City - Villareal, preview.

AND IT'LL BE ALL YELLOW


I'll start off by saying that Villareal's league form could not contrast more to ours. After 7 games in La Liga this season they sit 14th on 7 points. Their tactic appears to be, according to my La Liga watching friend, "let's-give-it-to-Rossi-or-Cani-and-see-what-they-can-do" and it's a tactic that appears to be failing both domestically and on the European stage.

However, this is City. Everything could go totally wrong out of absolutely nowhere because we just know that it can. For example, we controlled large portions of the game against Napoli and one mistake sent Edinson Cavani away to score. Had it not been for Kolarov's free-kick expertise, we could have found ourselves in exactly the same position as Villareal.

Villareal know that if they lose this game they're more or less out of the competition. They'll be at least four points behind us and having to go to Bayern Munich is not a fixture you want to see when you need as many points as possible.

Villareal's main threats come from the front two: former Manchester United man Giuseppe Rossi and Ruben Gracia, aka "Cani". They're both tiny, tricky players and are often praised highest by the Villareal fans. But we also need to look out for their centre-half Carlos Marchena. He'll be wearing the number 5 shirt for Villareal and he's not a player that takes prisoners in tackles. Marchena played over 200 games for Valencia before leaving for their "local rivals" (if you can call them that, considering they're over 30 British miles away from each other) Villareal in 2010.

I think we'll go with Aguero and Dzeko up front if Aguero's fit. If Aguero fails to prove his fitness, I feel that having Dzeko up front on his own with Nasri and Silva behind him could be the formation we go with. I'm just a little worried because Dzeko has yet to have a convincing performance when playing without Aguero. Hopefully this is his time to prove me wrong well and truly.

I think we will win this game. I think we actually do have too much for Villareal this time and when a win is much needed our players tend to come up with the goods these days. A strong line-up is required but I feel Zabaleta, Kolarov and Kolo Toure will make appearances. The usual lot of Hart, Kompany, de Jong and Silva will be there because you don't break up a spine as strong as that.

I think Mancini will be looking to get the game won after 60 minutes so that he can start making those all important substitutions. Our key players like Silva and Aguero that may be the difference between a win and a loss on Sunday will need to be at their peak in terms of fitness, and playing a full midweek game is not a way to do that.

I do think it's a little unfair that United can field a second string team tonight against Galati, while we have to play almost a full-strength team to overcome Villareal but that's the luck of the draw (*cough* FIX! *cough*).

Come on City, let's win a game in the Champions 'League.