Manchester City 2-1 Watford Tues 24/09

All the talk in the last week has been about Man City's biggest game of the season and it's finally here on Tuesday night when Tom Cleverley's pure chaos high wing back Watford collide with the expensively assembled automatons of Pep Guardiola. Not for them the individual expression of Porteous popping up wherever his hothead tells him to go or Bayo aiming his shots at the corner flag. Oh no, Pep the sociopath has stripped any individuality (and fun) out of his players with everything choreographed to the nth degree. Patterns of play are key - who wants to see someone belt one in from 35 yards or go on a mazy dribble when you can score the exact same goal 100+ times a season by getting down the side of the centre backs and pulling it back to tap in from close range?

The build up to this game has been dominated by the Blue Devils moaning about fixture congestion and having to start a couple of the £100m players that usually just sit on their bench. Luckily, the EFL helped them out by carving the draw up so they couldn't play anyone good and were guaranteed a home tie. Obviously having the draw rigged for them wasn't enough so there was some debate about when the game would take place. They could have had an extra day's rest and played at the Vic but this would have resembled an actual fair cup draw too much so knitwear oddball Pep stuck to his guns and insisted it was played in Manchester, burbling some nonsense about "beautiful fans, beautiful stadium, beautiful game". Everyone knows the real answer was that he bottled it as Super Tom Cleverley is unbeaten at the Vic and he didn't fancy getting the same treatment as Stoke.

As for our team, suspect Cleverley won't go quite as strong as previous rounds, we're well into the season now, have a midweek game next week and a couple of injuries at the weekend. Jebbison is cup tied so won't be able to able to repeat his goal line clearance heroics from Saturday so a good chance for Bayo to prove why he should be playing top level football, as per his recently stated ambition. Personally, I would just play the u23s as the EFL have already made a mockery of the competition by fixing the draw so why should we take it seriously? City will whinge about having just played a game, having an EFL trophy game on the same night but Guardiola is a bit of a weirdo and will probably go quite strong. Even if they play younger players, they will likely be mainly the cream of EFL academies that they've poached for peanuts (see Tomas Galvez, Jadon Sancho and no doubt many others).

Tactically, would be quite up for doing an Arsenal second half as it was quite amusing to watch Guardiola's team malfunction due to him coaching any spark of creativity out of them. As for the result, who cares? This is no longer a genuine knockout cup and we're playing a sportswashing behemoth who sum up everything that is killing football as a competitive sport at the top level. Safe travels to the masochists going up there and up the 'orns!

 

I think we'll win this.

*sips meths*

 

Very rich, cheating club with grubby, human rights abusing owners v club with grubby owners.

A pointless fixture cooked up to keep the big boys in the competition as long as possible.

Just give City a bye and save us the misery, ticket cost and petrol money.

 

Wonder which players will be really up for this game. Which ones will have to drop out with a niggle.

Guess it just depends how many changes Pep makes that'll correspond to how many we get smashed by.

 

115 - 0

 

Double figures anyone???

 

Hopefully we can keep them down to nothing worse than 5-0.

 

Hopefully not!

 

Excellent preview @Steve Leo Beleck
Took the words out of most ‘Orns fans mouths I suspect.

TC will use this as a training game to see if we can survive the first 5 minutes without conceding, observing our wingbacks defensive skills and keeping the score down to single figures.

 

Same rabbit
Same headlights
Same result

 

What is disappointing for me personally is that the new rigged format in favour of the current "big 6"
has taken the enjoyment , fun and belief out of this cup competition. Football is a funny old game and strange things can happen but you have to believe that they can happen . The seeded draw just makes us think "what's the point ?" as we are just the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.

 

I think it was a micky take to grant the European qualifiers a home tie too, when they were already being accommodated by avoiding one another, but cup competitions have often had special rules applied. Someone could say the FA Cup is rigged in favour of the "big 44" as they get a bye through the first two competition rounds proper. And the "big 92" don't have to qualify at all. And in the League Cup they've had north/south splits for R1 & R2 for several years now and the teams relegated in 18th and 19th the season before from the PL get a bye. That warps the competition to some extent too.

 

We’d have to beat them in the final to win it anyway, may as well get them out of the way now.

 

There are potential financial benefits for a lower league\non league team in reaching the 3rd round proper under the current guize . If St Albans City reach the 3rd round they want one of the big guns .
So the current fa cup format can benefit the flotsam and jetsam. I don't see the benefits for anyone other
than the big heads in this competition with the seeding and home draw .

 

Well, I think the EFL would argue there's an overall benefit to other clubs as without this accommodation to avoid the clashes with UEFA competitions the big 6 would possibly have withdrawn from the League Cup altogether. And their withdrawal would decimate the financial prize pot, put the league in breach of its TV deal with Sky and probably result in the European slot for winning it being withdrawn too.

 

Guise.

 

I didn't realise that the league cup winners qualified for Europe. That's my bad.
The big 6 might make some veiled threats about withdrawal but it would just be bluster IMO .
Take Aston Villa for example . Are they going the win the league or CL ? Probably not so their only realistic chance of silverware are the Fa and League cups .

 

You'd imagine City will have to rest most of their starting XI from yesterday so we should avoid getting battered by six plus, perhaps we'll be lucky and keep the loss down two or three.

If Haaland for some reasons starts then I genuinely fear how many our defence will concede.

City with Haaland 7-0 Watford
City without Haaland 3-0 Watford

Let's go 'ORNETS!

 

Think the prize money might be a bit of a red herring - winners only get £100k! The prize money for first, second and third round winners is apparently only £5k, £7k and £10k and most of the small clubs are out after that. I guess clubs make considerably more on gate receipts if they're drawn away to a big team (I think they're split between both teams...). so I guess keeping the big clubs apart does guarantee a greater chance of a better pay day to go with the inevitable tonking.

 

Pointless match, just play the kids. Result will be expunged from history anyway.

 

Bond
Ebosele Pollock Sierralta Porteous Larouci
Louza Dele-Bashiru Sissoko
Baah Bayo

Park the bus, try and keep it below 10, pace of Baah on the counter, and pray.

 

It’s a real sad state of affairs that they’ll probably play a second string, but then so will we so the result will end up the same regardless.

This really would be an incredible competition if they could somehow boot out the European qualifiers altogether. Probably a different winner every year and decent outside shot of it occasionally being a championship club.

I mean really what is the point of City using the entire thing as a training exercise for their B team and still mostly inevitably winning it every season? That’s entertaining is it?

 

I have a ticket for this. I am clearly in need of some sort of intervention but, in my defence, it's a ground I've never been to a match at, even though I've been in the ground a few times. On my pointless quest to complete The 92 before checking out, there's only a couple remaining from the top two divisions and this is one of them. Somehow it feels less annoying to be travelling up there for a meaningless League Cup tie than for a Premier League match.

I had a ticket for one of the FA Cup ties early in the Pozzo era but couldn't go. I am pretty sure it wasn't the one where we were 2-0 up at half-time and lost 4-2 so it must've been the other one, which we also lost.

15 consecutive defeats against them with an aggregate score of 58-8. We've not beaten City since a 1-0 at Vicarage Road in March 1989 in Division Two.

(Not very) interesting historical facts for nostalgia fans. When Watford got promoted to the top flight for the first time in 1982, there were only two clubs in Division One they'd yet to face in competitive action. Everton, who they played on the opening day of the season, and Man City. We played City at Maine Road a couple of weeks later. Their keeper Joe Corrigan was injured very early in the game, dislocating his shoulder after colliding with Nigel Callaghan. Outfield player Bobby McDonald went in goal. Watford couldn't score despite facing a defender in goal and Dennis Tuert, who had come on as a sub for Corrigan, got the only goal of the game 15 minutes from time. There's some nice photos from that game here for the nostalgic-at-heart: https://www.citytilidie.com/latest/manchester-city-v-watford-198283/

That win meant City were the only side with a 100% record having won all three of their opening games. They were top of the table but just two weeks later we were top for the first – and so far only – time after beating West Brom.

On the last day of the season City went down after losing a relegation showdown with Luton Town at Maine Road while we finished runners-up.

 

From a sporting point of view, this makes by far the most sense. A coherent, exciting knockout cup competition for all Premier League and EFL clubs that haven't qualified for Europe would be in danger of actually being interesting. It would give plenty of clubs a chance to win a trophy and although the armchair and social media fans would mock and ignore it, fans who go to matches would have a much, much better time. This alone is the clearest reason it will never happen.

Unfortunately, none of that is in the ultimate interests of the people who make money from the game. The broadcasters know more people will watch matches featuring the big six and so what they and the sponsors want is just an increased opportunity to show them against each other even though it bores the majority to tears to have a domestic scene so utterly dominated by a handful of clubs.

The League Cup is more likely to die completely than be reformed in a meaningful way.

 

Great preview @Steve Leo Beleck

“Guardiola is a bit of a weirdo and will probably go quite strong” lol

He really isn’t normal. But I have to grudgingly accept that his brain is wired in such a way that he doesn’t accept losing games, or even underperforming in any way. Just the sort of manager that we would love to have at Watford for any length of time.

He might be a myopic, moaning, unromantic robot, but in being so, I imagine he has achieved more with the embarrassment of riches at his disposal than any of his contemporaries could have. But this doesn’t mean that Manchester City are not a disgrace to football.

I am happy to have a soul and not be Pep Guardiola. So much so that I will celebrate a loss of 4 or less.

 

I was thinking more as below.
Belt the ball as far as we can when we get near it and Andrews can just run after it.

Bond & Marriot
Ebosele Pollock Sierralta Porteous Larouci
Tikvic Ogbonna Morris
Andrews

Subs
Keben
Kayky

Anything less than 6 is a moral victory and something we can build on.

 

Maybe it's time to play the formation displayed in Watford's pre-match social media graphics.

Four in goal, four in defence and three in midfield. No need for any strikers, just play for a penalty shoot-out.