After the disappointing loss to Stoke City on home turf in the final game in August, much of Manchester City’s star-studded squad headed off on international leave, where they played for their countries in friendlies and (in a lot of cases) European Championship Qualifiers. Now though, these players are back with the club, who visit Arsenal in the first game back in City’s toughest away fixture. This game comes as the start of a tough run, with games against Bayern Munich and Chelsea coming up in the next week.
The last time these two sides met was only just over a month ago, at Wembley. The league champions faced the FA Cup Winners for the Community Shield, but unfortunately for the travelling City fans it was to be disappointment, with a weakened City side putting in a less-than-lacklustre performance against a Gunners side that were very good on the day.
However, that wasn’t the story in Arsenal’s visit to Manchester last December. In the middle of Arsenal’s very good start to the season which saw them lead the league for several weeks, they came to City with high hopes (and nervous City fans) but were sent away with a 6-3 loss in a game that didn’t really match up with the scoreline. Still though, when City visited North London a few months later it was a different story with Arsenal keeping The Blues on the edge of their seats for the entire game in a 1-1 draw.
Arsenal could be without some of their key players for Saturday’s game however. Aaron Ramsey picked up an ankle injury while on international duty, and is set to have a late fitness test before Manuel Pellegrini’s side visit The Emirates. Mesut Özil (ankle) should be back in time for the game though, and he will be a player to worry the City defenders. Olivier Giroud (leg) misses the game although he is likely to be replaced by ex-United player Danny Welbeck in the side following his deadline day move whilst Theo Walcott (ACL) is still out for a couple of weeks. Serge Gnabry (knee) also misses out.
Manchester City were the victims of some injuries on international duty, much to the annoyance of Pellegrini and The Blues. Pablo Zabaleta (knock) picked up an injury in Argentina’s game against Germany but is confident he’ll be back in time for the Emirates visit. Fernando (groin) got injured just before the international break, in the first half of the Stoke game in Manchester a fortnight ago and is a doubt for the game, having not been pictured in training. Stevan Jovetić (hamstring) also wasn’t pictured, having picked up another injury in training with Montenegro last week, but it is thought he won’t be absent from the City side for too long.
Another man who it was thought might have been ruled out of this game thanks to an international injury was Vincent Kompany: the Belgian defender injured himself in training with his national side before playing the next day. He was missing from the training session the following day and that sparked fears that his thigh injury had worsened. However, he was pictured training with the rest of the squad and is likely to start on Saturday.
However, it is far from certain regarding who’ll partner the Belgian skipper in defence. Martin Demichelis has been doing just that in recent games, but will Pellegrini trust him for big games against Arsenal, Bayern and Chelsea? Perhaps not, so we could see Eliaquim Mangala thrown in at the deep end on Saturday. The Frenchman is still yet to make his debut for The Blues after signing in August due to a lack of fitness, but could well make it into the side on Saturday after weeks of training with his new club and with his national side.
Saturday’s Premier League clash will definitely be an intriguing one. Arsenal and City have definitely become big rivals over the last few years with Arséne Wenger’s constant criticism of City’s spending and that always gives City fans the appetite to put one over Wenger and his side – that mentality will be no different on Saturday afternoon.
