Manchester City v Southampton
Sunday 19th August 2012
Etihad Stadium, Manchester
4pm KO live on Sky Sports 1
What has the summer been like?
Previous summers have usually been an agonising wait for the club to do something in the transfer market. Before the money came it would be the depressing wait for the clubs stars to be sold (SWP) or let go to smaller clubs with bigger budgets (James, Distin). Since the Sheik’s money came in each summer transfer window has felt like major surgery as both Hughes and Mancini have brought in their own players to build a team in their own image whilst the club struggled to offload players bought under the previous regime.
This summer has seen only one addition to the squad as either Financial Fair Play (FFP) has begun to catch up with the club, the opinion of pretty much every media outlet, or because the squad is nearing completion and fewer areas need strengthening, this being the less popular opinion, but the truth probably lies somewhere in between.
The key positive to a lack of transfer action is that we shouldn’t be burdened by a slow start from a team trying to gel and learning to play together for the first time. (Not that we’ve really experienced slow starts in previous seasons, even in the Sven youtube season)
The squad does lack in certain areas though, centre half being the priority where we were hopelessly exposed last January when both Joleon and Vincent were injured leaving us with just Savic and Kolo as cover, and we exited both domestic cup competitions, Dedryck Boyata has returned from Bolton, where he was criminally used as a right back, and should be ahead of Savic in the pecking order but seems to have found himself out of favour from Mancini ever since he was sent off against Arsenal in 2010.
The other area that the team was lacking last season was a genuine lack of width in the team, Adam Johnson aside, sometimes we found it hard to break sides down, especially if we played without Micah Richards, and had a habit of knocking the ball in the final third in front of two banks of four failing to hurt the opposition.
The good news is that Mancini himself knew this, he’d already experimented against Sunderland and Sporting Lisbon at home last season by packing the midfield forcing more width into the games in engineering two terrific comebacks. Pre-season has been spent experimenting with 3-5-2 using Zabaleta and Clichy as centre halves and Kolarov and Milner as wing backs. Adding Plan B into the equation in itself feels like a new signing and allows us to fit players into a system that works as opposed to trying to fit a system around the players (i.e. Nasri, Dzeko and Adam Johnson, who’s main attributes are not really suited to our Plan A) who don’t necessarily fit into our Plan A.
The Result? Some pretty exciting Keegan-esque football in the Community Shield, whilst still managing to rest Mario, Silva and Clichy. Milner played like he’d played their all his life, Kolarov’s weaknesses were minimized (his defending) and his strength was maximised (his powerful shot) and on the day we could have run up a cricket score. Is this the answer to all our problems? No, not in the slightest, it will work against bottom half opposition and at home as it allows us to both apply width and commit men forward in possession, but as evidenced on Sunday if the midfield doesn’t all take responsibility defensively with pressing and closing down in front of our own penalty area and if the opposition can keep the ball from De Jong by switching it side to side then we can be carved open.
Will we line up like this on Sunday? Possibly, with Kompany potentially injured, Barry not fit, Micah out for a month and Southampton potentially looking to hit us on the break, 3-5-2 will give us the width to break them down.
PhysioRoom.com injury list:
Mario Balotelli – Conjunctivitis
Joe Hart – Back Injury – Slight Doubt
Micah Richards – ankle/foot injury – Oct 12
Gareth Barry – Hernia
The opposition
Premier League Record v Southampton at home
P8 W3 D2 L3 F10 A11
Last home league meeting: Jan 1,2005 2-1 Bosvelt, SWP 42,895
Southampton are back in the Premier League for the first time in 7 years after falling into third tier in a stunningly similar way to ourselves (administration aside) and are now bank rolled by the now deceased Markus Liebherr, who famously banned photographers from the ground because he wanted them to pay for the privilege of taking photos of his players.
Personally I was quite glad to see the back of them when they were relegated as they’ve a good record against us including the last ever victory at Maine Road and then they defeated us 3-1 at COMS in our first season there.
Nigel Adkins is the manager who has overseen the back to back promotions and they’ve genuinely played excellent football throughout their return to the top flight and they will be looking at the examples set by Stoke, Norwich and Swansea on how to survive in the top flight. The general consesus from other promoted clubs that have done well in the top flight is that you get more time on the ball in the Premier League than you do in the Championship and sides that get promoted playing good football are the quickest to adapt (West Brom, Swansea).
Players to Watch
Ex-Stockport player Ricky Lambert is the obvious choice here, he’s genuinely been considered as one of the best players in the football league and has scored 78 goals in 138 appearances since joining Southampton in 2009. They will be hoping that he can step up similar to Danny Graham and Grant Holt last season.
Two new signings that will be interesting to see on the opening day will be Jay Rodriquez who cost £7m from Burnley and Steve Davis who was plucked from the ashes of Glasgow Rangers. Highly Rated Jack Cork, who played for Great Britain in the summer, will miss out through injury and the also highly rated Nathaniel Clyne was also signed from Crystal Palace in the summer.
PhysioRoom.com injury list:
Jack Cork – Ankle Injury – No Return Date
Opening Day at Home
Unsuprisingly we’ve only started the season at home 3 times since we’ve moved to the new stadium so that we could give our Trafford neighbours maximum advantage
We started at home last season with a 4 nil victory to Swansea and other than that we’ve had 2005/06 v West Brom 0-0 and 2004/05 v Fulham 1-1.
Prediction: I deliberately don’t do predictions out of superstition but I expect it to be a game worthy of the billing of Sky’s marquee weekend game with goals….so nil-nil then.
A big thank you to Bobby Brows of www.mancityfans.net for stepping up to the plate and writing the first preview of the season.