If we don't win the title, I'd like City to get a treble for no other reason than it won't unique to Man Utd only.

My prediction for next season is that the following sides will be in close contention all season:
City - They will be the favorites even if we win the title.
Arsenal - for obvious reasons and we'll only go from strength to strength with summer buys
Man Utd - They aren't as far away from challenging as some think.
Liverpool - They aren't as bad as it seems. Their home form is great. They solve their away form and they're back to being contenders. This side beat Newcastle home and away 2-0 I think.
Newcastle - They will actually fight for the 3rd or 4th spot but with more money than god now, they will be able to buy much better players in the summer and next January and will be very tough to beat or get a point from.

Chelsea won't be a contender with Lampard. Villa and Brighton will be very viable 5th - 7th place

To me our biggest issue now is playing an inverted LB without having two elite CBs to cope with the added defensive responsibilities.

Zinchenko's wanderings into midfield leave us wide open to counter attacks down the flanks. With Gabrielle and Saliba we can just about cope defensively whilst at the same time still being able to play out quickly from the back and produce those between-the-lines passes that open up space for our midfield and forwards.

Zinchenko is a great technicion who adds greatly to our forward play but if Saliba is unfit and we allow Zinny to wander all over the place against City there is a very real chance we could get mullered.

I do think you want to play Jesus and Zinchenko against their old club.

Maybe Zinchecko in the Xhaka role?

Not to mention that Xhaka is very alert and good at getting back when the opposition breaks. So having Zinchenko and Vieira on that side is a bit iffy.

We should have gotten away with it against Saints, but your keeper doing that in the first minute is something you can't really legislate for.

If City don't win the treble this year, it won't get this 'easy' again. They've have only had to contend with one club vying for the title and a club that is doing it for the first time in years unlike Liverpool. Next season, clubs like Villa, Brighton, will use that EPL tv money and afford very good players. There will be very few easy games next season. Playing away to any of the top 7 or 8 clubs next season will be very tough games, tougher than usual I think.

I also don't see Haaland being at City for a long time. Real Madrid as usual will come with mega money and sell him on the aura of Real Madrid and how iconic they are. City doesn't have that. They have money. And a certain amount of newfound respect it has bought but RM has the name. It may even Barca which is next but he'll be wrested away to Spain.

I think there’s a chance you might see Jesus dropped for Trossard for this game.

I would prefer that actually, but I wonder if Arteta will see it that way.

Playing Tierney at left back seems a no-brainer but Arteta might think (and might have a point) that our best chance is to stick to what has been Plan A this season.

Very tough choices.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the side is actually similar to the one gunfire posted. I can’t see Arteta not changing it. He should have changed it Friday really I was very surprised.

No saliba for city

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... njury.html

Wednesday may be a decision of 'is a half fit Saliba better than Holding?' Perhaps why not play both? One subs for the other? Then the question becomes who do you start with? The smart thing for City to do is target either of the two with Haaland.

Google article this evening saying Jesus was denied a possible penalty againt Saints. Article's author is Hal Fish who is adamant that the tacvkle on Jesus was a foul and there was no contact with the ball by the Saints player who powered into Jesus.

Blame Hooper who signalled play on and VAR for not raising it as a probable mistake by him.

Yet again we were robbed...............
CNUTS

Cute amusements ongoing at Spurs.
Interim manager Stellini sacked, replaced by Ryan Mason, another interim manager.
The gift that keeps on giving.

Plus chelsea are getting pochettino. Talk about rubbing salt in the wounds

Tucker Carlson out at Fox News. Arguably the most powerful person in America from cable news. No one has a bigger following. No one gets higher ratings. And I posted on here years ago that he could run for higher office and win. Certainly as senator of a state but he could replicate Trump easily.

His private messages were already out about his disdain for Trump. And even with that his numbers were still far better than anyone else. Not much leakage. He's also a nationalist, a devout one, but is smart enough to not say the quiet part too loudly. His close friend and former producer of his segments had his comments on extreme far right chats exposed. There was no nuance. Fox News had to cut him and to give a clue about Tucker, he spoke about it on air. No apologies for the rhetoric but a complaint about 'cancel culture'.

He and Ron Desantis are the most public and powerful extreme far right figures. There is a rumor he wanted to get out of Fox. He's not broke. He's worth about 400 million and is part of a food processing family fortune called Swanson foods that were famous for frozen TV dinners when I was growing up.

Desantis would have won the presidency easy but Trump isn't done yet and ironically its Trump that is doing what the Democratic party and the left can't.

Historically, all great nations had a few things in common. One was a set of rules, laws that the people believed were sacrosanct. Roman Law. English Common law and in America the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. All three were violated in their countries history but by and large the populace believed in it and that kept the masses thinking that prince or pauper were to some extent at least on even keel. Even if it wasn't true.

The American public is rapidly losing faith in the government and the powers that be regarding their rights. Recently a Supreme Court justice was revealed to what can only be seen by any one with an ounce of fairness as bribes. Nothing will be done. He's a right wing justice, the right is in charge of the House of Representatives which impeaches the judges. 50, 40 even 30 years ago, the party would have impeached him so their party wasn't tainted. Today? Not a chance. It's 'Catch me if you can' and the Dems haven't even raised a stink about it. It's further evidence the republic is in its last days. The dollar is being attacked on all sides by Russia, China and others so its no longer the reserve currency (something I actually found particularly anti that one currency would rule but to be fair the pound sterling had a similar effect prior).

Completely opposite ideology but Don Lemon was let go the same day from CNN. My guess is it was going to happen at any time and CNN did it immediately because the nation would focus on Carlson and they would get by a few news cycles without it overwhelming them.

The country is a mess. Biden is not the only one who is often incoherent due to his age. I don't want to be accused of ageism, but Biden really isn't physically and mentally capable of running a country the size, depth and power of America. The office ages you daily. Look at Obama on his first day and last day. Those 8 years age you like 28 years. It's draining. There is a senator from California, Diane Feinstein, 89, Democrat, obviously suffering from dementia due to age. She is on one of the most powerful and important committees (the judicial committee). She hasn't been present for a vote in weeks. She's being 'handled' in any public setting. It's almost 'Weekend at Bernie's'. Senator from the largest state with important work and she's being propped up and when members of her own party were told privately they will not force her out they made a public plea, and one of them, a man, was told he was sexist and and ageist for saying it.

Another Democrat senator Fetterman, had a stroke during the campaign, won anyway and now had to take leave because of not just his health from the stroke but for depression. So, its not all Republicans, its the Democrats too. Both parties are supporting candidates that aren't worthy or unfit mentally and/or physically. Marjorie Brown of Georgia is just batsh*t crazy. Proves every stereotype of southern Americans that the movie deliverance or those Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns portrayed. The same state was hair close to electing a former NFL player who was proven, no question to lie consistently and his own son came out and the guy, maybe from too many hits to the head could barely string together a coherent sentence.

We are done. And deservedly so. We were never great stewards of our place in the world since WW2. We didn't lead with fairness and respect, we used our American brashness on the international stage to bully countries for our whatever selfish reasons disguised as making the world free for democracy.

I'm actually not nervous about tomorrow night. I think we will play better than people think. Had we had Partey and Jesus for the 2nd half of the season, I think we'd be 7 or 8 points to the good minimum. We just didn't have the depth to withstand being without the first XI.

I think the game will end in a draw, with some dramatic moments.

Very salty

Judith sent me some pictures from her grandson to post here.

I've never heard of this guy. One of the commentators said for 4 or 5 years Neville Southall was the best keeper in the world.

https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=6040736492616115

Fantastic pix Warrior. He seems to have had a good time.

When will all these 100 odd charges that have been made by the PL against City be heard?

I mean this isn't a couple of minor indiscretions, this is major but City seemingly can just carry on winning trophies as if nothing has happened.

He was a brilliant keeper, but in the 80's there were a few world class UK keepers.....Clemence, Shilton, obviously Seaman a bit later...

Arteta says Xhaka is doubtful.

I really think you will see a side similar to one gunfire suggested with Jorginho in.

Clemence and Shilton I definitely know about. Maybe a bit hyperbolic to say he was the best for a few years with those iconic keepers around at the same time.

Feels like we have to change something for this game. Our natural game is good enough for virtually everyone in the league, for the top teams we need our best 11 and our natural game, for City away that might not even be enough. And without a couple of key parts of our best 11 our natural game is hard to find.

I don’t think this is a game to go toe to toe with City on. I think we need to sit deeper, bring in Jorginho alongside Partey and play much more on the counter attack.

If Ake is out then Saka is a huge weapon down our right against maybe Laporte. Ake has defended Saka as good as anyone I’ve seen over the last 2 years.

I really hope it's just mind games.
We need as close to full strength as possible to have any chance tomorrow.
If he is out then has to start trossard or jorginho.
But not Viera!!!

Even a draw is massive tomorrow.
Means if city were to win their games in hand we would only be a point behind.
Still be up for grabs.
I don't think we are capable of sitting back and defending. We have to go for it.

Harry Belafonte, singer, actor, and civil rights activist dies at 96

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-26/ ... /102265522

FA Youth Cup Final live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLE40ZJ49uE

Anyone else’s YouTube of that stuttering? Bit frustrating. Also the game, blistering start, 1-0 up. Pegged back, then defensive error, going in at HT 3-1 down.

Mirroring the 1st team. Lots of possession, the better side but sloppy and careless defending ruthlessly punished.

Arsenal 4-1 down in a game they have largely dominated.

Has the City game already started ?

We lose or even draw we are essentially out. City hasn't lost any game in any competition since about mid February. Last league draw in February. Only other dropped points were CL games 2nd leg when the first leg was sewn up and they played the bench 2nd leg. They are also winning decisively. No last minute gasps for a goal. They are locking up games early. It's treble form moreso than league or double form. If we lose, I want City to win the treble for 2 reasons. First, winning it will somewhat mitigate the criticism we will face for losing the lead. The season narrative will be unstoppable City moreso than Arsenal choked. Second, it will piss off Man Utd.

If we win, which I am hoping for, it will put my stomach in knots because it prolongs what could be a disappointment. We will still have to negotiate beating Chelsea, Newcastle and a Brighton side that pushed Man Utd to a penalty shoot out. So, it may be a matter of a great, historic win and renewed hopes only to be dashed elsewhere. Us winning a huge match tonight obviously doesn't mean we will win the rest of the games.

If City wins and gets a scoring result at Real Madrid on the 9th next month, they will win the treble. If its 0-0, its dicey. I am guessing RM won't be able to contend with a Haaland that has great players around him. My guess is RM won't be able to both contain Haaland while not letting the likes of DeBruyne and others score.

Try the FA Player next time it was very clear no problems at all apart from our performance.

The FA Youth Cup Final was a weird game. Looking at the score you'd think we got absolutely mullered and yet we appeared to have more of the possession, had the better passing moves and missed some really good chances, albeit we played with Nwaneri as a kind of false 9 which didn't really work.

West Ham's finishing was absolutely fantastic, ruthless and clinical, but our defending was hopeless.

Which brings me to a question, how much work do we actually do on ensuring our players have mastered the basics of defending, like marking a man, tracking runners, attacking the ball, denying space and time etc? On last nights evidence very little.

We had a back four who were all good on the ball but as a defensive unit they were terrible. Not just the defence either, the midfielders hardly covered themselves in glory either from a defensive point of view.

There is no doubt we have some really good skilful technical players who can pass and dribble etc but last night showed clearly that technique alone is not enough.

tell me when its over

5 mins gone

Will we sit back tonight and play on the break or will we try to dominate from the off.

Both strategies unlikely to work.

Too true
I suspect the latter. We really aren't good at sitting back and playing on the break, although with our players we should be.