Arsenal v. Man City

Getting excited about this one.

City have been going through a poor spell of form but it goes without saying that they'll be up for this. Mancini himself stated the obvious when saying that if they don't get a win out of this their title challenge is as good as dead. Hard to see Man U dropping points against QPR, even though the latter are fighting for survival.

In the past few years they've come to the Emirates with a defensive mindset and gotten a lot of criticism for it but I can't see that happening here. Either way I'd still expect us to see a lot more of the ball than them. Anybody know what Aguero's fitness status is?

I'm hoping we'll put together a measured performance and not go too flat out- even though we've looked more solid recently it goes without saying that they've got the quality to hurt us on the break. Kompany returning is huge for them, and if Lescott plays they'll have their first choice CB partnership back- they certainly have struggled without them.

The only question over our team is who plays out on the left... I'd like to see:

Sir ches
Sagna-Kos-TV-Gibbs
---Song---Arteta
-----Rosicky----
Theo---RvP---Gervinho

with AoC coming on later. Gervinho works very hard defensively, and while he hasn't really been near his best since the ACON he does have the quality to hurt them going forward as well. If we're going to get anything out of this game we'll need to press well and cut off their counters early on, otherwise we're likely to see a similar result to the Carling Cup match earlier this season.

This should be very tight... my guess is 1-1. It's a shame we fucked up at QPR as Tottenham are right back on us now.

Vermaelen and Koscielny will have to be at their best if we are to take all 3 points. Can't afford any more slip ups.
Aguero has been declared for the match, so any mistake from our defense will be punished.

This is not any must win game. It's city. Would love to win but anything less than a draw would be horrible for our run in. Agree with Greg on this one 1-1.

Agree about Vermaelen and Koscielny needing to be at the top of their game. TV certainly had a stinker last time out but I think City's style suits how TV/Kos like to defend- getting tight to the strikers, anticipating passes and generally isolating their forwards and not giving them time to hold up the ball. Obviously when it doesn't work they look horrible (Taraabt's goal, Zamora had a field day last time... ZAMORA ffs), but we can't deny the solidity they've shown, not to mention that our recent run of good form came from games against top-half sides (even if we got very lucky against Liverpool).

Aguero's movement is excellent but if we can isolate him and stop Silva and co. from getting into the game we have a good chance. Song will also need to show more defensive awareness than last time out. His penchant for attempting difficult passes, especially in our own half, always scares the shit out of me.

Agree with pretty much everything Greg says over here but I can see us nicking a 2-1 win. RvP and maybe Rosicky with the goals.

I predict 1-0 to us.

somehow i feel man c will start with dzeko as the main striker hoping he does what zamora did in the last game with aguero on the bench. with david silva and adam johnson on the wings to prevent gibbs and sagna from overlapping as much. what do you guys think?

Just no stupid defending this time please. Alex Song needs a big game defensively and no slipping over ffs! Do not let Balotelli back onto his right foot and do not fall asleep.

It's amazing the mediocrity in our defending sometimes. It's all or nothing. We need another all game, like against Newcastle. Minus the letting Ben Arfa back onto his strongest foot kind of error.

If we lose this game we could be in 6th by the time we play Wolves on Wednesday.

Of course, we could not. A lot of results need to go against us for us to be in that position. But it does highlight how close things are at the moment and although we could probably draw and it would be considered an ok result in the grand scheme of things, especially with Spurs drawing today, we really have to gun for a win. It would create a gap with Spurs and it will keep Chelsea and Newcastle at an arms length because 4th is very far from secure, never mind 3rd.

We need the RVP of a few games ago to turn up and we need one of those performances from the whole team and crowd (minus the early defensive mishaps) that we showed against Spurs.

"If we lose this game we could be in 6th by the time we play Wolves on Wednesday."

This is what I hope Wenger tells the boys before the kick off! Massive test I hope with a few things going our way we can take the points.

I'll take a draw here and 2 consecutive wins at wolves and vs wigan before we face a hopefully exhausted chelsea side at home.

From twitter :

No silva in their line up...and benayoun for us at LW.

No Silva for City, Aguero starts

3-2 for us I say : rvp brace, rosicky... yaya and aguero

gervinho not on the bench!?

Alex Song is ESPN's man to watch for tonight. Great to see the praise he's getting.

No gervinho , a bit weird. Hope Benny has a disciplined game and clicks well with Rosicky again.

Charlie Webster on tv. Hot chick who knows footie. Woohoo

Clichy starts for City. Should well look to exploit him.

Is Gerv injured?

Early yellow card for yaya yay!

Balotelli is on form today, boys!

good play, let's get a goal

Yaya now injured.

Look who's coming on for Yaya!