Devastating news to come out of the club overnight — rising star Mario Balotelli is to have surgery on his injured knee, and will be out of action for up to six weeks.
Mario hobbled off in the dying moments of the win at FC Timisoara, with what at the time looked to be a rather harmless knock.
In typical "Typical City" fashion, three of our most anticipated new additions to the squad — Jerome Boateng, Aleksandar Kolarov, and Balotelli — have mustered just over an hour of football in all competitions between them. Combined with the fact that Wayne Bridge is still not fit, as well as the perennially crocked Michael Johnson and Roque Santa Cruz, that's a good quarter of the squad unable to play, and it's only three games into the season!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
City's 25-man Squad Announced
Roberto Mancini has named his 25-man Premier League squad, and as a result, will have to play with the cards he's been dealt until January.
There are no major surprises or omissions, although Michael Johnson could consider himself lucky to have made the cut, considering his ongoing injury situation.
Whilst it would have been possible for Roberto to nominate a squad that featured big names like Robinho, Craig Bellamy, or Stephen Ireland — it was just not feasible from a man-management point of view.
Unfortunately, the real world is not like FIFA10, where you can buy as many players as you fancy and they don't kick up a stink when they sit on the bench. I know we fell into this trap when we chose our 25-man squad around a month ago.
Overall, it's a strong squad, but I do worry slightly about the amount of creativity in that line-up, and the amount of players that can come on and turn the game on its head.
The full squad is as follows:
Goalkeepers
1 Joe Hart
2 Shay Given
3 Stuart Taylor
Defenders
4 Kolo Toure
5 Vincent Kompany
6 Jerome Boateng
7 Aleksandar Kolarov
8 Micah Richards
9 Pablo Zabaleta
10 Joleon Lescott
11 Wayne Bridge
12 Shaleum Logan
X Dedryck Boyata
X Greg Cunningham
Midfielders
13 Yaya Toure
14 Gareth Barry
15 Nigel De Jong
16 Patrick Vieira
17 James Milner
18 Adam Johnson
19 David Silva
20 Shaun Wright-Phillips
21 Michael Johnson
X Abdisalam Ibrahim
Forwards
22 Carlos Tevez
23 Emmanuel Adebayor
24 Jo
25 Roque Santa Cruz
X Mario Balotelli
X Alex Nimely-Tchumeni
There are no major surprises or omissions, although Michael Johnson could consider himself lucky to have made the cut, considering his ongoing injury situation.
Whilst it would have been possible for Roberto to nominate a squad that featured big names like Robinho, Craig Bellamy, or Stephen Ireland — it was just not feasible from a man-management point of view.
Unfortunately, the real world is not like FIFA10, where you can buy as many players as you fancy and they don't kick up a stink when they sit on the bench. I know we fell into this trap when we chose our 25-man squad around a month ago.
Overall, it's a strong squad, but I do worry slightly about the amount of creativity in that line-up, and the amount of players that can come on and turn the game on its head.
The full squad is as follows:
Goalkeepers
1 Joe Hart
2 Shay Given
3 Stuart Taylor
Defenders
4 Kolo Toure
5 Vincent Kompany
6 Jerome Boateng
7 Aleksandar Kolarov
8 Micah Richards
9 Pablo Zabaleta
10 Joleon Lescott
11 Wayne Bridge
12 Shaleum Logan
X Dedryck Boyata
X Greg Cunningham
Midfielders
13 Yaya Toure
14 Gareth Barry
15 Nigel De Jong
16 Patrick Vieira
17 James Milner
18 Adam Johnson
19 David Silva
20 Shaun Wright-Phillips
21 Michael Johnson
X Abdisalam Ibrahim
Forwards
22 Carlos Tevez
23 Emmanuel Adebayor
24 Jo
25 Roque Santa Cruz
X Mario Balotelli
X Alex Nimely-Tchumeni
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