Manchester City vs Aston Villa Pre-Match Thread - Jan 20th - 6.00pm

[Duncan Shaw]

This has come round a just about the worst time it could have done for us.  Anytime before December and I've had backed us to give them a game and sneak a result of some sort, but can't see it now with their excellent form and our enforced break.  As long as a defeat doesn't de-rail our overall momentum I can accept that!  3-1 Citeh.

[andyh]

There are photos of everyone in our starting 11 other than Emi and El Goalzi, back in training on Twitter now....even including the elusive Ross Barkley!

[Dave P]

Can't see us winning this but it will be good for our squad to get back into it.  A new good run will start on Saturday.

3-0 Citeh.

[AlexAlexCropley]

Looks like the rain will be worse in the am and early pm,easing off by 5

[exigo]

There are photos of everyone in our starting 11 other than Emi and El Goalzi, back in training on Twitter now....even including the elusive Ross Barkley!

Emi now up on twitter, training at BH.

[exigo]

So, possibly Barkley in for El Ghazi, with Grealish moving wide based on the sightings so far.

[Ads]

There are pictures of;

Konsa
Ramsey
Targett
Dougie
Watkins
Mings
McGinn
Cash
Davis
Grealish
Taylor
Traore
Barkley
Nakamba
Martinez
Heaton

[PaulWinch again]

Good to see some training pics.

[Drummond]

You guessed you mean.

Without knowing who is fit and who is not, I would go with;

Martinez

Targett
Mings
Konsa
Cash

Dougie
McGinn

Barkley

Grealish
Watkins
El Goalzi

That won't be the line up. Impossible.

Ok, I'll respond. How do you know it's impossible?

[Ads]

Deano saying they look bright in training and he expects a bright response. Heavily implies McGinn hasn't had it along with Jack, so hopefully we get the best XI out there and put them under.

[Risso]

You guessed you mean.

Without knowing who is fit and who is not, I would go with;

Martinez

Targett
Mings
Konsa
Cash

Dougie
McGinn

Barkley

Grealish
Watkins
El Goalzi

That won't be the line up. Impossible.

Ok, I'll respond. How do you know it's impossible?

Ssing as they're all pictured training, I'd say it's not only not impossible, it's actually quite likely. Somebody's research and putting out of the feelers isn't up to scratch.

[oishiiniku]

It's all dependent on who actually got covid and how severe their symptoms were of course, but there's a chance that this break could well have been beneficial to the players who didn't catch the virus/were asymptomatic. There were definitely a number of players against Man Utd who were looking fatigued (Watkins and Grealish especially looked to be lacking energy in the final 30 mins) so who knows, maybe they'll have an extra spring in their step. Also, while it's not ideal to not be able to train together for 2 weeks, players will have continued to train in isolation and would not have started preparing for this game until Monday anyway.

[Big Ming]

Could do with Villa somehow winning while Douglas Luis has a  one-off stinker!

[Toronto Villa]

You guessed you mean.

Without knowing who is fit and who is not, I would go with;

Martinez

Targett
Mings
Konsa
Cash

Dougie
McGinn

Barkley

Grealish
Watkins
El Goalzi

That won't be the line up. Impossible.

Ok, I'll respond. How do you know it's impossible?

Ssing as they're all pictured training, I'd say it's not only not impossible, it's actually quite likely. Somebody's research and putting out of the feelers isn't up to scratch.

And if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t have to be because of Covid. It could be just because the manager wants to try something different. But it’s certainly not impossible we will chose our strongest or most settled line up.

[Risso]

It's all dependent on who actually got covid and how severe their symptoms were of course, but there's a chance that this break could well have been beneficial to the players who didn't catch the virus/were asymptomatic. There were definitely a number of players against Man Utd who were looking fatigued (Watkins and Grealish especially looked to be lacking energy in the final 30 mins) so who knows, maybe they'll have an extra spring in their step. Also, while it's not ideal to not be able to train together for 2 weeks, players will have continued to train in isolation and would not have started preparing for this game until Monday anyway.

I imagine that if any of them aren't right from Covid, then there's no way they'd be training, and more importantly, pictured training. Full squad available, Boss Rarkley back, 3-0 Villa, fuck off Mancs.