WSL 25/26 | City v United - 13:30 Sat 15 Nov at the Etihad

jojojo

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Just a pause for recollection. In May this year we were doing our very tough run-in and trying to pick up at least a point against City to get a place in this year's WCL qualifiers. We were losing 2-0 after 45 minutes when Grace Clinton scored just before halftime. Melvine Malard got our equaliser in the second half. That meant we'd done just enough to guarantee third place.

Better? How about January when Ella Toone who had been out injured for a couple of months scored a hattrick and Leah Galton got another to give us a 4-2 win at the Etihad.

Or maybe our 2-0 away win against them in the WFA Cup semifinal in April.

At any rate, as formidable as City can be on their day, they're beatable.

Ok, it's tough, I'll grant you that. After a bit of a lull last season they're starting to play well again and are currently top of the league. Bunny Shaw is starting to play the way we know she can. They didn't have to play a tough game against PSG on Wednesday night.

I don't know if Phallon Tullis-Joyce will be ready for this one. I do know that City will attempt to make Safia's derby debut very uncomfortable, especially at setpieces, if it's Safia who starts.

There will undoubtedly be players who need a rest tomorrow and players who need to be kept safe for midweek against Wolfsburg. I think Gabby George will mostly be sitting this one out for example. However we do have to hope that most of them are ready to go again and to do the full 90 again.

Match is live on BBC1 and online.
 
jojojo said:
Just a pause for recollection. In May this year we were doing our very tough run-in and trying to pick up at least a point against City to get a place in this year's WCL qualifiers. We were losing 2-0 after 45 minutes when Grace Clinton scored just before halftime. Melvine Malard got our equaliser in the second half. That meant we'd done just enough to guarantee third place.

Better? How about January when Ella Toone who had been out injured for a couple of months scored a hattrick and Leah Galton got another to give us a 4-2 win at the Etihad.

Or maybe our 2-0 away win against them in the WFA Cup semifinal in April.

At any rate, as formidable as City can be on their day, they're beatable.

Ok, it's tough, I'll grant you that. After a bit of a lull last season they're starting to play well again and are currently top of the league. Bunny Shaw is starting to play the way we know she can. They didn't have to play a tough game against PSG on Wednesday night.

I don't know if Phallon Tullis-Joyce will be ready for this one. I do know that City will attempt to make Safia's derby debut very uncomfortable, especially at setpieces, if it's Safia who starts.

There will undoubtedly be players who need a rest tomorrow and players who need to be kept safe for midweek against Wolfsburg. I think Gabby George will mostly be sitting this one out for example. However we do have to hope that most of them are ready to go again and to do the full 90 again.

Match is live on BBC1 and online.
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Interesting post. I am confident that we can get something from the game.

It's true that we had a tough game on Wednesday but if we assume everybody (apart from Turner and Bizet) is fit then we have Tullis-Joyce, Janssen, Toone, Terland and Galton to come back in and will be fresh. Le Tissier and Miyazawa have played every minute of every game. Those two can play forever!

If I put Bunny Shaw in my FF team that will guarantee that she won't score.
 
Demon Barber said:
If I put Bunny Shaw in my FF team that will guarantee that she won't score.
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Ya gotta take one for the team, man!

I'll do my part, too: At any point that I feel like "We really need a goal, right now" I'll leave the room to get a glass of water or something. (If I time it right, I'll get back to the TV just in time to see the replay.)
 
Lobster11 said:
Ya gotta take one for the team, man!

I'll do my part, too: At any point that I feel like "We really need a goal, right now" I'll leave the room to get a glass of water or something. (If I time it right, I'll get back to the TV just in time to see the replay.)
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I couldn't do it. Hampton is injured so I've had to sort that out instead.
 
We didn't get an update on Phallon's injury, her scan was apparently delayed from yesterday to today. My guess is that Safia MP will start tomorrow.

The press had noticed that Ella Toone was wearing strapping and on a "non-contact" training pattern this week. Skinner insisted that there was nothing to it and that it's just a matter of load management. Take that as you will.

In other words - your guess at who's ready to play and who will be rested is as good as mine :lol:
 
jojojo said:
We didn't get an update on Phallon's injury, her scan was apparently delayed from yesterday to today. My guess is that Safia MP will start tomorrow.

The press had noticed that Ella Toone was wearing strapping and on a "non-contact" training pattern this week. Skinner insisted that there was nothing to it and that it's just a matter of load management. Take that as you will.

In other words - your guess at who's ready to play and who will be rested is as good as mine :lol:
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My take was that Skinner said that Toone was held out for precautionary reasons due to a "little niggle" -- he emphasized the "little" part -- and that she would be fine for tomorrow.

I agree that there's a good chance that Safia will start tomorrow, and I'm not at all worried about that after her performance on Wednesday.
 
I think the midfield will be an interesting battle. Playing both Hasegawa and Blindkilde-Brown in midfield gives City very good technical, aggressive ball winning midfielders who can keep the ball and find the attackers but they're both pretty small and weaker. If you're the opposition you'd be hoping someone like Zigiotti if she starts can be a bit physical with them and is strong enough to hold off some of their challenges and strong enough to put them off balance when shes trying to win the ball from them. On the other side of things sometimes Zigiotti's first touch isnt great and she could be pressed when receiving the ball facing her own goal. Hasegawa and Blindkilde-Brown are the type to take advantage of that and steal the ball off her. Hopefully her hard running can keep Hasegawa and Blindkilde-Brown occupied, they have lots of stamina too but probably dont want to spend the majority of the game tracking Zigiotti making forward runs and seeing off danger. Miedema is bigger and provides more physicality helping to balance out the other 2. Her attacking runs will have to be tracked.

Park coming narrow from the right and being able to break with the ball should help make some ground against their midfield as we've seen against Arsenal and Chelsea

Hinata is closer to like for like with them so its more likely her strengths and weaknesses and theirs will cancel each other out and they'll both have mixed results against each other.

Shaw is playing well but she misses a lot of chances, as well as scoring plenty of goals.

Hemp is back... That City are top of the table with her only starting 2 games is very impressive and spells trouble now that shes back. Fujino has really stepped up as one of the top attackers in the league and Beney has done her part getting some vital goals and taking them quite well.

For me Yamashita is fine in goal and Rose and Prior are both good young defenders with lots of potential, but Greenwood hasnt been as strong as you'd expect her to be as the experienced CB. You have to feel as the opposition that you can get some joy against them and given we're 2nd top scorers in the league (albeit after City) till this point I think we can be confident we'll score at least 1 goal. They'll be confident they can score too but we know that on their day our defence can be really strong and keep teams out. So hopefully they can hold out even against the top scorers in the league and the 1 or 2 goals we get are enough for the points.

If I'm honest I expect a draw because I think they're good with levels yet to come with Hemp back, players like Clinton actually starting to get going this season and if Shaw starts to miss fewer chances. They might slow down in the latter parts of the season due to sqaud size though.
 
Tough game this after a hard 90 minutes on Wednesday night. I am worried that we will be a bit leggy
 
Ayush_reddevil said:
Tough game this after a hard 90 minutes on Wednesday night. I am worried that we will be a bit leggy
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I agree that it will be a tough game, but I don't think "leggy" will be an issue. Those who started against PSG will have had recovery time and simple light training.
 
I'm not too worried about "legginess" either. My biggest concern is that City have had a full week to game-plan for this, and we've had two days.
 
Lobster11 said:
I'm not too worried about "legginess" either. My biggest concern is that City have had a full week to game-plan for this, and we've had two days.
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Are you able to watch the match over there? It's live here on BBC and iPlayer, but given that Trump is still planning to sue the BBC for something between £1bn and £5bn I doubt you'll get to see it!
 
SMP
Rivière
Le Tiss
Janssen
Sandberg
Miyazawa
Zigiotti
Park
Toone
Galton
Terland
 
Demon Barber said:
Are you able to watch the match over there? It's live here on BBC and iPlayer, but given that Trump is still planning to sue the BBC for something between £1bn and £5bn I doubt you'll get to see it!
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I'm good. It's on ESPN+ over here, and I don't think he has a gripe with them. (Yet?)
 
Lobster11 said:
I'm good. It's on ESPN+ over here, and I don't think he has a gripe with them. (Yet?)
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I'm happy that you get to see it.

Subs: Rendell, Blundell, George, Awujo, Naalsund, Rolfo, Griffiths, Malard, Williams

That's such a strong bench, especially as we are missing PTJ, Turner and Bizet.
 
I was just watching the BBC highlights of United's 4-2 win in this fixture last year. I'd forgotten what a rough day Kiara Keating had. I doubt Yamashita will be quite so generous - but we can hope :lol:
 
Very different attack to the one that started against PSG. Have we been rotating a lot all season?
 
jojojo said:
I was just watching the BBC highlights of United's 4-2 win in this fixture last year. I'd forgotten what a rough day Kiara Keating had. I doubt Yamashita will be quite so generous - but we can hope :lol:
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Toone had had a rough time, came back and did that. She was left out against PSG so yes, we can hope!
 
DOTA said:
Very different attack to the one that started against PSG. Have we been rotating a lot all season?
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We have actually rotated the forwards quite a bit this season. Galton was injured for a chunk of it though, and Bizet injured now.
 
Going to just have to try to see through this early onslaught from City.
 
This has been quite an onslaught. Good work from us when we are on the break though.
 
Ouch. Knaak heads home setup from Shaw. Painful but in the end the sheer number of attacks was going to give them something. City lead 1-0
 
Everytime we attack we are finding loads of space, just need to find a good pass in the final third.
 
WSL did United no favours here playing first and early this weekend after playing on Wednesday night.
 
DOTA said:
We haven't really been coping.
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Keep in mind that City have had a full week to prepare for this; we had two days. We just need to keep it close long enough to figure it out in real time.
 
The left sided attackers have been disappointing so far, both Galton & Sandberg have had multiple chances in space to provide better balls but wasted it.
 
Ayush_reddevil said:
Everytime we attack we are finding loads of space, just need to find a good pass in the final third.
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It's that final ball to no one problem at the moment. Someone needs to do a bit of goal hanging.

City keeper has a lie down - I'm going to take that as a compliment.
 
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