometimes) .
Mr Tevez, or as I like to call him, The Almighty Blue, showed again today that he will fight for our club and will continue to score goals for our club meanwhile Mr Ashley showed that he still needs two seats in the VIP section and no matter how rich you are, pies are still good. So dumb to get rid of a good manager! Good news for him is, Championship football next year……more games……more pies, it’s a win win. Oh yeah and City are second in the league. Bring on Villa!

Bernstein To Be New FA Chairman

Former Manchester City chairman David Bernstein has been nominated to take over from Lord Triesman as the new chairman of the Football Association. As you may remember, David spent nine years on our board of directors, five of which as chairman.
He was born in St Helens, Lancashire in 1943 and replaced Francis Lee at City in 1998 and saw us drop to the depths of Division Two before returning to Premiership. During his time at City he also who led the negotiations which saw us secure the lease for our Eastlands stadium. He left Manchester City and was replaced by John Wardle following a boardroom dispute over the transfer of Robbie Fowler.
Bernstein became chairman of Wembley Stadium in 2008 and sat on the boards of a number of public companies including French Connection, overseeing the FCUK marketing campaign. He is also the president of the National Association of Disabled Supporters.
Now he has been nominated as the new chairman of the FA. The FA Council will be asked to endorse the appointment on Jan 25th 2011.
When asked, Mr Bernstein said, ’I am honoured to be asked to take on the role as chairman of the FA’ and added ‘It is a tremendous challenge but I look forward to working with the board, the staff at the FA and everyone in football from local playing fields to Wembley and the International stage.’
It certainly is a positive appointment for the FA who have had a terrible year with the failed World Cup bid and failed World Cup performance in South Africa.

CITY 1-2 Everton

So Manchester City will not be atop the table over Christmas as many Blues had wished and possibly even expected after losing out to Everton, 2-1. City started badly and conceded after only a few minutes after the defence went to sleep allowing Cahill to net the opener. City looked far from the slick, assured passing side of previous games and this was possibly down to the fact that because of the snowfall, and under soil heating caused the pitch to be sluggish……….ok so maybe not but worth the try.
In truth City’s passing was wayward and far too many times we played loose balls and that is never a recipe for success. Pablo Zabaletta went off for treatment to a bleeding head wound and while he was away Baines scored Evertons second. Maybe Mancini should have brought on Boateng as his replacement and maybe the medical staff should have got him patched up and back on earlier. As it was, Baines exploited the space Zab was patrolling and City went into the break two down.
On a positive note Tevez had withdrawn his transfer request and as such kept the captains armband and it was business as usual for our pitbull captain. City looked better in the second half and pulled a goal back through an own goal but that as to be the end of the scoring, despite Everton being put down to ten men following two yellow cards for Anichebe.
City dominated the possession stats and had at least one legitimate hand ball penalty decision turned down. With our recent results against Everton it was hardly surprising that this would be the case though. As for not being top over Christmas, it would have been nice with it being the first time its happened since 1929 but it also shows just how far City have come for this to even be a possibility. Keep the faith City fans, there will be days like this but it wasn’t too long ago that most of our days were like this, and all in all things look brighter at the City of Manchester Stadium.

City, Europa Knockout Stages

So City, having progressed from the Europa League group stage now head into the first knockout round. They have been drawn against Greek Super League side Aris Salonika. This team progressed in the group after first having to qualify beating Jagiellonia Bialystock 4-3 over two legs and downing Austria Vienna 2-1 on aggregate.
To the group stage they went and really not to shabby results beating Atletico Madrid twice (1-0 at home and 3-2 away), a win and defeat with Rosenborg and finally a draw and loss to Bayer Leverkusen.
They are currently 5th in their domestic league with a game in hand although they have lost on each occasion they played the main boys on the block (Panathinaikos, Olympiakos and AEK Athens. In those games not a single goal was scored by Aris which bodes well for Manchester City. The ties will commence the week starting the 7th of February with the return leg a week later.
Now if City manage to progress through this round they face a stiffer test against either Besiktas or Dynamo Kiev.
Now Besiktas had to qualify for the group stage, but once in they only lost the one game, at home to FC Porto. They beat Rapid Wien and CSKA Sofia twice but couldn’t do anything but draw and lose to Porto. If we were to meet them in the last 16 it would probably be our toughest test in the competition to date.
Kiev actually had an easier route to this point, playing teams like Sheriff, BATE and AZ. Dynamo did the double over AZ but failed to get maximum points from the other two, lesser known teams. Only getting the single point against Sheriff and a draw in the opening fixture against BATE meant they only got a total of four points from that team.
The last 16 matches are scheduled for March 10th and 17th.

Juve 1, CITY 1

It seemed typical City that in a week dominated by talk of striker trouble at Eastlands, with Ballotelli’s ‘attitude’ and the recent transfer request handed in by Carlos Tevez, that it was a striker who has been loaned out twice and out more than in the team that would secure City’s progression through to the knockout stage in top spot.
Brazilian sensation, Jo netted in the second half to bring Manchester City back on level terms on 76 minutes after Nicolo Giannetti’s opener for the Turin club close to half time. Jo did have the best of the City chances, going close early on in the second half and having a tap in chance cut out by the Juve defenders.
Roberto Mancini used this game to ring in the changes and as a result only Boateng and Jo kept their places from Saturdays win at Upton Park. Youngsters Boyata and Nimely, were given a start as City dominated their opponents. Two penalty appeals went unheard from City before Juve went infront. However it was the City fans who were the star performers on the night. Despite frigid temperatures, at times scrappy play and the fact that City were already through, 1500 made the trip and were, as always, in good voice.
Tomorrow City will find out who they now play in the next round. The draw is live from Monaco at 1pm CET (Midday BST).

CITY v Juve

At last the focus can turn to football matches for Manchester City. After a week dominated by the reports that Carlos Tevez had handed in a transfer request attentions now turn to Turin. City of course are already through to the knockout stages but a win against Italian giants Juventus and finishing top of the group would surely be the icing on the cake.
Domestically City now head into a hectic part of the season with games coming quick and fast and it is with one eye on the Premier League that Mancini selects tonight’s team. Strikers Balotelli and Tevez will remain behind with injured striker Adebayor, and as Roque Santa Cruz wasn’t registered for the competition it leaves Jo as the only recognized striker.
Despite already qualifying Mancini will still be going all out for the top spot. "It is important to win this game because we want to top the group. We prefer not to meet the teams who come from the Champions League“ Mancini told press.
Micah Richards also believes that the players that are selected tonight will be looking to perform to their maximum in order to force their names onto the team sheet on a more regular note.
Adam Johnson however wants to do his best for City in memory of one of his friends, who died recently. Rushden and Diamonds goalkeeper, Dale Roberts who was found dead in his home on Tuesday. “I’m absolutely devastated about Dale’s passing; he was a really good friend,” said Adam. “I grew up with Dale. We were in the same class at school and also played at Middlesbrough together. His parents are friends with my parents and we often went on holiday together.
“I know he was so desperate to improve and get up the leagues as a player, and he was a really good keeper, too. My heart goes out to his family and friends – he was one of my best mates and I’ll really miss him.
“I’m going to go out to Juventus to play in honour of Dale and dedicate my performance and hopefully a victory to his memory.”