Johnny Baguette
Alert Team
The Feel Good Factor is all consuming across Planet Blue as the hunger, intensity and passion of Pep Guardiola continues to radiate throughout Manchester City and the club's support whilst sending shockwaves through the Premier League and Europe. Following the abject stagnation of last season, the sense of relief and release swirling around Manchester right now is awe inspiring.
Contrast this with the tsunami of misery that has engulfed the erstwhile social crutch that is supporting the Stretford Galacticos as 'late winner at Hull' hysteria gives way to a meltdown and quite frankly, we are in dreamland.
Long may it continue. The new mantra from the anti-City brigade in the media having had their 'can Guardiola get results in the Premier League?' campaign answered with interest is 'how long can it last?'
With games coming thick and fast, we are of course about to find out. As we wrestle with striving to overcome the dread that preceded similar fixtures last season and find ourselves basking in the afterglow of win after win, I would suggest that the imminent four straight away fixtures inside 12 days running up to the irritation of the next international break will be pivotal.
The infrequent fate of being drawn in cup competitions with sides we are about to play in the league has occurred again as we head for a Welsh trip double header with Swansea. Often a tricky assignment, despite Swans poor form, the two missions are compounded by their proximity for starters, then the logistics will put the meticulous Guardiola game preparation that Gael Clichy has enthused over this weekend to the test. Hot on the heels of these assignments comes our next Champions League mission. To Glasgow Celtic. And it's highly likely to be horrible, particularly off the park where full on Neanderthal tribalism has been in full effect of late. Lastly, we head for Tottenham to face a canny manager and his group of highly talented young players who took the Blues to the cleaners twice in the last campaign.
If City emerge from this quartet of fixtures unscathed and unbeaten, then without a doubt we can be certain that we are in for one hell of a season.
A resurgent Everton led by Pep pal the astute Ronald Koeman and a showdown with our European nemesis Barcelona await on the other side of the aforementioned break, but as our gaffer would directly say, let`s not get ahead of ourselves.
VMC's contacts in Germany and Spain assured us a couple of weeks back that there will be no let up if Pep begins to develop an initial City steamroller into a juggernaut. This has proved to be the case and the man himself at yet another classy press conference vowed that there will be no complacency on his watch. This was an issue that dogged the Manuel Pellegrini era with predictable regularity.
Above and beyond all the aforementioned intrigue, if City can maintain the stellar work rate and scintillating football that has swept 7 teams aside thus far in the majority of each game then there is every reason to feel confident as City`s increasingly bold travelling army takes to the road to back Pep`s Band of Brothers.
There have been some exceptional performances in Sky Blue this season and the star performers need no introduction but as we saw once again against Bournemouth I am going to single out Pep's 'Kolarov Cocktail' as the man of the season thus far. Aleks has featured in 7 of our victories to date and the imperious Serbian, to all intents and purposes not only transformed in a positive sense, has become wholly reinvented as Pep's utility man. A jack of all trades seamlessly making positional changes as required and subsequently bossing his direct opponent. The 30 year old made his 214th appearance for the club in the rout of the south coast side, some of his passing simply exquisite.
The continued resurgence of Kolarov, Zabaleta and Sterling in particular bode well for the upcoming road trip.
Read more: http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=571395#ixzz4Kdc2N9aG
Contrast this with the tsunami of misery that has engulfed the erstwhile social crutch that is supporting the Stretford Galacticos as 'late winner at Hull' hysteria gives way to a meltdown and quite frankly, we are in dreamland.
Long may it continue. The new mantra from the anti-City brigade in the media having had their 'can Guardiola get results in the Premier League?' campaign answered with interest is 'how long can it last?'
With games coming thick and fast, we are of course about to find out. As we wrestle with striving to overcome the dread that preceded similar fixtures last season and find ourselves basking in the afterglow of win after win, I would suggest that the imminent four straight away fixtures inside 12 days running up to the irritation of the next international break will be pivotal.
The infrequent fate of being drawn in cup competitions with sides we are about to play in the league has occurred again as we head for a Welsh trip double header with Swansea. Often a tricky assignment, despite Swans poor form, the two missions are compounded by their proximity for starters, then the logistics will put the meticulous Guardiola game preparation that Gael Clichy has enthused over this weekend to the test. Hot on the heels of these assignments comes our next Champions League mission. To Glasgow Celtic. And it's highly likely to be horrible, particularly off the park where full on Neanderthal tribalism has been in full effect of late. Lastly, we head for Tottenham to face a canny manager and his group of highly talented young players who took the Blues to the cleaners twice in the last campaign.
If City emerge from this quartet of fixtures unscathed and unbeaten, then without a doubt we can be certain that we are in for one hell of a season.
A resurgent Everton led by Pep pal the astute Ronald Koeman and a showdown with our European nemesis Barcelona await on the other side of the aforementioned break, but as our gaffer would directly say, let`s not get ahead of ourselves.
VMC's contacts in Germany and Spain assured us a couple of weeks back that there will be no let up if Pep begins to develop an initial City steamroller into a juggernaut. This has proved to be the case and the man himself at yet another classy press conference vowed that there will be no complacency on his watch. This was an issue that dogged the Manuel Pellegrini era with predictable regularity.
Above and beyond all the aforementioned intrigue, if City can maintain the stellar work rate and scintillating football that has swept 7 teams aside thus far in the majority of each game then there is every reason to feel confident as City`s increasingly bold travelling army takes to the road to back Pep`s Band of Brothers.
There have been some exceptional performances in Sky Blue this season and the star performers need no introduction but as we saw once again against Bournemouth I am going to single out Pep's 'Kolarov Cocktail' as the man of the season thus far. Aleks has featured in 7 of our victories to date and the imperious Serbian, to all intents and purposes not only transformed in a positive sense, has become wholly reinvented as Pep's utility man. A jack of all trades seamlessly making positional changes as required and subsequently bossing his direct opponent. The 30 year old made his 214th appearance for the club in the rout of the south coast side, some of his passing simply exquisite.
The continued resurgence of Kolarov, Zabaleta and Sterling in particular bode well for the upcoming road trip.
Read more: http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=571395#ixzz4Kdc2N9aG
