Sunday 14th April 2013
Live on ITV1 4pm KO
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Wembley…Wembley…We’re the only team in Manchester and were going to Wembley!
A couple of weeks supporters of our American owned neighbours were filling the airwaves of talksport and comments section of websites about how the one competition the players really wanted to the FA Cup more than the league…because it was the only thing that Wio Ferdinand hadn’t won!
So either Ferdinand’s team mates think he’s a twat or equally likely this arrogant statement was aimed more at spoiling our chances of winning silverware this season. That’s the typical snide attribute that there support contains, the spoilers, the sheer arrogance of their support as they were being interviewed outside the swamp before the game on Monday night was only matched by the Tuesday’s Daily Mail Thatcher tribute. The gem of the bunch was how our title win was ‘history now, forgotten and didn’t matter.’ So when/If they win the title this season we should be able to turn round the day after and tell them it doesn’t matter then? I don’t think it works that way but to be fair to the Rags they showed just how much it didn’t matter when they won the league last time and not a sole turned up for the open top tour bus!
For City, not playing particularly well and out of form on our recent travels, and United desperate to make a point of pointing us in our place Monday night had all the makings of a disaster. Supporters more concerned about the cup semi had our trip to Anfield on a Monday night before our trip to Wembley in 2011 fresh in their minds as not only were we awful but we made Andy Carroll look value for money.
However sometimes City surprise you, and you love them for it, as the we started well, with both tempo and purpose, and kept United on the back foot for 90 minutes and put in our best performance of the season by an absolute country mile. Man for man everyone was terrific and even Nasri looked busy and played with purpose as we limited United to daisy cutters from distance and even scored their goal for them (Side note: Joe Hart’s positioning was absolutely awful for their goal). It was satisfying to play them at their own game and spoil their party in their own back door for the second year in the row. Phil Jones…hahahaha
Return to Wembley
Having not been to Wembley since 1999 we return for the 4th time since 2011 (5 if the Charity Shield not been moved due to the Olympics) with the winners facing Wigan in the final. The fact that the Semi Finals shouldn’t be played at Wembley has been written to death but the main factor is after we beat United in the Semi Final the Final was inevitably an anti-climax.
I’ve got to say personally I love being at Wembley, the stadium is terrific and the game against United our supporters really created a wall of noise rarely heard in modern football anymore.
The opposition
We will go into the match favourites to win the game and this will be further influenced by the fact that Chelsea have just returned from Moscow on Thursday night where Rubin Kazan gave them a run for their money and tired Chelsea legs.
Curiously it was announced that both Lampard and Terry will be omitted from the squad that’s already missing Gary Cahil and Ashley Cole through injury with Ryan Betrand and Demba Ba also a doubt.
At the back this leaves Chelsea with Azpilicueta, Ivanovic and David Luiz as a back three unless he re-jigs the backline to play Paulo Ferriera if Bertrand doesn’t make it.
In midfield Ramires and Mikel will protect the back four whilst Oscar, Mata and Hazard will try to resuscitate some life back into Torres should Ba not be fit in time.
City
Mancini got the derby absolutely spot on in terms of team selection and match tactics so the natural thing would be to carry on and not change anything but unfortunately Silva did his hamstring and the countdown to determine whether he will play has received as much attention as Beckham’s broken toe in 2002.
If Silva doesn’t make the game then I will start with Aguero, if he himself is fit to play a full 90 minutes, and play with two up front of move Tevez into mdfield.
The only other selection question is which keeper is to select as young Costel has yet to concede a goal in the FA Cup this season. It is understandable that Costel might want to carry on in goal but it’s not a game to be taking risks with a rookie goalkeeper.
Prediction
This will be the forth time we have faced Chelsea this season and we should be confident of victory as in the previous 3 games we have been the superior team but Chelsea will be aware of the importance of the occasion and victory. In the Charity Shield in August, despite Kevin Friend did has absolute best to keep 10 Chelsea players on the field, we absolutely played them off the park with Nasri in particular terrific.
At Stamford Bridge it was a dire game but we were comfortably the better team and in the return game we were again dominant.
We need to make sure we start the game well but I think we can win this in 90 minutes.
1-0 City
Huge thanks go to bobby brows of ManCityFans.net for providing this preview.