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You may notice Preview Percy wishing you a Happy New Year at the end of this week’s preview. Don’t worry, we’ve sent for the doctor. Here’s his look at Man City away whilst we wait for the ambulance to turn up...

Next up we schlep up the M1 & M6 to Manchester where we will be hosted by Manchester City. Kick-off’s at 3pm on Saturday but keep an eye out on the weather forecast – all sorts of warnings abound twixt here and there. Above all, be safe.




Well it’s been an odd season for them. They shot out of the traps like Ben Johnson in Seoul then something weird happened. After winning seven and drawing two of their first nine, they lost at Bournemouth. Ok so no big deal, a mere blip one might have thought.

Then they lost to Brighton. Ok let’s get the blips out of the way all at once then. Then they lost at home. To Spurs. 4-0. That’s when the world sat up and took notice. Let’s face it, something has got to be wrong when that happens.

Since then they’ve lost to Liverpool, Man Utd (another indicator that all is not well) and Villa. They’ve drawn with Palace and Everton and their only wins in their last 10 have come at home to Forest and away at Leicester, leaving them in sixth place with 31 points from 19 games played.

As with last week’s Liverpool squad, they didn’t go mad in the transfer market during the summer. They “spent” £30m on Brazilian winger Savinho who came in from Troyes.

I say “spent”, the player didn’t make a single appearance for the French second tier club, to whom the player was assigned by the City Football Group who actually bought the player from Athletico Minero. He spent most of his time on loan with another Group member Girona. His first goal for City came in the 2-0 win at Leicester.

We mentioned Ilkay Gundogan way back in August whose sojourn to Barcelona ended with a return to City. Daisy reckons she covered him way back when we played them in August and she would be damned if she would look it all up again.

She did mention Divin Mubama however, whose career has shown all the classic hallmarks of having people in his ear at the wrong stage of his career. He went up there for £2m of compensation and has disappeared into their academy system.

The word on the grapevine is that Issa Kabore is likely to be recalled from his loan spell at Benfica. This is not, as one might suppose, a desire to bring in a new player who might stop the rot. It’s more a function of the fact that the Burkina Faso right-back has barely set foot on the pitch at the real Stadium Of Light and it seems likely that, if the loan is terminated as suggested, the player will be going out somewhere else on loan.




They’ve had a number of injuries of course and since we played them the big miss has been Rodri, whose Ballon D’Or award caused Real Madrid to chuck their toys out of the window last month. His ACL will mean he won’t be seen until next season.

Bobb, Dias, Nunes and Stones are all major doubts. However, the return to match fitness of De Bruyne over the past few weeks will be a boost. It’s no coincidence that the thigh injury he picked up in September meant he missed many of the games during their iffy run.

Enough of them. On to the Wild And Wacky World Of Association Football. And Man Utd shareholders Ineos have decided that they weren’t unpopular enough amongst the fan base, most of whom are digging out their Chelsea kits as we speak.

Having dispensed with the “ambassadorial” services of the admittedly obnoxious Alex Ferguson, made their employees pay for transport costs to last season’s Cup Final and cut out minor bonuses for stewards, they recently contacted the trustees of their charitable foundation to advise them that they would be cutting their support from next year, adding, for good measure, with best regards for a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

The Salford whingers also scrapped concessions halfway through the season, with their supremo Sir Jim Ratcliffe moaning that he didn’t see why a ticket to see Man United should be cheaper than one to see Fulham. Just take a look at the league table Sir Jim – the clues are there.

And so to us. Well poor as we played, yet again we found ourselves losing to a Liverpool team who frankly can’t bring the game into disrepute any further. To put it mildly we were kicked off the pitch by a team whose thuggish antics were reminiscent of 1970's Leeds. Or in fact 1970’s Liverpool – who benefited from the fact that their PR was better.

When even the BBC, an organisation for whom criticising Liverpool represents a disciplinary offence, comments on the number of challenges that, in the Beeb’s own words, were “a bit naughty” you know how bad things were. I’m guessing that the author of that bit of commentary has been sacked.

Paqueta and Bowen were quite simply targeted right from the start and Anthony Taylor (yet again) completely failed in his duty to protect players. We can I suppose be grateful that he didn’t actually join in.




Their supporters were their usual pond life, blagging their way into home sections, some with tickets bought from our own ticket office who will sell to anyone it seems. The one that announced “we’re Liverpool, we go where we want” was typical and stewards only got involved when such an attitude got the response it deserved.

Still given the usual bent refereeing that they enjoy one good thing has come out of it all. With the goal that was offside, PGMOL issued their usual lies in the hope that nobody would notice. However there was a further announcement from the IFAB, the body responsible for law-making.

They announced that from next season there will be a change to the offside law. The wording will remain unchanged but from next season it will also apply to Liverpool. The experiment will last a season but, if successful, it is anticipated that the they might widen the scope to the other 16 laws in future as well. Yeah, right.

Jarrod Bowen will be absent until the end of February following his treatment on Saturday that left him with a fractured foot. Something to bear in mind Jarrod, next time they make an illegal approach to sign you. Antonio will be missing of course, though it was a most welcome sight to see him leaving hospital.

Fabianski has to wait another week or so having been another victim of lax refereeing, his concussion meaning that strict rules are applied, in this case to the victim rather than the perpetrator. On the bright side, both Rodriguez and Souceck will be available for selection having served their suspensions, the latter being likely to be presented with the armband in Bowen’s absence, which will highlight once more for the 100th consecutive transfer window running, the need for us to sign a striker.

Perhaps someone could mention that to David Sullivan and Karren Brady if they can drag themselves away with looking all gooey-eyed at Sir Jim Ratcliffe as they look for cost-cutting tips.

Which brings us on to the subject of the prediction. Well with our best player absent, and if you want a money-saving tip messrs Sullivan & Brady how about sending Liverpool the bill for his wages while he’s off?, it’s hard to see us getting anything out of this, even if they have decided to take a year off from winning the league.

They didn’t convince against Leicester it has to be said, but Haaland did actually score after what seemed like an eternity. So with that in mind the £2 that I was going to send to Man Utd to see them through what is obviously a major financial crisis will be going on a home win. Let’s call it 3-1 to them shall we Ray, me old mucker?

Enjoy the game and, if you must, Happy New Year!




When Last We Met At The City Of Manchester Stadium as was: Lost 3-1 (Premier League May 2024)

Foden tore us apart in a match that they bossed from the first minute. Highlight of the game was, however, Kudus’s overhead kick. Plus the fact that it meant that Arsenal’s supposed title hopes, that were as non-existent as Santa in the first place, disappeared up the fundament that their supporters usually talk out of.

Michael Salisbury

Was on VAR duty for our home match against Arsenal and in true spineless style failed to pull up Taylor on his disgraceful decision-making.

Danger Man: Erland Haaland

Back on the scoresheet last week, which is a bad omen for us.

Percy and Daisy’s Manchester City Fact Of The Week Type Thing

The last Ice Age in the UK ended about 10,00 years ago having lasted some 11,000 years, a fact commemorated by the Commission looking into the 130 charges against Man City, who are taking a similar time to announce their verdict.

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