Wednesday 31 March 2010

Suspensions

Pablo Zabaleta's season of bad tackles, late tackles, high tackles, cynical tackles and clumsy tackles has finally caught up with him: he has racked up ten yellow cards and therefore is banned from the Burnley and Birmingham City games.

It's not come at the best possible time, but I'd rather he missed these two games than the next two - Manchester United and Arsenal. The problem is that Nigel de Jong could well sit those out for the same reason. To avoid that, he needs to escape cautions in the next two games - at which point the giant reset button is pressed in Soho Square Wembley Stadium and de Jong can collect bookings with impunity.

But this means that it's probably wisest to rest de Jong for the Burnley and Birmingham games. Hence Gareth Barry's resting on Monday night. Expect to see Barry and Vieira in midfield on Saturday, with the possible addition of Stephen Ireland or even Sylvinho. I don't particularly worry about that game, but the prospect of Lee Bowyer and Barry Ferguson over-running Barry and Vieira on Sunday week is fairly worrying.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Spot on but is Stevie Ireland fit?

pjdemers said...

There's also the possibility that Mancini could push Kompany into defensive midfield and bring in Onouha to play alongside Toure to keep DeJong fresh for the Manchester Derby.

Unknown said...

I'm with you on that one demers except I think I'd have Onouha at right back and move Micah to CB.

Rios Dos Santos said...

Does anyone know when Lescott is due back.?

Johnny Crossan said...

pjdemers wrote"There's also the possibility that Mancini could push Kompany into defensive midfield and bring in Onouha to play alongside Toure to keep DeJong fresh for the derby"

- or even bring Toure into midfield and Ned into the back 4

Unknown said...

'Stephen Ireland has been ruled out of Manchester City's Premier League trip to Burnley with an ankle injury.' Quote from MEN via Newsnow.