Tag: MCFC

An incredible performance from ‘the Stockport Iniesta’ gives Manchester City the hope of keeping their title race alive in 4-1 victory over Aston Villa. Foden registers his second hat-trick of the season after his hat-trick against Brentford earlier this year.

Pep Guardiola sent out a team that was considerably weaker than usual with Kevin De Bruyne, Erling Haaland and John Stones allowed to rest on the bench, assuming that they will be very important for the tie against Real Madrid on the 9th of April.

After his performance last night, Phil Foden has starting receiving praise once again for his talents shining whilst the superstars De Bruyne and Haaland were resting on the bench. He stepped up for the side and provided three crucial goals that set the game apart after being tied 1-1 after 20 minutes with the game looking very cagey.

In the post match interview, Pep Guardiola had nothing but praise for the youngster with his exhilarating performance in this crucial game;

“He’s still open-minded and he still has to understand some parts of the game, especially attention as he is sometimes distracted in the defensive parts. But his work ethic is unbelievable. He is so special, especially when he is playing in that central position.” – He told BBC Sport.

Fodens number 10 performances this season have grabbed him two hattricks and 10 assists across all competitions giving Gareth Southgate a very simple decision to make for the Euro’s. Start Foden in the 10 role for his country and good things will follow.

His teammates that are known for the goals and assists were celebrating with him from the bench after his smart free-kick which sent the Aston Villa keeper, Olsen, stuck in the mud with no chance of reacting to the quick free-kick.

With the win secured and Foden up to 31 G/A across all competitions this season, Manchester City look towards the weekend where they play Crystal Palace where, once again, they cant afford to slip up if they want to win the Premier League where they are leaving hope in the hands of their neighbours, Manchester United.

Today’s game against Aston Villa is crucial for Pep Guardiola and his team staying in the title race. After the 0-0 draw against Arsenal on the weekend, City trail the top spot by 3 points, they cannot afford to drop any points in their upcoming games.

After their shocking performance in the reverse fixture earlier in the season where the treble winners only registered 2 shots in the 90 minutes, their availability in players has changed with Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne are officially available for picking which they weren’t earlier in the season.

The positive for Manchester City is that the game is set at the Etihad Stadium with Rodri returning to the lineup which only sets up for success after 39 games unbeaten at the Etihad and now 63 matches unbeaten for Rodri.

With certain injuries still causing harm to the full XI, it is expected that City will lineup with a weaker side than what they would hope for in the run in to the end of the season.

Lineup Prediction

With the injuries to Kyle Walker and John Stones, it is expected that Rico Lewis will slot into the right back position where he plays the inverted right back role perfectly for the team allowing the defenders to just focus on defending.

The pace of Jeremy Doku and the close control dribbling of Jack Grealish will not be as effective as usual against this set defence of Villa since the introduction of Pau Torres and Eric Konsa in their back line this season.

Injuries

Kyle Walker, Nathan Ake and John Stones were marked out of the Arsenal tie due to injury, with Ake’s injury coming during the game between the title contenders possibly leaving him out of contention for selection as the tie between City and Real Madrid is coming up soon which is very crucial to their chances of a double treble.

The loss of Kyle Walker could cause problems for City as the main striking force in Villa’s attack is their burning pace between Moussa Diaby and Leon Bailey. With Ollie Watkins picking up an injury in their 2-0 victory over Wolves, their scoring prowess has taken a hit and can give Manchester City some hope pre-game.

The game is set to play at 20:15 this evening streamed on Sky Sports from the Etihad Stadium. The game is crucial for Manchester City as a MUST-WIN game.

Arsenal travelled up to Manchester to battle it out against the Citizens in the Premier League for the title race with both teams coming into the game needing a win to put them in contention.

However, all plans didn’t go accordingly as the draw between the 3rd and 2nd spot at the Etihad with both teams leaving with 1 point each in a goalless draw giving Liverpool the drivers seat in this Premier League title race with all hopes on one of the three teams messing up and dropping a game in their upcoming fixtures.

Manchester City have struggled this season against the ‘big six’ especially in comparison to last year where they seemed to get the better of the teams nearly all season. This year, where it matters the most to beat the top six teams, with Liverpool and Arsenal ahead of the blues in this years title race.

All fingers are pointing towards Liverpool to take the title due to them being in the Europa League rather than the Champions League whilst Manchester City and Arsenal have made deep runs in the Champions League meaning they could in theory, draw each other in the semi-finals or the final of the competition.

Manchester City defender, Manuel Akanji, publicly critisised the Arsenal players tactics where he accuses them of tacitally fouling them when on the attack with the referee only giving out two yellow cards across the whole 90 minutes compared to the amount of fouls that were given in the game, 29 fouls, with 20 fouls coming from the side of Arsenal. The refereeing was very lenient in this game and fans have picked up on that online.

Similar to last year, the title race will come very close to the wire however, the difference is that there are 3 teams in this race now compared to just the 2 last year with Liverpool joining in.

Manchester City are set to face off against Aston Villa on the 3rd of April, where in the reverse fixture, they lost the game 1-0 after only registering 2 shots all game however, they were without Rodri and he has made his return to the team maintaining his 60+ game unbeaten run in all competitions.

The treble winners travelled to Merseyside to face off against Liverpool where they were hoping to go top of the league and give a third leader of the league in the weekend. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Liverpool came into the game with serious injuries and a very broken down team compared to the City squad that was filled with veterans and looked like an easy win on paper.

However despite going up 1-0 with a brilliant set piece from De Bruyne allowed Stones to put the ball past Kelleher in the back of the net, they went down to 1-1 with a slow back pass to Ederson from Akè and led to a penalty given to the home side.

The collision that led to the penalty left Ederson with, what seems like, a groin injury and was sent to the bench and Ortega was subbed on to try and stop the goals from flooding in from the returning Mohammed Salah, which he did very well.

The return of Mohammed Salah and Andrew Robertson gave Liverpool fans something to be glad about with Salah’s record against City being quite extraordinary with 4 goals in 5.

The game ended 1-1 and left fans wondering what does this mean for the Premier League table and it could mean that Arsenal have the chance to create a lead with 10 games left with the next game being against Manchester City.

Until then, Manchester City face off against Newcastle in the FA Cup to find a spot in the semi finals to possibly face off against Liverpool once again.

Pep Guardiola, in the post match interview for the win over Manchester United, has named Phil Foden as the best player in the Premier League this season after carrying City to so many wins this year.

His statement comes off the back of a 3-1 victory over their rivals where Phil Foden scored the first two goals which allowed them to gain momentum and win over the game.

In the past 2 games, Phil Foden has scored 3 crucial goals that have put his team in the driving seat taking his team closer to the leaders of the Premier League, Liverpool, closing the gap to 1 point between the two teams.

The Stockport star is already having a personal record breaking season with 18 goals and 10 assists this year for City, with his personal best being 16 goals which was a few years ago. He is already smashing that record with many games yet to come and with Phil having a crucial part in the lineup this year, fans can expect many more goals to come from the 23 year old.

With the City squad missing Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland for a lot of the season, it fell upon to Foden to carry the team to victories and kept them in contention with the Premier League title race despite missing their top goalscorer and assist machines.

Foden has taken up a role that is undeniably a lot to burden to the youngster but he seems to be thriving with this new role and finding himself having huge success scoring a lot of goals and setting his team up for success. In this new system he is thriving with success and even with the return of Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland, he has shown no signs of relaxing his output and still being as important as he was when they were absent from the squad at the back end of 2023.

England’s EURO 2024 Chances

With England joining the EURO’s once again, this year seems to be the best chance they have to win it with the vast amount of talent that they have available to them. The only problem is the selection of team by the manager, Gareth Southgate.

There are many England players who have been putting up huge numbers this year leaving a tough choice for the England gaffer to make this upcoming tournament this year.

The biggest problem for Southgate to tackle is the midfield that he will choose. He has the choice of many inform midfielders such as:

• Phil Foden
• Jude Bellingham
• Declan Rice
• James Maddison
• Cole Palmer
• Kobbie Mainoo
• Ross Barkley
• Connor Gallagher

There is also the issue of Southgate having favourites and possibly choosing his ‘comfort’ midfield which consists of two sitting midfielders and a box to box midfielder. This could mean the introduction of players such as Jordan Henderson and Kalvin Phillips who are definitley out of form this year but fell into the England squad for their World Cup and Euro 2020 run where they made it quite far making the Final of the EURO’s and the Semi-finals of the World Cup.

Phil Foden, with the form that he is currently in, HAS to start for England alongside Jude Bellingham who are both sitting on 28 G/A this season for their respective clubs. If Southgate can’t change his team sheet and adapt around these highly skilled players, he will not bring the EURO’s back to England.

After going down 1-0 at the half, Manchester City needed something huge to bring back their team into the game and Foden delivered it for them scoring two incredible goals to set them apart from their neighbours.

Foden brace gave City the win over United in a thrilling game that had fans wondering if the 2 year home unbeaten record was coming to an end. It was not. The boy from Stockport and lifetime city fan, had to put an end to that chance.

Marcus Rashfords incredible strike in the 8th minute set the mood from raring to go at the Etihad to whether or not they would be upset today and lose to United.

His goal came on the counter attack of Manchester City and that was actually the only shot on target for the Red Devils all game where they registered only 1 shot after the 15th minute giving them 3 shots in total in the entire game.

Phil Foden earned the premier league POTM for his incredible performance bringing three points to city in a must-win game where the title race is down to one point between City and Liverpool where they will face off next week for a new leader of the Premier League potentially.

It took 80 minutes in this game for City to take the lead over their neighbours and then to put a nail in the coffin, Haaland jumped onto the mistake of Amrabaat and made the game 3-1 and put an end to the debate.

Manchester City’s next game is vital in the title race with them facing off against Liverpool on the 10th of March at 3:45pm.