Premier League Stats
The only stat that matters is the one from last month ... they came to Etihad and went away with a 1-1 draw ... everything that came before that is pretty irrelevant.
Since that 1-1 of course we have turned our fortunes around and now are on a ten game winning run (in all competitions) ...
Pre-Match Thoughts
Let's debunk this whole who's on top at Christmas and who's on top at New Year myth first ... and I'll tell you why do it now ...
The basics: 20 teams in the league, you play the other 19 twice over the season, 38 games to the title ... usually, around the Christmas mark teams have played around 18 of their games ... and then by New Year it's 20 games played each so neither is exactly a half way mark but either is kind of taken as that, and thus press likes to throw around all these who's top at Christmas and who's top on New Year stats depending on whatever suits their agenda that year ...
This game on Tuesday now is OUR half way mark this season ... actually this is our Boxing Day - the 19th fixture ... If you want to consider what a traditional Christmas table would look like this season, it'd be at the point when our last league game finished against Villa (and before United and Liverpool played their midweek games) yes, when all three had played 18 games each ... and yes we were top of the table at that point (so the actual Christmas table) - Merry Christmas!
OK forget the other two (red teams) for a minute ... let's just focus on ourselves. This is our 19th league game (and yes again a chance to go back top - while others around us remain on 19 games each as well, but that's just not how scheduling is this season so the actual table will be skewed a bit by the time gameweek is over). But if you are to dissect it purely on half way point and 19 games each ... winning this one would put us seven pts ahead of Liverpool and one ahead of United. Even if we are to drop points here (which I hope we don't), but even then we'd be four or five ahead of the Scousers and only one or two behind United (but that's just the worst case scenario) ... so we're rightly the favourites for the title as things stand.
This is also where we are starting our reverse fixtures ... we have played everyone else each once except Everton, due to that postponement ... so because of that we'd now end up having played West Brom twice in our first half of the season (and will play Everton twice in the second half) but that is not unique and it has happened a few times before with scheduling and TV picks etc.
It is then inevitable that we'd look back at what happened in the first game this season, and that is the most relevant one to look at as well as the teams are largely the same and so are the managers ... well, that brings me to yet another anomaly in this particular one ... last time we played Bilic's West Brom ... and now what we'll face is Allardyce's West Brom ... different philosophies and although the Bilic's one played more like a Big Sam team but still this will be even harder to break down. The press keeps telling us that their team is lacking in quality but we saw it first hand, if you work hard enough you can make up for it over the ninety minutes as in the end it's just 11 v 11 on the pitch (and we have sampled that against Cheltenham Town just now) ... on top they have had a full week off with no FA Cup tie for them on the weekend so surely Sam would have used that time on the training ground to drill in his ways some more ... Aguero now staying out for a bit longer for us and with KdB missing, we're poorer for it than we were back then ... so add all of the above and it's going to be a tough test.
But ...
Having said all that, we're on a different level altogether than when we last played them all those ten games ago. The ten games that we have won in a row since ... and I'm sure Pep would remind everyone of that last time we dropped points (which were against them) and would want to rectify it this time ... plus all that above of being at top of the league half way through the season (and then staying there for the second half) would surely be very much in Pep's mind.
Match Prediction
West Brom 0 - 2 Manchester City
No I am not turning into Lawro ... but a 2-0 win for us makes sense. They'd park a bus or two and play the classic Allardyce way ... we'd keep the usual Dias-Stones clean sheet at the back; then score one eventually, and then probably will score another and that'd be that.
C'mon City ... let's keep going - it's all about extending this winning run that we're on now!
Last edited: