Match Preview: Manchester City v Brighton
When you’ve conceded two goals in all bar one Premier League game so far this season, the last name you want to see next up on the fixture list in Manchester City.
Yet that is the task facing Chris Hughton and Brighton and Hove Albion next. City, the side who scored 106 goals last season. Who hammered Cardiff City 5-0 last week. Who have the best manager in the world and a team packed with some of the best players.
Gulp.
Who are Manchester City?
Up until 2008, Manchester City were a moderately successful football club who largely lived in the shadow of their more successful neighbours from the red half of the city. They won a handful of FA Cups and a couple of league titles in the first 120 years of their existence but also slipped as low as the third tier two decades ago, enjoying local derbies against Macclesfield Town in the 1997-98 season. That all changed when City were purchased by Abu Dhabi United Group for £210m, instantly turning them into the richest club in the world. Billions of pounds were invested, funding the arrival of some of the best players in the world, the best managers and a haul of seven major trophies in the past decade. Who says money can’t buy everything?
What are they like now?
Unbelievable. Under the management of the best coach in the world Pep Guardiola, City smashed every Premier League record going last season. They won more games, more points and scored more goals than any other team have managed in a single top flight campaign. Defending the title is always harder than winning it, as shown by the fact that nobody has won the Premier League in back-to-back seasons for 10 years and Liverpool’s heavy investment means there should at least be a race for the title rather than last season’s procession. City have dropped points away at Wolverhampton Wanderers to prove they are actually human, but last weeks spanking of Cardiff City was an ominous sign and Andy from Man City Fan TV told us it’s an indication that the Sky Blues are working their way back to their best. Which is just what we wanted to hear.
Which players should we be worried about?
Where to start? David Silva is an absolute magician who seems to be getting better with age, Raheem Sterling may be hated by elements of the British press for having the nerve to be young, black and successful but he is an outstandingly talented football and then there are City’s out and out strikers. Given that the Albion have conceded two goals in all but one league game this season, it’s genuinely terrifying to think of the damage that Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus could inflict.
What’s the Albion’s record against Manchester City like?
It’s not great, especially in Manchester. Brighton never won away against City in any of their trips to the Citizens’ former Maine Road home and May’s visit to the Etihad Stadium ended in a 3-1 defeat. In total, there have been 19 meetings between the two clubs with the Albion winning four, five draws and City triumphing on the other 10 occasions.
What’s the best WeAreBrighton.com memory of Manchester City away?
The away end at the Etihad Stadium selling Strongbow Dark Fruits last year was an absolute game changer and led to a record haul of three pints at half time.
What’s the worst WeAreBrighton.com memory of Manchester City away?
Later on, the Dark Fruits situation had severe repercussions as those three half time ciders coupled with about nine pints before the game and the discovery of a karaoke bar afterwards meant National Express deemed the WeAreBrighton.com team too pissed to be allowed on the 1am coach back to London. A night sleeping in Manchester Bus Station and an expensive replacement ticket for the first coach at 5am in the morning wasn’t an ideal way to round off a 3-1 defeat.
Whose played for both clubs?
Signing three players from the eventual Premier League champions in one season, you’d expect at least one of them to be decent. But no, in 2011-12 Gus Poyet bought in goalkeeper David Gonzalez and midfielders Abdul Razak and Gai Assulin from City and all were terrible. Gonzalez got sarcastically at the Amex when he finally managed to catch a ball after 40 minutes of his debut against. I couldn’t tell you if Assulin even started a game without resorting to Soccerbase which frankly seems like too much effort right now, and Razak looked like a world beater on his first start at home to Ipswich Town before answering the famous questions of “Can he do it at the Keepmoat Stadium on a warm Saturday in March” with a resounding no and fading off into obscurity.
Other than football, what is Manchester famous for?
Manchester gave us one of the greatest bands of all time with Oasis hailing from the city and they are Sky Blues supporters to boot. It’s one of the best places in the country for pubs as our bus banning five months ago was testament to and there is a real sense of community, as seen with the way the entire city rallied round after the 2017 bombing of an Ariana Grande concert at the MEN Arena. We wouldn’t recommend taking any elderly relatives to the GP’s while you are in Manchester, however – Harold Shipman practiced in nearby Hyde.
Where’s the betting value for Manchester City v Brighton?
Unsurprisingly, there is absolutely no value when it comes to backing City for the win. It might therefore be worth looking at the winning margin market, where City by two is available at 10/3. Liverpool away last season aside when the Albion players were already on the beach, we’ve lost four of our other five away games to the top six by two goals and that was the margin of City’s triumphs in both of last seasons meetings.
Prediction
For all the talk about expecting the Albion to get battered, one thing Chris Hughton excels at is making us hard to beat. That was evidenced at Liverpool in August, when the most dangerous attack in the Premier League only managed to score once. A similar, every man behind the ball approach and we can escape with a 2-0 defeat.
