West Ham United v Manchester City
Premier League
Saturday 25th October 2014, 12.45pm KO
Live on BTSport1HD
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Well, what a week that was…after the high of Saturday, Sergio bagging four, the Joe Hart penalty save and the dismantling of Spurs we are brought back down to earth on the Tuesday with an insipid second half display, homer referee, a dodgy penalty leave our Champions League adventure on the brink for another year. Worse still…we could be subjected to the European purgatory that is Thursday nights and the Europa League.
I can’t figure out the Champions League, much has been made of the Champions League draw and how, as Champions of England, we’ve been seeded incorrectly but in my opinion drawing a group of Anderlecht, Schalke and Basel doesn’t get the pulses racing. Whilst moving into the first pot would mean avoiding Bayern Munich every year, points have been dropped to Roma, CSKA, Ajax and Napoli in the last four years. I think my main issue of seedng comes from the fact that the supporters don’t want us to play the same sides each year and the first time we played Bayern and Real Madrid in games at home we’d already been eliminated. Whilst my interest stems from us playing the best sides in the competition and seeing the best players play against us, I’m sick of the sight of Bayern Munich and CSKA Moscow. I would sacrifice the Champions League for another league title right now.
Slight Tangent
First of all, thanks to all those people that read last weeks Preview and pointed out that they ranked Liverpool above Spurs in the list of teams they despised. I’ll be honest, I agree, I was trying to force a theme to fit the piece ( copyright every national newspaper in the nation).
You’ve got to love Brendan Rogers mind games, even if you didn’t know he had worked as an assistant under Jose Mourinho, he’s a man of such self serving pomposity its not hard to make the connection. My favourite memory of the build up to the last time we played West Ham in the league was his attempt to play mind games with ‘The Charming Man’ in the final days of the season.
Exhibit 1: “City winning means they will have won 6 games on the bounce…and they’ve only done that once this season. It will be unfamiliar territory for them!” Eh Brendan, whats that? You don’t think we can achieve something we’ve already achieved once? Do you think we will suddenly quake in our boots at the prospect of winning a game of football.
Exhibit 2: “We will get an early goal at Anfield and the noise of the crowd will put City under pressure!” Yes, Brendan, City players will be really bothered about an atmosphere 35 miles away. the icing on the cake was when they subsequently went behind to a Newcastle side that had been on the beach since Christmas.
Exhibit 3: “Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing are former Liverpool players and they will remember what they’ve done for us”, cue Carroll and Downing strolling round like they were less than arsed about the title race and more than bothered about their impending summer holiday in a display so insipid you wonder if it was in deliberate defiance of Sir Brendan’s comments.
West Ham
West Ham have made a fine start to the season and deservedly sit above United, Liverpool and Arsenal in the table. To be fair to Big Sam, he’s obviously not everyone’s cup of tea, but he does what he says on the tin, he makes you a side of giants, difficult to beat, well organised and gives you the chance to win any game of football. In the olden days it was an annual slog going up to the Reebok Stadium and taking on Sam’s percentage footballers of Kevin Davies, Kevin Nolan and Nicky Hunt with Ivan Campo kept alive to try string some passes together. An annual 2-0 defeat would ensue as City were kicked off the park with inpunity.
This season, apparently at the behest of the owners, Allardyce has attempted to be more expansive in his play adding Zarate (a career in football made by scoring against City for Birmingham), Rafael Amalfitano, Enner Valencia and Alex Song to their attacking iine up.
Fortunately for us, West Ham still rely on the journeyman offerings of James Collins, James Tomkins and Joey O’Brien in the defence and have been more than suspect in goal with Adrian and Jaaskelainen.
West Ham (from): Adrian, Jaaskelainen, Spiegel, Collins, Cresswell, Demel, Jenkinson, O’Brien, Potts, Reid, Tomkins, Amalfitano, Downing, Jarvis, Kouyate, Lletget, Noble, Nolan, Poyet, Song, Cole, Sakho, Valencia, Vaz Te, Zarate.
City
Well what do we do after Tuesday? The issue wasn’t personnel, although Yaya Toure shouldered much of the blame in Moscow and Pellegrini probably shouldn’t have made three changes to the back line. In the first half we played with the same tempo as we had against Spurs, we created chances, dominated the midfield, scored twice and we had two shouts for a penalty in the space of seconds when both Dzeko and Milner were hauled down in the area.
Second half it seemed to catch up with us, was it the emotion of Saturday, the travel or simply the time difference? Worst of all we just complacent and we simply did not come out for the second half. The subs that Pellegrini made didn’t help the shape of the team and like Saturday I felt that the twins, Fernando and Fernandinho were trying to play in the same space and I’d say the manager made things worse by trying to make things better. Its ok though Manuel, everyone gets one and a pair of trophies buys you plenty of patience with the support.
It looks like I’ve cornered myself into selecting a team to beat West Ham. In defence (I’m not going to even debate Joe Hart in goal as he has been excellent) I’d go for the full back pairing of Pablo Zabaleta and Gael Clichy. Clichy was superb last Saturday and whilst we don’t expect much out of him offensively we will need his speed for when West Ham try to break quickly and with Vallencia and Jarvis they will. Likewise Zabaleta will have to be very disciplined. At centre back its tempting to rest Demechelis against the size of Carroll, Vax Te and Nolan etc but I think his canniness and experience will be important. As to avoid assumptions, Vinny would partner him.
In midfield the big question is whether or not to start Yaya. For me, and I’m sure he’s contracted to play every game, I’d have him start as his ability to retain possession under a challenge is sorely missed when he doesn’t play. I’d start Milner and Fernandinho with him in the middle letting Yaya push forward, allow Merlin to continue his free role in the final third and have Jesus Navas on the wing to stretch the play. I’d really love to watch Navas train for a week as last Saturday he had the beating of the full back every time but rarely took him on. I’d practice having him the knockingi the ball past the biggest defender I could find and have him chase the ball to the by line and put a cross in.
Up front I’d recall Scott Sinclair for his touch and pace… no I’m messing with you to make sure your still reading. Dzeko has been excellent all year but Aguero has been on a different level. I’d have Dzeko and Jovetic waiting in the wings just in case.
Man City (from): Caballero, Hart, Wright, Boyata, Clichy, Demichelis, Kolarov, Kompany, Mangala, Nastasic, Sagna, Zabaleta, Fernandinho, Fernando, Lampard, Milner, Navas, Silva, Sinclair, Toure, Aguero, Dzeko, Jovetic.
Prediction
Did I say last week that City would have a mundane 2-0 win?
I think City will beat West Ham and it will be a mundane game of football 2-0