THE BUILD-UP
Aston Villa face a tough battle to kick-off the difficult and intense month of December, as they play hosts to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, who sit second in the league, and only a point behind Chelsea.
Steven Gerrard is looking at making it a hat-trick of wins after making an excellent start to life as the new Head Coach, beating Brighton and Hove Albion earlier this month, and Crystal Palace most recently on the weekend.
These consecutive victories have helped the claret and blue side up the table, seeing them rise as high as 11th in the league before the Sunday fixtures took place. After the game week, they see themselves in 13th, but only out of the top half on goal difference, and four points off Wolverhampton Wanderers who occupy the sixth position.
The claret and blue side are playing some fine football at the moment, with significant improvements made to the defensive shape of the team which looks more robust and difficult to break down. Players such as Tyrone Mings, John McGinn and Marvelous Nakamba have stepped up and looked as if they are born to play in a Steven Gerrard side.
However, Gerrard faces his hardest challenge yet, in trying to prevent a world-class Manchester City team that is full of quality talent everywhere you look. Can the new boss cause an upset, and put an end to their current five-game unbeaten form, or will Guardiola get the better of the former Liverpool captain and put a firm stop to the respectable start he has made at his new club, as they face off against each other for the first time on the touchline?
TEAM NEWS
Aston Villa face no new injury worries in the lead up to the upcoming Manchester City game, and it is expected that the squad that travelled to Selhurst Park on Saturday will be the same group picked for the next tie.
Trezeguet continues to build up his match fitness and sharpness after re-joining first-team training over the past couple of weeks. We can expect to see the Egyptian back in match-day contention towards the end of the year/start of 2022. Gerrard has informed the Villa fans that the winger will feature for the under 23 side throughout December, to get him in the right shape for a Premier League comeback.
“He will be involved for some time in a match for the under-23 team, he is close to returning well.“
– an update on Trezeguet’s long awaited comeback from Head Coach Steven Gerrard. ( https://middleeast.in-24.com/sport/News/125260.html )
Bertrand Traore remains the only player to miss team training, and will therefore be unavailable for the Manchester City game as his injury, which has kept him out for most of the season, persists. The Villa faithful eagerly await his resurgence into the side and look forward to seeing the part he has to play in a Steven Gerrard team. The Burkino Faso international posted a couple of videos of himself in rehabilitation at Bodymoor Heath late last week – let’s hope he can recover as soon as possible and resume the impressive displays that we saw last season.
Morgan Sanson and Douglas Luiz have recently returned to the side after recovering from injuries of their own, and with it another few training sessions under their belt, they should be match fit and in contention for a starting place in mid-week. Luiz, of course, featured off the bench against Palace and had quiet the cameo after being involved in a controversial VAR decision that originally saw the Brazilian red-carded.
As for Manchester City, they could be without several key players, including one that Villa fans will be all too familiar with – Jack Grealish.
Our former captain has been side-lined after getting a knock whilst on international duty, and it is looking increasingly likely that he will miss the long-awaited comeback game at Villa Park. There have been questions in the weeks leading up to this fixture surrounding the reception the number 10 would receive when back in B6, but this seems to have been answered, with the boyhood Villa fan set to miss the game.
Phil Foden, a man who has caused Villa some problems over the years, is also questionable for this game, after picking up an injury in a game against Everton last Sunday. Foden has missed the two games since, and Guardiola confirmed he had been training alone, which may be an indicator that he is not ready for matchday selection just yet, and the Villa game may come too soon for the English talent.
Midfield maestro, Kevin De Bruyne, is a certain miss for the game having contracted COVID-19 just over a week ago and has been isolating at home since. Spaniard Ferran Torres will not play as he continues to recover from a foot injury that has seen him miss nearly two months of action.
Manchester City have several key attacking players out for the game against Aston Villa, which will certainly be a plus for Steven Gerrard and his side, but with the wealth of quality players in their ranks, including Raheem Sterling, Riyad Mahrez and Bernardo Silva, the challenge at hand remains just as tough.
THE OPPONENTS
This week’s opponents Manchester City are a side that has dominated English football for the last decade or so, winning the Premier League title five times, the league cup six times and the FA Cup on two separate occasions.
Having appointed Pep Guardiola as the new Head Coach in 2016, replacing former manager Manuel Pellegrini, the Citizens have been formidable, and have broken numerous English league records along the away, with the most impressive coming from the 17/18 season that saw them achieve a total of 100 points throughout the campaign, leading to the nicknaming of ‘the Centurions’.
The club is one of the richest in the world, having been taken over in 2007 by a group of shareholders from Abu Dhabi, who allow the recruitment team to spend lots of money on outstanding footballers from the best leagues in the world, each season.
In Guardiola’s time at the club, he has spent just under £1billion in bringing players to the club, and City was able to break the record for the biggest transfer of an English player ever, after signing former Villa captain Jack Grealish for a total of £100 million on a six-year deal last summer.
Many people put Man City’s success solely down to the high spending each year, but it cannot be underplayed how remarkable Pep Guardiola is as a Head Coach, evidenced through the breath-taking football he had former teams Barcelona and Bayern Munich playing, and it is has been no different during his time with City.
The Spanish boss enjoys playing a high-intensity possession-based style of play, that sees his players record league-high figures for distance covered and sprints each game. This style of play allows his team to pin the opposition in their own box and bombard the attacking third with players which seems them create several chances and score plenty of goals.
This assertive system is one that Guardiola has played for the majority of his managerial career, and a standout piece of the puzzle is that of the attacking full-backs. Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo are typically the pairings that Guardiola opts for, and the playing-style often sees the two occupy central-midfield positions, allowing the players who typically start in the centre, e.g Bernardo Silva or Kevin De Bruyne, to drift wider and higher up the pitch and inflict damage in and around the box.
This season, Cancelo has really shined in the City side, and currently boasts three assist to his name alongside numerous man of the match performances in the league. The Portuguese man has looked even better in the Champions League, recording two goals and a further three assists, which has contributed to his side’s impressive showing in Europe, where they sit top of their group ahead of Paris Saint-Germain, RB Leipzig and Villa-loanee Wesley’s Club Brugge.
Man City are coming off the back of three straight Premier League victories, beating inner-city rivals Manchester United, as well as Everton and West Ham United. Their most recent UCL game saw them put in a superb display against Lionel Messi and co. as they beat PSG by two goals to one. They have shown they can be beaten, however, with Tottenham Hotspur defeating them on the opening day of the season, and more recently, Crystal Palace causing an upset at the Etihad Stadium.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As mentioned earlier in the piece, this will be a tough game and will require hard work from every player if we are to get something out of it. Man City are an incredible footballing side, with some of the best players in the world, and their relentlessness in and out of possession explains why they are so successful, justifying their league position and dominance domestically over the years.
That being said, we are yet to see a losing side under Steven Gerrard, and the team will be full of confidence coming off the back of two impressive wins against sides higher than them in the league. Gerrard and his coaching staff will have a particular game plan for this fixture as he looks to outwit Pep Guardiola and cause an upset in front of a packed Villa Park.
Gerrard has emphasised his want for his side to look ‘hard to beat, which has certainly been a staple of the way we have played so far under his tenure. Having only seen fourteen attempts against us over the two games, and only the one goal conceded, we look much harder to break down and score against, with the structure of the side more rigid than games before.
Unfortunately, Manchester City is a team capable of getting through any defence and boast one of the best attacks across the globe. With twenty-seven goals scored so far this season, and only five against, Villa have it all to do this Wednesday night.
I can see it going one of two ways, a comfortable away win or a hard-fought draw, and I am going to remain positive, believe in the boys and choose the latter. Let’s go with a 1-1 with Ollie Watkins to score his fourth of the season.
Up the Villa!
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