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

[Toronto Villa]

It's going to be hard. Not just the lack of preparation, but match fitness and not knowing who is available. We need to do our utmost to stay close to them. A team that's firing on all cylinders right now. I think we will come up short in a backs to the walls game.

3-1 Man City

Watkins for us

[Gareth]

Normally we’d poop ourselves all week about playing them....even at Wembley less than a year ago.  This time we look at what we do well & we worry about how the Covid issue has afffected our team.

Not looked forward to seeing a team line up so much for years

2-1 Villa

[PaulWinch again]

The form they’re in and us coming out of a COVID outbreak - where we don’t know the impact - is a huge ask.

[ChicagoLion]

We went to TTOD with expectations and came up short, another test to see how far we have come and where we are.
They are far from invincible.

[GordonCowansisthegreatest]

We went to TTOD with expectations and came up short, another test to see how far we have come and where we are.
They are far from invincible.

Did we!!
We went there and were robbed by bent ref/VAR, as usual.

[Allan C]

Just watched them against Crystal Palace and they look like they’re back to their best. Think we’ll get a result though  2-2

[SoccerHQ]

Would've been happy playing them about six weeks back.

Less so now. They're on a pretty good run and conceded something ridiculous like three goals since mid November.

And our away record there......if you thought Old Trafford was bad (and we've played well there last two visits and deserved far more than one point) Etihad record is off the scale! Think we've lost every single game since they moved in 2003 bar a win in 06/07 when Barton missed a penalty and they couldn't score any goals that season and also a random league cup win in 12/13. That's it so I don't even want to tot up the defeats.

We also lost there in Maine Road final season and also in 95/96 when they made a Sheffield United type start to the season under Alan Ball.

So after all that......I think we'll lose 3-1. We'll give them a game but unknown is what players aren't fully 100% yet due to covid and you need to be really alive over the 90 minutes to get a result off them so think that may just be beyond us.

[ChicagoLion]

We went to TTOD with expectations and came up short, another test to see how far we have come and where we are.
They are far from invincible.

Did we!!
We went there and were robbed by bent ref/VAR, as usual.

We lost

[FatSam]

We lost

It's obviously pedantic, but I also don't think it's fair to say we 'came up short' when we were fucked over by such an obscene referring decision.

[Nev]

This is the first game I'm resigned to losing since Liverpool in the league at home which tells you something. They are flying and we are regrouping with a likelyhood that a few will be missing.
However, they had a stonking good win tonight which actually might work in our favour if they relax a bit, realistically we're up against it though.
But it has been a funny season.

3-3

[olaftab]

I am not having any nonsense about City being bang in form. They are tired we are fresh 2-0 to us.

[eamonn]

Chalk it up and get ready to funeral the Toon next weekend.

[ChicagoLion]

We lost

It's obviously pedantic, but I also don't think it's fair to say we 'came up short' when we were fucked over by such an obscene referring decision.

nil points

[GordonCowansisthegreatest]

We lost

It's obviously pedantic, but I also don't think it's fair to say we 'came up short' when we were fucked over by such an obscene referring decision.

As I said, "Robbed".

[LukeJames]

Would've been happy playing them about six weeks back.

Less so now. They're on a pretty good run and conceded something ridiculous like three goals since mid November.

And our away record there......if you thought Old Trafford was bad (and we've played well there last two visits and deserved far more than one point) Etihad record is off the scale! Think we've lost every single game since they moved in 2003 bar a win in 06/07 when Barton missed a penalty and they couldn't score any goals that season and also a random league cup win in 12/13. That's it so I don't even want to tot up the defeats.

We also lost there in Maine Road final season and also in 95/96 when they made a Sheffield United type start to the season under Alan Ball.

So after all that......I think we'll lose 3-1. We'll give them a game but unknown is what players aren't fully 100% yet due to covid and you need to be really alive over the 90 minutes to get a result off them so think that may just be beyond us.

Our record there is horrific, regular twattings, even when they were shit.

Didn't we equalise in the 90th minute one year and still lose?