Tuesday 3 March 2009

Team versus Villa

The injuries to Bellamy and Robinho rather restrict our attacking options. We do, though, have Shaun Wright-Phillips back from suspension. Presumably he'll play on the right wing. Ireland could fill in on the other side - as he did for the first fifteen minutes (albeit on the left) on Sunday. That just leaves us with a centre forward. Of course I'd love to see this:


But I recognise that it's pretty impractical. More likely is that we'll start with another Eriksson-purchased forward with an even worse goals/transfer fee ratio.


One other potential problem is Micah Richards' hamstring injury. Should he not pass his fitness test then presumably Zabaleta will drop into full back and Elano will come into midfield:


Ideally we'd be able to rest Ireland, Zabaleta and Kompany - they all looked exhausted on Sunday. Ideally Felipe Caicedo wouldn't start important Premier League games. But, as Donald Rumsfeld said, 'you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might wish or want to have at a later time.'

3 comments:

Gary said...

I don't see why we should be so worried if Caicedo starts, last time he got in the team he scored goals and got dropped for no reason.

pjdemers said...

I absolutely agree with Gary on this one. While Caicedo is not the finished product, he has come on leaps and bounds. Lets also remember he is quite young (20?). He does give City a more physical presence up front. He looked quite good when he started against Hul.

Personally I'm more worried that Vassel could quite possibly get a game in. Even if its as a sub we can't realistically hope to beat anyone using Championship calibre players.

Unknown said...

Zab, Kompany and Nigel in midfield! City are the only prem team to start with two proper defensive midfielders that i know of - please not three.

Bollocks to the negative midset - SWP in between Nige and Vinny and Weiss on the right.