Manchester City play Newcastle on Sunday at St James Park. From a Newcastle fan’s point of view, this game looks like it’s going to be a struggle. The current champions haven’t signed signings which will improve their side drastically but they still have incredible talent, including a few class players, among their ranks.
Last season’s match between these two at the same venue was filled with controversy. City took the lead through Edin Dzeko, then Newcastle thought they equalised through Cheick Tiote only for it to be unfairly ruled out for an offside against Yoan Gouffran. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen again because the game would have been arguably different if Newcastle had been given this goal.
Newcastle have made some great signings to their side this transfer window including Remy Cabella, Siem De Jong and Daryl Janmaat. As a Newcastle fan, these signings are great and it will be superb to see them in action for the first time this Sunday and what a great opportunity to strut your stuff and cause an upset by beating Premier League holders Manchester City. Cabella is going to be massive for this game, he is the one who is going to have to create things, and bring players into the game for us to damage City which we can. We have the talent to do some harm and Cabella will be the centre piece of this. Siem De Jong has been ruled out of this game and he is a big miss but we expect a player of high enough quality to fill in. Emmanuel Riveire has been scoring some goals in pre-season and hopefully he takes this through to the season. He finished top scorer for Monaco last season ahead of world superstars Radamel Falcao and James Rodriguez showing he isn’t one to be doubted. City has some super defensive capabilities with Eliaquim Mangala and Vincent Kompany along with others but Riviere can challenge. Anyone can challenge a defence; if you cause problems the defence becomes shaky. If Riviere becomes a nuisance for City, then there is no reason he can’t cause them issues.
It is weird as a Newcastle fan to be going into any game optimistic because it normally doesn’t go well but writing this, optimism is fairly high. There is a doubt in the back of the mind because it’s Newcastle but you have to support and believe. We will give City a good game, it’s just if we win or not. If we give them a run for their money but narrowly lose, you can take positives from this because that means we have challenged the champions and you can definitely look at the game and think “we have played well there.” We will just have to wait and see until Sunday and see which Newcastle side turn up and if Alan Pardew is thinking straight. For one, Sunday better hurry up! Premier League football back at St James Park? Yes please!
