City go into the final game of the season having already secured second place ahead of Arsenal and Manchester United, so are now safe in the knowledge that no matter what happens on Sunday against Southampton, they finish as runners-up to Chelsea – not where we’d have liked to be this season, but infinitely better than we were looking at a month ago.
Going by the last game against Southampton, in the reverse fixture at St. Mary’s back in November, we should be able to get the three points on Sunday. In that game, we managed to secure a 3-0 win against a team who’d been on superb form all season, and despite us playing the final 15 minutes with 10 men after a Mangala red card. Yaya Toure, Frank Lampard and Gael Clichy all scored in City’s first win at the home of The Saints since 2003.
City won by the same margin in this fixture last season, although their 4-1 victory against The Saints was marred by a serious knee injury to Jay Rodriguez in the first half. The Blues were already ahead thanks to an early Yaya Toure penalty, before Rodriguez was taken off 25 minutes in. Rickie Lambert equalised for Southampton – also with a penalty – on 37 minutes, before goals from Edin Dzeko and Samir Nasri just prior to half-time put City two goals to the good. Stevan Jovetic then sealed the win with a goal ten minutes before the end.
Going into Sunday’s final match of the season, there are few injuries for Manuel Pellegrini to concern himself with. Samir Nasri and Fernando are both still injured thanks to groin and muscle injuries, although both were missing from last week’s 4-2 win at Swansea so The Blues should be fairly confident they can cope without the Frenchman and the Brazilian.
It isn’t quite so rosy for City’s visitors however. England international Jay Rodriguez misses out on the game due to still being in recovery from the ACL knee injury he picked up at The Etihad 13 months ago (although he is nearing the end of his spell on the sidelines), and he is joined on the sidelines by Dusan Tadic (groin), Emmanuel Mayuka (groin strain), Morgan Schneiderlin (knee) and Fraser Forster (knee).
While this game may not hold any great significance to City, with second place already secured, they will be keen to try and get the three points in order to keep up the good form that’s seen them end the season strongly and claim second place. They’ve now won the last five games in the league, including a strong win at White Hart Lane recently. If they can end the season on a high, that should put them in good spirits ahead of the summer. Although, the last time we ended the season having lost the title, we lost 3-2 at home. Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen again.
