[Archived] City Away - Monday 11 January 2010

[Amo]

4-5-1, 4-4-2. Either way, we rely on Dunn to pull something out of the bag.

[Tom]

Edit: ignore

No Roberts on the bench. could be something in that, please God be something in that

[G Somerset Rover]

what about the subs?

Not sure yet, I got the team from ESPN.

No Diouf and Roberts at least so as it is we're playing with 9 men from the off (with Andrews and MGP playing).

[Bobby G]

That is as ordinary a defence you will get from City. I wouldve added the pace of Junior in the wings.

We cant be blaming our failure to win games on playing with 2 up front?

I would argue that even when Benni has played he has played the hole role like Dunn, so we really havent played with 2 up front the whole season.

Judas is on their bench.

[alexanders]

Subs: Brown, McCarthy, Olsson, Kalinic, Hoilett, Salgado, Chimbonda.

Roberts not even on the bench. He may be on his way from Ewood pretty soon me hopes.

[jonv]

Man City: Given, Zabaleta, Richards, Kompany, Garrido, Petrov, De Jong, Barry, Bellamy, Tevez, Benjani. Subs: Taylor, Wright-Phillips, Robinho, Santa Cruz, Sylvinho, Boyata, Ibrahim.

Benjani

[hollowsr]

One would presume the subs will be

Brown, Salgado, Roberts, Kalinic, Hoilett Benni and maybe Zurab?

Close: Brown, Salgado, Chimbonda, Olsson, Junior, Benni, Kalinic

[alexanders]

what the? Benjani?

They really are here for the taking tonight! GET IN!

[Tom]

Think they'll give us their bench if we ask nicely?

I love how basically on a seven man bench we have 3 full backs and 3 strikers in effect

[Mr. E]

Complete garbage. For the first time we have a fairly full squad and he manages to drop one of our only creative players McCarthy and put in Pedersen and Andrews, meaning we're playing pretty much with 9.5 men. Everything that's gonna happen for us depends on Dunn's long-range efforts.

More humiliation on national TV headed this way. Thanks, Sam.

[Dan]

Why even bother watching it tonight? We already know what we are going to get, down to ten men at kick off, try and defend and hoof it up to Di Santo. Is Sam so stupid he hasn't learnt that his boring, prehistoric, negative tactics don't work with the set of players we have? Bloody Andrews too, what does he see in this player that no one else can? It is awful, looking at a team sheet before a game and knowing you've not even a chance of a win, especially when you look at the team selection posters have choosen on here(which I agree with and are a million miles away from the line up Sam choose every match). I hope he hasn't done this because of Villa on Thursday because as far as I'm concerned we have no chance of the final, since Sam will play this kind of team in the away leg and we'll get battered. I feel sorry for the fans that have paid good money and will have to watch this defeat in the bitter cold.

[DE.]

Kalinic could get a hat-trick and Sam wouldn't start him, a big shame he's not starting. Not nice to see Andrews and MGP in the starting line-up, either, but it is nice to see Dunny back. We're going to need him to get anything out of this one!

[Iceman]

oh dear

[Bobby G]

It is a disgrace dropping Benni.

Its obvious he is being pushed out and we can all agree that its NOT on the grounds of his last 5 starts for the club, because he has been one of our best players if not the best one during that time.

And Kalinic never seems to get the chance to play two games in a row.

I look to you, expert. Show us how its done...Please! I dont want to be humiliated in front of the world tonight.

[ebenrocks]

its not all THAT bad.... i mean, they have Benjani up front... he hasnt played for aggggggges, so he'll probably only get a couple against us... if that.

Nah, yno what, i think Givet v Bellamy will be a good battle... not quite so excited about Jacobsen v Petrov but you never know.

I dont know what has convinced Allardyce to play Andrews again... thousands of people can see that he is a SHOCKINGLY bad player but Allardyce cant? dont make sense to me.

I dont know, i think we might give them a contest in this, its not their strongest squad by a long way, and yes, its still about 200x stronger than ours, but we've battled games like this before, and we can do it again.

what we saying.... 2-1 to us or 2-2

[G Somerset Rover]

I hope our strikers aren't listening to Sam's pre-match interview. He's just going on about how Roberts has only got 3 goals, Benni 1, Franco 1 and Niko 0 in the league AGAIN. He may well be trying to gee them up but it wouldn't be the way that I'd go about it, banging on about their awful ratio's in the media every five minutes.

[Tom]

He does it because it absolves himself of blame (imo), basically saying no matter who I pick up front they wont score.

[RibbleValleyRover]

I just don't get why he won't give Kalinic a run in the team. When he has played he works hard and creates something, the goals might not be flowing at the moment but he looks more dangerous than the rest of our strikers.

[jonv]

and when they miss there first opportunity when the second comes around they'll be too stressed to keep a cool head

[Amo]

I hope our strikers aren't listening to Sam's pre-match interview. He's just going on about how Roberts has only got 3 goals, Benni 1, Franco 1 and Niko 0 in the league AGAIN. He may well be trying to gee them up but it wouldn't be the way that I'd go about it, banging on about their awful ratio's in the media every five minutes.

Did he also say how immobile our midfield are and they can't pass for toffee?

[den]

Should have started with Dunn and Nzonzi central mid and two up front.

We can only hope that Dunny can outscore City, because with Andrews in there we will concede for certain.

[RibbleValleyRover]

Benni aint playing, injured in warm up! Reidy now on the bench!

[Bobby G]

I just don't get why he won't give Kalinic a run in the team. When he has played he works hard and creates something, the goals might not be flowing at the moment but he looks more dangerous than the rest of our strikers.

It is a paradox.

Out of all 4 strikers, he is the one man who hasnt played consecutive games, nor started more than 1 game in the league as far as I recall. Considering his goal per minute ratio, which is a fair statistic to measure him by at this moment, I think he should be starting.

Just saw the Benni bit. Oh well...Things go from bad to worse...

[Exiled_Rover]

Good job I turned down an invite to this game. ###### lineup again. We'll get done like a kipper no doubt.

Oh and everyone is right, Allardyce really needs to shut up about the strikers. Yes they're not scoring, but they're getting no service. Plus he's had two and a bit transfer windows now to get it sorted, so it's all his fault.

[unluckymorton]

Think they'll give us their bench if we ask nicely?

I love how basically on a seven man bench we have 3 full backs and 3 strikers in effect

Chimbonda can play cetre of defence, full back on the wing or in midfield. Junior can play on the wing or up front, Benni (who doesn't want to play for us) can do a job up front or in midfield, Olssen can play full back or on the wing, Salgado defence or midfield. so it's not like we've got a choice of purely full backs or strikers really is it? In fact if Benni did stay I'd like to see him in a creative midfield role if he is wiling to put in a bit of graft.

It's as solid a defence as we're going to get, if Pedersen fancies it tonight he could cause some trouble for City, Andrews will be out of his depth, Bert as much as I like him will be outclassed N'Zonzi in my opinion will be well up for it and if Dunn get's some space he could be the key for us. I just hope Di Santo does something, hopefully he'll get a striker playing along side him at some point tonight.