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Southampton V Manchester City The Preview

Saints take on Premier League champions Manchester City at St Mary's on Saturday with nothing to lose, after all the visitors have won 18 of the 22 matches they have played so far and lost only twice, it's free hit weekend.

Saints are one of only 4 teams to get anything out of Manchester City in the Premier League, since the opening day when they lost to Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 the Champions have lost only one other game, that being at home To Crystal Palace and drawn with Liverpool at Anfield aside from our 0-0 draw back in September.

But since that defeat to Palace on 30th October they have been unstoppable in the league, or indeed anywhere aside from a 2-1 defeat to RB Leipzig in the Champions League, that game excepted they have won every other game, that adds up to 15 games including 12 straight Premier League wins.

This is not good reading for any side about to face them and it is hard to see how we won't be their next victims, just about the only hope we can have is that we are the 13th game in the Premier League sequence, but will it be unlucky for them or will they make it unlucky for us.

Back in September we employed a sort of 4-2-2-2 formation that changed depending on whether we were defending , a solid 4 at the back, two men holding, two wide midfielders supporting the back four but having to get up when necessary and two up front.

It is likely that this will be employed again, the only difference is who will start the game.

In goal you would expect Fraser Forster to be there, his error against Wolves was a rare one since his return to the side, in defence Tino Livramento will be missing and I expect Kyle Walker Peters to be in the right back spot with Romain Perraud at left back.

The two central defenders are up for debate, but personally i suspect it will be Mohammed Salisu and Jan Bednarek.

JWP & Oriel Romeu holding the centre and then who will play out wide.

I think we could see Ibrahima Diallo slot in on the right and Nathan Redmond on the left with Che Adams & Armando Broja up front, for a defensive starting line up although Stuart Armstrong could slot in for either Diallo or Redmond.

Livramento aside that is just about our strongest line up and the one good thing is that Ralph Hasenhuttl seems to have just about everyone else available for selection.

But this is Manchester City, this is not what I go to football for, I don't want to go to the Coliseum to see the Christians being thrown to the lions, I don't go to see performing seals perform all sorts of clever flicks and back heels to amaze me.

I go to see my team compete in a game of football and sadly for over half the Premier League that is not the case these days when they play Manchester City.

We spend £100 million on building a squad, they spend it on one player who doesn't even get a regular game in the starting line up.

Football cannot survive on such a one sided basis, the time for a European Super League is now here, let the big clubs with the money go off and play in that and let the rest of us play in a league that is about picking the right managers and players and not who has the most money.

Football now is like Formula One, you can be the best player in the league, but if you aren't in the richest team you aren't going to win anything.

Sometimes we beat Manchester City and the other big clubs, but the gap is widening with every season, we beat them two years ago but they have spend a lot of money since then and at the moment are on fire.

So this is our second free hit for the season, if we lose then come the end of the season we will still have probably got as much off them as most, so we just have to go out there and hope.

The way to do it is dig in, do the basics, don't try to be two clever and cut out the lapses of concentration, then if we have a bit of luck we might keep our pride and if we have a lot of luck we might get a point and if we really really have a lot of luck a win, I'm not holding my breath.


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