Matchday: Lech Poznań

Jose Maria Bakero has been appointed the new Lech Poznan head coach just one day before our top of group A clash. There appears to have been major upheaval in the Lech camp since our previous encounter, back to back 4-1 wins against Cracovia in the cup and Wisla Krakow in the league before the firing of Jacek Zielinski.

Of course this brings about the possibility of 'new manager syndrome' to a tough game played in front of a sell out 45,000 crowd. The locals will make this an atmosphere to remember, many fans queuing well in advance to purchase tickets

Last Saturday was possibly the worst performance from the Mancini reign, but it's likely that a lot of the players from that team will have to wait a few more days to make amends, with Roberto Mancini confirming that there will be squad rotation. "We will probably change some players for tomorrow because with a game every three days it's impossible to play the same players. So we need to make changes but we have good players and they can put in some good work on Thursday."

One player that didn't feature at Wolves, Aleksandar Kolarov looks set for his return to action since his injury during the opening match of the season. Albeit it is likely to be a cameo from the bench.

Shay Given could also start only his second game of the season according to Mancini's answer from last week's fans' forum. Although the loss to Wolves plus Shay suffering a knock in training on Monday could see Hart retaining his place.

Carlos Tevez remains in Argentina until Friday so Adebayor is likely to keep his starting place. Roque Santa Cruz is not registered for the EL squad, leaving Mario Balotelli and Jo as the remaining strikers fighting for a position. Given Balotelli's recent return from a long term injury plus the 90 minutes he played on Saturday, I believe he is unlikely to start, with a tough trip to the Hawthornes followed by the Manchester derby in the next seven days.

I'd like to thank Michał Zachodny from http://polishscout.blogspot.com/ and Kuba Krzyzostaniak from http://lechinusa.blogspot.com/ for their help this week.

Ask The Opposition: Lech Poznań

The fan

Name: Kuba Krzyzostaniak

Age: 23

The game

Starting with the big news - the club has today parted ways with manager Jacek Zielinski, were you surprised by the decision?

Not too surprised. There had been a lot of speculation last week that there was already a deal made with Bakero to take over, and after our horrid league position so far, something was bound to happen. The only thing that surprised me was that they waited to just 2 days before the huge match against City.

Jose Maria Bakero has been appointed his replacement; most will remember him for his playing career at Barcelona, but more recently he was head coach of Polonia Warsaw. Are you happy with the appointment and what can we expect from his team tomorrow?

I'm glad we will have a foreigner take over. Bakero doesn't have too much of a head coaching history for me to base how I think he will do with us, but he has worked with some great coaches and I thought he overall did well in his time at Polonia Warsaw. The owner there was constantly meddling in tactics, etc. and Bakero was sacked even though he had Polonia at the top of the table at the beginning of the season. Honestly, I have no idea what he expects to do with the team, it could be hard to expect them to learn a whole new system in maximum two training sessions, so I'm expecting we'll play similar to what you saw in Manchester. Probably Rudnevs up front though instead of Tshibamba. If he gets us playing like Barca though you had better watch out.

Scoreline Prediction:

I'm an optimist and I think our crowd will play a big role: Lech 2:1 Man. City

From an outside perspective, Artjoms Rudņevs looks to be the danger man; which players should we keep an eye on?:

Manuel Arboleda, our big Colombian defender always comes forward on set pieces and is also a scoring threat. Slawomir Peszko, our speedy right winger has been in good form the past few weeks and look for him to continue his pacy runs down the flank. In central midfield we're getting back Tomasz Bandrowski from injury, solid defensive midfielder who is very composed with the ball.

General Lech Poznań

What has been your favourite memory/moment from supporting Lech Poznań?

Finally winning the Polish league again after 17 years!

And the worst -

Getting relegated to the second division in 2000 and almost going down to the third the season after that.

If you could sign a player from the Manchester City squad, who would you choose ?

Wow, this one is kind of tough, but I'd probably take David Silva, have him direct our offense.

If you could place a past Lech Poznań player into the current team, who would it be?

Miroslaw Okonski, great player and Lech icon, my dad says he is one of the most technically talented players he ever saw play.

Finally, good luck for tomorrow and the rest of the season.
Good luck to you guys as well, I'm really looking forward to this game.

Matchday: Wolves

• Great news on the defensive front is Kolo Toure returning to fitness. There is no doubting we have missed his partnership with Vincent Kompany - which only shipped 4 goals in 10 games, compared to the 7 goals in the last 3 games without him.

• The full back choices are again less obvious. Micah Richards was excellent against Arsenal and may well retain his place, possibly with Jerome Boateng filling in at left back. Kolarov is expected to take some part of Thursday's game so we are not far off our first choice defence.

• Carlos Tevez will miss the game with a dead leg. He has flown to Argentina to spend the weekend with his family before returning to training on Monday. A major doubt for Thursday's game against Lech Poznan, although he probably would be rested anyway.

• In his absence, it's likely that Emmanuel Adebayor will continue to deputise. Mario Balotelli is pushing for his first start, but I have my doubts whether he would be chosen as the lone striker. Mario is much more of a supporting ST, if he does start tomorrow I suspect it will be up front alongside Adebayor, with David Silva playing behind them at the tip of a diamond midfield. I'm planning on writing a full post on the diamond formation and Mancini's preference towards it later this weekend.

Ask The Opposition: Wolves

The fans

Name: Gerald Early
Age: 67

Name: Sam
Age: 19


The game

Scoreline Prediction:

Gerald - Feeling strangely optimistic, Wolves 1 - 0 Man City

Sam - 1-2. Although I wouldn't be too surprised to see us snatch a draw!

One to watch:

Gerald - Matt Jarvis, surely an England internation in the near future

Sam - Matt Jarvis. Very close to an England call-up for the last batch of internationals. I fear for our chances of holding onto him next summer, whether we are still playing in the Premier League or not.

Do you feel your current league position belies the way the team has been playing as of late:


Gerald - Not really, although we expected another tough season we're playing some decent football. Our main issue is that we're not clinical enough in front of goal, but we're creating the chances.

Sam - Definitely not - it's the same old story for us, we play some pretty good stuff at times and create chances easily, yet we can never stick them away.


General Wolves

What has been your favourite memory/moment from supporting Wolves:

Gerald - Steve Bull's loyalty, which is something that has gone missing in today's game. Of course, when he got his first cap, it was a proud day for the club. I would've said when one of our promotions, but sadly we haven't really pushed on from them as of yet.


Sam - Probably the Play-off final win against Sheffield United back in 2003. Closely followed by the 4-3 comeback victory against Leicester, and the 1-0 win over Man Utd, both in the following season.

And the worst:

Gerald - Relegation to the old 4th Division in 1986 is the one that stands out the most.

Sam - The entire reign under Hoddle. I don't think I've ever seen such an inept idiot in charge of a football team in my life, words can literally not express how awful he is. He had a team strong enough to battle for promotion from the Championship, and almost took us into League 1, almost ruining the club in the process. Thank god Super Mick came along and got us into the play-offs with a team of nobodies the next season!

If you could sign a player from the City squad (wages etc irrelevant), who would you choose:

Gerald - Carlos Tevez, he's workrate is second to none and he's a proven goalscorer.

Sam - David Silva. I love that little genius, and I'm glad he's found his feet quickly in English football, because for some reason not many people seemed to realise just how good he was.

If you could place a past Wolves player into the current team, who would it be:

Gerald - Quite obviously Steve Bull. He's the big man up front we're missing right now

Sam - Being only 19, I can really only pick a player from our days of being in what is now the Championship! So I'm going to have to go with Steve Bull. The way we create chances, all we need is someone to start sticking them in the back of the net, and who better than Bully to do that job? Wolves legend.

Matchday: Arsenal

• He grabbed a goal, a suspension and the headlines last year, but Emmanuel Adebayor will likely return to the bench after his midweek hat-trick against Lech Poznan. Tevez will take his place, looking to add to 28 goals in his last 30 games.

• I'm fully expecting a return to 4-5-1 after the unsuccesful 4-4-2 experiment last weekend against Blackpool. Yaya Toure returning from injury will mean a full strength midfield, most likely made up of De Jong, Barry, Yaya, Milner and Silva. The De Jong-Barry-Yaya triangle proved to be extremely effective at stifling Chelsea and we will need them to replicate that performance tomorrow against Song, Diaby and Fabregas.

• Tomorrow's defensive line up however, is far less certain. Deposed skipper Kolo Toure is still unavailable after failing to recover from the injury which has kept him out of the last two matches. This is a major blow to our hopes of keeping Chamakh and co quiet as the Kolo/Kompany partnership has matured into one of the best in the league.
  

• Big news on the injury front is that Kolarov and Balotelli will be available for the match, although I'm expecting bench starts at most for both of them. Competitively they have less than 90 minutes between them this season, so will most likely be gradually introduced into the team.

Ask The Opposition: Arsenal

The fan

Name: Vince

Age: 26


The game

Scoreline Prediction: 1-3

One to watch: Samir Nasri. Superb form going into this game.

Although it is still early, many are considering the game a six-pointer; has your season progressed as you had expected so far?

It's been as inconsistent as I'd expect the season immediately after a World Cup to be. Certainly the home defeat to WBA wasn't the anomaly I'd like to claim it as; Hull achieved similar in '08 -'09 against an equally complacent Gunners team. Aside from some early shakes, even as an Arsenal fan I don't think anyone expected us to have had the sheer number of injuries we've had to contend with so far. While Robin 'fibreglass' Van Persie wasn't a massive surprise (and he's fast becoming viewed as a luxury player at the Emirates), losing Vermaelen was an unexpected blow and this time last year meant either losing Song from the midfield or (shudder) bringing in Silvestre. Another player who's seemed absent despite physically being on the pitch is Andre Arshavin. Most of us felt that a good rest in light of Russia's failure to qualify for South Africa would do him good, in truth he still doesn't seem to have shed the weight he piled on over the Summer and after anything above a light jog he ends up doubled over and breathing heavily. While defensive duties have never been top of his priorities list he's left Clichy looking woefully exposed and the latter looked infinitely more comfortable playing behind the more tenacious Tomas Rosicky, who's been in great form of late. In terms of where we are in the table I'm cautiously optimistic; there's a gap to the top but it's smaller than what we overcame (twice!) last year. It's been nice to have gotten some tricky away fixtures over with but I'd like to have played a post-Mascherano Liverpool with the Jack Wilshere who's grown out of that match at Anfield.

Squillaci and Koscielny were the defensive additions this summer whilst Chamakh is already weighing in with goals, how do you feel the new recruits are settling in?

I think they're doing incredibly well. The pair of French lads in defence have been a welcome addition, as has Johan Djourou who has finally returned from injury. The communication across our back 5 has been lacking since the days of Adams and Keown; Toure and Gallas famously hated each other and last year the defence spoke entirely in French, unless they felt the need to include Almunia at which point they'd throw in some English! Squillaci has brought some much needed experience and is very vocal while Koscielny's got an uncanny knack for interceptions. Both have had the odd teething problem but nothing disastrous. Chamakh has been quietly becoming something of a revelation, the Moroccan penalty-collector may not lead the line quite like RVP but he has more experience than Nic Bendtner and after injury forced Arshavin to play as the lone striker last Spring, it's been brilliant having a big target man up front.



General Arsenal

What has been your favourite memory/moment from supporting Arsenal? -

The Dennis Bergkamp goal against Newcastle. It's a pretty obvious answer but aside from THAT Roberto Carlos free kick i'd never before seen a goal I didn't fully understand. It's a goal I get up on youtube whenever I'm with someone who says "why do you even watch football?"
I also have a feeling that the crowd reaction to Eduardo's return/goal on Tuesday will live long in the memory too.

And the worst -

If not the Champions League final, then the day of the injury to our aforementioned Crozillian. I was in Manhattan at the time watching the game in some tacky faux-Irish bar at about 9am due to the time difference, with a girlfriend I'd been with for years who'd grown to silently loathe me. What transpired in that game did nothing for my mood and the relationship went the same way as Eduardo's leg shortly after we returned to England.

If you could sign a player from the City squad (wages etc irrelevant), who would you choose -

Joe Hart. I'm not one of the people who expected Wenger to sign a new 'keeper in the Summer and always kept to the belief that a run of games would see Fabianski show us why we signed him, but you can't go wrong with a player like Hart who just seems to exude the kind of natural confidence you need. It spreads through the defence and makes the whole team more secure when you can trust the guy behind you not to do anything mental.

If you could place a past Arsenal player into the current team, who would it be -

Thierry Henry. I think he in his prime would love the way the team plays at the moment and he'd provide that vital unpredictability we sometimes seem to lack.

Ask The Opposition: Newcastle United

The fan

Name: Michael Bates

Age: 21


The game

Scoreline Prediction: Manchester City 2-1 Newcastle United

One to watch: Ben Arfa

Sunday marks the return of Joey Barton to the ground at which he made his name. Do you feel he has finally put his problems behind him and what is the general fan perception towards him these days?

I still think he is rebuilding his reputation but has so far started to put his past behind him; lets just hope he doesn't go back to his old ways.
Generally I think he is a good player to have in the team, particularly in the premiership as he will battle and has a fiesty side to him, which you need at that level.

If you could sign a player from the City squad (wages etc irrelevant), who would you choose?

If I could have any player from Man City it would probably be someone like Adam Johnson or Carlos Tevez.


General Newcastle

What has been your favourite memory/moment from supporting Newcastle? - Would have to probably be being at St James Park for Alan Shearer's final game against Wigan, which he scored in.

And the worst - Being relegated.

If you could place a past Newcastle player into the current team, who would it be? Alan Shearer

Do you know more than Shearer about Ben Arfa? I would like to think I may do, but I couldn't honeslty say if I do know more about Ben Arfa than Shearer.