Friday sees the return of Manchester City and their last friendly before the season kicks off just over a week later. Pre-season has had some of its really exciting points for City fans, the demolition of Real Madrid and Tottenham being just two. The emergence of some young players shows the academy is also moving in the right direction and certainly a couple of the youngsters we have seen so far could fit into the seasons squad, if only as coverage and part of a rotation.
Life is not all rosy though as the Tottenham game in particular still sees us with that frustrating aspect of last season, our wasting of clear cut chances when in front of goal.
Make no mistake, teams in the Premier League will take points from us again if we fail to kill them off by taking the chances we create through our wonderful midfield play.
So what should we be looking at as we head into our final pre-season friendly?
Applauding PabZab once more
Personally this will one of my favorite parts. The Manc from Argentina was my guy and, like many other City fans, appreciate the blood and sweat he gave. During the season, depending on how both teams do, we may not have the opportunity to cheer Pablo with every touch he takes.
Fitness over result
Finishing the game defeated but a full compliment of first team players, well at least not adding more to the medical staff, will be very important.
Another chance for youth
This is the last friendly game before the season starts and so Pep may want to give more time to who he considers to be his main guys. However, if we start seeing Foden, Diaz and co suiting up and stepping on th epitch then maybe that’s an indication they will have a role to play in the upcoming season?
Joe Hart having the game of his life
So the first part of this talked about converting chances when they have been presented to us. This guy, if he plays, and considering how he was left out of Pep’s plans for another season, may just have the game of his life!
Sharpness in front of goal
As I said in the introduction we need to convert our possession and fantastic build up play into goals. With goals come confidence on our end and deflates the opponent. Too many times last season opposition sides were encouraged as they entered the final ten minutes of a game and were level or maybe just a goal behind. All sides will get chances against us, we just need to make sure if they convert them it is just recorded as consolation.