After a barnstorming friendly match against AS Roma this morning, which ended in City prevailing 5-4 on penalties after some Joe Hart heroics, what did we learn from the clash?
1. Raheem Sterling is an exciting acquisition.
After calamitously taking a tumble with his first touches in a City shirt, the 20-year-old brushed himself down in the best possible fashion by latching onto a fantastic Kelechi through-ball before calmly slotting past De Sanctis in the Roma goal. It took Sterling a mere 3 minutes to open his Manchester City account. He continued to be lively and took on his full back Florenzi, a number of times. Twice he took tumbles in the Roma box, with the latter incident being a stone-wall penalty missed by the referee. An exciting debut from our marquee signing.
2. The EDS have promise.
With a number of EDS players being called up to take part in the pre-season tour of Australia and Asia, a few names have stood out over the 3 games played thus far. Brandon Barker, Manu Garcia and Kelechi Iheanacho have all played with vim and energy in their bids to impress manager Manuel Pellegrini whilst others such as Pablo Maffeo and James Horsfield have been steady and assured when playing with the likes of Yaya Toure and Samir Nasri. Kelechi in particular stood out today- as his clever, lofted through ball found Sterling for the opener and City’s second was put away by Kelechi himself and with such ease you’d have thought the Nigerian to be a seasoned Premier League striker.
3. Yaya Toure is back to his old self.
With critics on his back after what they thought was a lacklustre season from the big Ivorian last time out, he seems refreshed and fit again. Toure has been an anchor in the heart of the City midfield, spreading play nicely and dominating midfield battles in the last 3 games. Against weaker opposition albeit, but physically he looks reinvigorated and revived. When Yaya Toure has a good season, City as a club seem to follow suit. Here’s to hoping he can produce the kind of performances we saw in the 13/14 season, next season.
4. Joe Hart has still got it.
Joe Hart finished off last season in impressive style with a plethora of clean-sheets, which saw him secure another coveted Golden Glove award and with some fantastic saves. His save against Swansea was arguably the save of the season and was surely a confidence booster for the England number one. As the game this morning petered out to deadlock, penalties loomed. Joe Hart loves a penalty shoot-out and showed his eagerness to impress once again as he stepped up to actually take a penalty, which he duly smashed home, and followed this up with two saves which saw City take the tie. Goalkeeping is a position all about self-belief and confidence and at the moment Joe Hart has bags of it.
5. Formations.
We seemed to line up in a kind of 4-3-1-2 with Raheem Sterling and Kelechi playing in front of the irrepressible David Silva, who roamed just behind them. However, there was fluidity at times as Sterling and Silva hugged their respective touchlines and Kelechi took up a centre-forward position to form a 4-3-3-like formation. Pellegrini is renowned for his preference towards a rigid 4-4-2 formation. Was he merely experimenting due to the absence Sergio Aguero and Wilfried Bony? Or was the Chilean boss sussing out potential formations for how City could line-up come the 10th of August at the Hawthorns?
What did you learn from the friendly win over Roma? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @TheMaineBlues.
