Sunderland V Manchester City: Match Preview

Sunderland v Manchester City 29/08/2010 3pm kick off

After a decent start to the season, City have accumulated four points against two of our supposed main Champions League contending rivals. And a very comfortable passage through to the group stage of the Europa League after disposing of the potential banana skin of Timisoara.

Confidence is visibly beginning to rise in both the players and fans at Eastlands. While nervous glances are already been made from the direction of The Swamp amongst quite a few other Premier League clubs as City’s squad with the six summer new signings are showing signs of being not only a tough team to beat but also a side that has good quality stamped across it from goalkeepers to strikers. In comparison, The Mackems have had quite a poor start to their league campaign with a draw at home to Birmingham and a defeat at newly promoted West Brom. An expected 2-0 victory at home to Colchester in The Carling Cup earlier this week will probably keep the peasants from revolting but a potential drubbing by visitors Manchester City could well put our mutual friend The Elephant Man under severe pressure from Niall Quinn and his board even this early on in the fixture list.

City have quite a remarkable record against The Mackems in recent years, in fact the 2-2 draw at The Stadium Of Shite in March of this year broke a run of eight consecutive wins by City against Sunderland. There are always goals in our meetings and it is a statistic that we have played 56 league matches against each other without a 0-0 score since 1938 (John68 and Crossan will verify this).
One, if not the most famous of our mutual results was back in 1973 when a Mackems team consisting of no less than three future City signings in big Dave Watson, Micky Horswill and Dennis Tueart overcame City after an initial 2-2 draw at Maine Road. This was in the FA Cup and three days later we travelled up to Roker Park for the replay and were fairly and squarely beaten 3-1. City had knocked Liverpool out in the last round and were actually favourites to win the cup at that 5th round stage. That replay was voted “The greatest game ever seen at Roker Park” by Mackems supporters. The icing was then put on the cake as Sunderland, who were then playing in the 2nd Division of English football, made it to Wembley and beat a very strong Leeds team 1-0 with a 31st minute goal by Ian Porterfield. The real hero of the day however was goalkeeper Jim Montgomery who played the game of his life and pulled off a save against Alan “Sniffer” Clark that was compared to the famous save that Gordon Banks achieved against the legendary Pele no less. That victory under the stewardship of popular manager Bob Stokoe was the only trophy that The Mackems have won since before the 2nd World War.

There is not any real amount of bitter rivalry between City and Sunderland in comparison to the main protagonists. In fact a few players have played for both of us with success and mutual popularity. Watson, Tueart and Horswill as previously mentioned were stalwarts for both clubs. Niall Quinn and Nicky Summerbee also did very well for Sunderland after being signed from City in more recent years. Peter “Reidy” Reid was jettisoned from the City manager’s role after spending quite a relatively large amount of money on the City defence. A couple of top six finishes were not improved upon, hence the swinging of the axe. Reidy, soon after became The Mackems manager and with the bankroll of a fairly wealthy chairman, achieved promotion from the 2nd Division and a reasonably stabilised period in The Premier League. Steve Gibson then swung the axe and Reidy has proven himself pretty dismal as a manager ever since.

The Stadium Of Shite’s first official opening game was a fixture against City in The Premier League. This was at a the time that City were beginning to spiral into oblivion and even the mercurial Geo “Kinky” Konkladze could not bail us out. We had a man sent off early on and succumbed to another obligatory defeat. I was present at that game and although the new stadium was heralded as new shining beacon, in reality the seats are crammed together and the viewing and experience is much overstated in my humble opinion.

Let us cut to the chase. The Mackems currently have a few players out injured. Goalkeeper Craig Gordon (broken arm), defender George Mensah, George McCartney (related to Paul?) and David Meyler are all also out. Last season, the Elephant Man converted Kieran Richardson from being a right winger to right fullback. Richardson was nicknamed “Lord Snooty” when he played for the Devilworshipping rags at The Swamp. My rag mates say that is due to the fact that he’s a first class pillock and thinks that he is better than he really is. The fact that he now plies his trade for The Mackems probably justifies this. Then they have the defensive stalwart that is Titus Bramble and no further comments are required with regard to that. Steed Malbranque is the midfield dynamo and I am sure quite a few City fans can remember not that long ago, when Stuart Pearce tried to sign him for City from Fulham but the move never came off (anyone disappointed with that?). The Elephant Man sold striker Kenwyn Jones, much to the dismay of most Mackems fans but they do have a very decent striker in the form of Darren Bent. Not everybody’s cup of tea but his goal scoring ratio for a moderate team is second to none in The Premier League. Mr Bent is so obviously the main danger to City’s defence and he has already bagged three goals this season, albeit two against Colchester. For some reason The Mackems have a bit of a record for slitting their own throat recently against City. Two players have been dismissed by the referees in the last three games, so here’s hoping that this trend continues if we need any assistance.

City also have absentees due to injury. Alexander Kolarov and Boeteng would be expected to be our normal first choice selection as fullbacks, so Bobby The Manc has to consider our alternatives. Micah Richards and Mad Zabba are the most likely candidates and with due respect, they should be good enough to deputise accordingly against a toothless attack apart from Mr Bent. The more interesting selections will obviously be how Bobby sets City up and who he utilises. The formation that lined up against The Dippers on Monday was deemed negative by many prior to the kick off but that was not the scenario that panned out. I expect that the line up will be very similar, particularly because if the Mackems are stifled for the first quarter of the game, they will probably then run out of ideas and the class of Tevez, Yaya and Jinky should prevail and openings will surely be carved out of that static defence. Super Mario and Ade waiting in the wings should scare the brown stuff out of The Mackems and I do not envisage anything other than a City victory. It may not be pretty and there may only be a goal or two in it but 0-2 will no doubt be more than acceptable to all Blues supporters and if we get treated to a City goal fest then that would be a bonus.

Violence is not usually at a premium in this fixture but any of City’s crew out there be warned. They are big hard fuclers bred from dockers and they won’t have liberties taken on their own manor;o)

This is a must win fixture for City if we are as ambitious as we should be. As our dear friend Delia Smith once marvellously said “Lets’s Be Avin You!”.

Thanks to Burt of ManCityFans.net for writing this preview.

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