Ireland out for two weeks

The Player of 2008/09 will miss the biggest game of 2009/10 - the Carling Cup semi-final first leg against United next week. He's out for two weeks with a hamstring injury.

This could have interesting repercussions. Mancini has so far been drawn between playing 4-4-2 and 4-3-3. Against Stoke he started with the former and then switched to the latter. At Molineux he did the opposite. Stephen Ireland is probably the best argument for playing 4-3-3. With him out of the picture the case for 4-4-2 is much stronger.

At this stage it is very difficult to predict what Mancini will do. But I'm going to take a stab at a 4-4-1-1 set up at the Riverside, with Robinho playing behind Tévez, and Martin Petrov and Vladimir Weiss on the wings. More on that in the preview, though.