Manchester City v B Dortmund - 12.30pm BST Thurs 28th July - pre-season tour Match Day Thread

Skoorb

Skoorb

Alert Team
I was not too disappointed at the loss of the game at the Birds Nest as I feared for the limbs of our players and did not miss the inevitable media circus that was building as the hacks slavered over the Maureen/Guardiola meeting. They can save it all up now for when hostilities commence in earnest in September.

The loss of the fixture though does mean less opportunity for our new coach to assess his squad options ahead of the new season. City will arrive on Aug 13th having played only three games, two less than Sunderland. Overall fitness seems to be being addressed but the edge that matches, albeit not fully competitive ones, gives might be dulled. Hey ho, at least it has to be better than travelling to Halifax, Sc**thorpe, Tranmere, Oldham and Huddersfield like we did back in the day. Well before the 2001/02 season at least.

Despite losing Hummels, Mkhitaryan and Gundogan, Dortmund have not been static in the transfer market. Among the ten players joining their club in this window they have added Goetze, Schurrle, Ousmane Dembele to support their prolific striker Aubameyang (25 league goals last season) - the 151st (approx) player who will be "joining City imminently".

They will provide a decent test and they certainly looked capable when putting 4 past the Salford Reds last weekend.

Guardiola will undoubtedly give some of the youngsters another chance to impress. The likes of Maffeo, Angelino, Adarabioyo, and Garcia can expect some game time alongside some other members of the senior squad. Sterling, Aguero, Silva, Hart etc may well feature but given that 11 subs can be used there is plenty of scope for rotation of senior squad members.

In the absence of Kompany it seems that Guardiola is building trust with his players by deferring to their judgements to who should be the captain when VK isn't available....

"We've only been together a few weeks or a month and they know each other better than me. It's their responsibility."

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/pep-guardiola-tells-city-players-to-pick-captain-in-vincent-kompanys-absence-34916912.html?

Interesting. We shall see how that works out. My choice would be Fernandinho ahead of the previous usual suspects Hart and Yaya.

And speaking of Fernando Luiz Roza, it seems that he has already made an impression on his new coach who has expressed the view that he is versatile enough to play in "ten positions" and drawing comparisons with his deployment of Mascherano at Barcelona....

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/man-city-mascherano-fernandinho-guardiola-11670207?

Who would you like to see given a chance under Guardiola?

The game will be shown live on Sky.

It may be a pre-season friendly but.........Come On City!!
 
I read somewhere that pep would like to get a game organised against a championship/league 1 team to make up for the dark side fiasco
 
Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund Preview

http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=569089
 
As Skoorb says above, I too am not disappointed in the abandonment of the match with Stretford, there is never a friendly between our two clubs as pride of the fans has a lot to do with it.

Aubameyang, would like to play for Real Madrid, but it does not mean that he wants away from his current club, The media have been playing their usual and it is good to see that it is not only players in this country that get what they say, spun around twisted and then given sensational headlines.

City were given the tag of an old team, but that does not appear to have worried the bosses as we have bought young and old into the team.

Will we ever see some of the players that we buy and then immediately send out on loan, I have not quite worked out why yet but I have a theory, but I will leave it at that.

In today's game will Pep experiment or is it another look at the EDS lads or is it time to get our first team to play 45 mins. Will F25 play as a CB.

Not long now to find out.
 
Minute-by-minute images, updates etc from China.

http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=569101
 
City starting XI vs. Dortmund: Caballero, Maffeo, Adarabioyo, Kolarov, Angelino, Fernando, Fernandinho, Zinchenko, Barker, Iheanacho, Navas
 
I wonder if we will get another friendly in before we play Arsenal on the 7th August, Gooners fans should be in their booing training mode.

 
Apparently that's not the team, this is:

Updated XI with several changes: Caballero, Clichy, Otamendi, Adarabioyo, Kolarov, Fernando, Fernandinho, Delph, Navas, Zinchenko, Iheanacho
 
I'm disappointed that Angelino and Maffeo aren't starting, really enjoyed watching them the last day.
 
I wish this would post at the top rather having to scroll down every time. It's ok on a desk top but on a tablet it's a nightmare
 
You must log in or register to reply here.