Key events
I LOVE this from Eric Petersen:
“Good morning from Pittsburgh! I’m dating myself with this, but Meat Loaf has been playing on repeat in my head most of the weekend, with revised lyrics:
And the Premier League gives us
The drop zone
The top four
But there ain’t no way the title’s up for grabs still
Now don’t be sad
‘Cause two out of three ain’t bad”
I was wondering when I’d get my first bit of Arsenal related correspondence and Rick Harris, in an email titled ‘Ha ha ha ha Haaland’ duly delivers:
“Hi Daniel, I think it is fair to say that Arsenal have done a Newcastle 1996 and all we really needed before their 4-1 thrashing at the hands of the current and likely continuing PL champions was Arteta to lose his rag and splutter ‘I will love it if we beat them’. I really can’t see Fulham having the ability, desire or sheer bloody mindedness to thwart City today and Haaland will undoubtedly score goal 50 of a truly incredible season.”
Fulham are experiencing something of a dip in form. They’ve lost three of their last five and have won just two of their previous seven league games.
They’re leaking goals at the back, conceding 13 from their last eight without a clean sheet.
This does not bode well in a game where they’re on the wrong end of a 4-28 aggregate score from the previous ten meetings with City.
Fulham are 10th on the table but they’re now safe with 45 points. So it’s not too serious where they finish but after once dreaming of a spot in Europe they’ll want to stop the slide and retain their top half finish.
If you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend you read Donald McRae’s interview with Andriy Shevchenko. A staggering story brilliantly told.
As if to underline Fulham’s impressive improvement, City needed a 95th minute penalty from Haaland to secure all three points back in Manchester earlier in the season. Alvarez, who starts today, bagged the opener before a penalty from Pereira levelled it before the break. After more than an hour without another goal it looked like Fulham would snatch a draw Haaland squeezed his spot kick under Leno.
“Hi Daniel,”
Hey Richard Hirst. Thanks for checking in.
“It’s a mark of how far Fulham have come that I’m regarding this game as the proverbial ‘free hit’, whereas in seasons past fixtures against Man City followed by Liverpool would have been the sealing of our inevitable relegation. Marco Silva has done a great job with a team that has a majority of players who played for us in the Championship. I’m not sure he has had the recognition he deserves.”
I’ve done a few MBMs on Fulham this season and they’ve completely won me over. Full credit to Silva and the players, and the crowd at Craven Cottage. I know the discourse around Fulham can be patronising at times but they’re honestly a delightful club and I hope they continue to rise.
And you’re right, Richard, this is a free swing. Maybe they’ll thwack it out the park…
City have rather enjoyed playing Fulham recently. They’re on a 13 game winning streak and haven’t lost in 20 game stretching back to 12 April 2009.
Funny enough, that 3-1 reverse was played at the City of Manchester Stadium with a Clint Dempsey double and another from Dickson Etuhu overcoming an early strike from Stephen Ireland.
A pair of Bulgarians in Valery Bozhinov and Martin Petrov led the line for City that day with Nedum Onuoha and Micah Richards partnering at the back.
Two of our heavy hitters have had their say on perhaps the Premier League’s heaviest hitter of all time. Does that work? You know what I mean.
Manchester City are very good, but is that very good for English football?
Jonathan Wilson compares this treble charge to the one pulled off by Manchester United in ‘99 and wonders if we’ve grown bored with watching the lions tear apart Christians in the Colosseum.
And Barney Ronay wonders if that cold shiver we feel when we watch City run through teams isn’t fear but ennui.
Haaland one short of 50
City have named three at the back with Stones in a midfield role. They’ll be expected to boss the ball which is good news for the striking Viking up top who is one goal away from a staggering half century in what is surely the most impressive debut season in Premier League history.
Manchester City 3-4-3: Ederson, Walker, Dias, Akanji, Stones, Gundogan, Rodri, Alvarez, Grealish, Mahrez, Haaland.
Substitutes: Phillips, Silva, Gomez, Perrone, Foden, Ortega, Carson, Laporte, Lewis.
Today’s team! 💥
XI | Ederson, Walker, Stones, Dias, Akanji, Rodrigo, Gundogan (C), Mahrez, Grealish, Alvarez, Haaland
SUBS | Ortega Moreno, Carson, Phillips, Laporte, Bernardo, Gomez, Perrone, Foden, Lewis#ManCity | @HaysWorldwide pic.twitter.com/RnMX6mz13Q
— Manchester City (@ManCity) April 30, 2023
Vinicius leads line for Fulham
The Brazilian up top will hopefully have a busy day with the ball at his feet, but it’s not hard to envisage a tough afternoon chasing shadows and long balls. Can he make any of them stick and link up with a stacked midfield?
Fulham 4-5-1: Leno, Tete, Adarabioyo, Ream (C), Robinson, Reed, Wilson, De Cordova-Reid, Pereira, Palhinha, Vinicius.
Substitutes: Kebano, Cairney, James, Lukic, Rodak, Solomon, Duffy, Soares, Diop.
Preamble
Daniel Gallan
How do we describe Manchester City? A Google search for “Manchester City machine” yields 306,000 results. “Manchester City juggernaut” produces 7,590 hits. “Manchester City unstoppable” comes up with 4,380.
It seems we’ve run out of superlatives for a team that is on track to win a treble in third gear. Except I’ve found one that we haven’t explored yet.
“Manchester City blob” comes up with zero pages on Google. But that is what they are. Though they move the ball at breakneck speed, whizzing it around hapless defenders who must feel as if they’ve been caught in a cyclone, Manchester City as a collective have consumed English football like the slow crawling Blob monster in the 1958 science fiction horror film starring Steve McQueen.
There’s nothing anyone can do about it. There’s no reasoning with it. By the end of the film the carnivorous jelly-like alien remains intact and insatiably hungry. It isn’t thwarted. It’s just shipped off to Antarctica where it’ll hopefully freeze.
Unfortunately for every other side in the Premier League, that isn’t an option here. And next up in City’s sights are Fulham, a team that has punched well above its weight for most of the campaign.
The smart money is on the Blob consuming another victim. Whether they play through the middle, spread it wide, tiki-taka it around or send it long to the big lad with the luscious locks, this result feels inevitable.
But this is football and upsets do occur. A Fulham win would do wonders for a title race that has all but eroded and certainly prove that Pep’s boys are of this world, and not a cluster of creatures from a far off galaxy.
We (everyone but City fans) can hope for something unpredictable. Unless of course the Blob has arrived in west London with an appetite.
Kick off at 2pm BST. Teams and updates to follow.
