City will be hoping to recover from the disappointing Champions League exit against Barcelona during mid-week, with West Bromwich Albion visiting Eastlands in the final Premier League fixture before the next international break, on Saturday. However, they will have to cope with a resilient Tony Pulis side, a much-improved side from the short spell under Alan Irvine.
It’s nearly three months since we last faced West Brom, but it doesn’t feel that long – time flies when you’re not having fun. We made the trip to the Hawthorns on Boxing Day in what was one of Alan Irvine’s final games before being sacked by the Baggies. That day, City got off to a flying start, with Fernando opening the scoring on 8 minutes, before Yaya Toure doubled the lead five minutes later with a penalty. David Silva got City’s final goal of the game 10 minutes before half-time, and West Brom had the last “laugh” with Brown Ideye grabbing a late consolation for the home side. That game came during the spectacular run of form throughout December that eventually saw us go ahead of Chelsea – if only for 10 minutes.
In this fixture last season, City also managed to get the three points with three first-half goals, from three different Argentinians. Pablo Zabaleta opened the scoring on 3 minutes before Aguero bagged one on 10 minutes, and just as it looked Albion might get back in the game after a Dorrans goal on 16 minutes, Martin Demichelis rounded off a fine 3-1 win 9 minutes before half-time. A few games later, City won the league title.
After several games with no injury concerns, City finally have some players back on the injury table ahead of the visit from the Baggies. Yaya Toure was confirmed to be out with a calf injury, whilst Manuel Pellegrini also said Kolarov and Milner are doubts with muscular and knee injuries respectively. Gael Clichy is likely to return to the side after being suspended for the trip to Barcelona on Wednesday.
The Baggies also have some injury concerns going into their trip to East Manchester. Ben Foster and Callum McManaman are both out of the game with knee and ankle injuries, whilst Brown Ideye (knee) and Jonas Olsson (calf) could both also be missing – they’ll have late fitness tests ahead of the game. However, Victor Anichebe is back fit from his groin injury, and could feature against The Blues.
With just 9 games of the season left, City have a fight on their hands to secure second place behind Chelsea, with United, Arsenal and possibly Liverpool all wanting to stake a claim to the runners-up spot. The Blues can’t afford any more slip-ups like last week’s ill-fated visit to Turf Moor, and need to be winning games like Saturday’s visit from Albion comfortably to try and put out a message to the other teams that City aren’t quite done for the season yet.
