Friendly preview: Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund
City take on Borussia Dortmund for the Ferrostaal Cup this evening and City fans will be hoping for their glimpse of Aleksandar Kolarov. Whether Roberto Mancini is also there remains to be seen.
It’s to be hoped he can make it back from Italy as the friendly against Inter proved little more than a fitness exercise where his absence combined with Patrick Vieira’s sending off to leave the blues focused on damage limitation.
In goal we can expect to see a half each for Shay Given and Joe Hart. The back four offers the exciting propect of a debut for Aleksander Kolarov.
With the World Cup players starting to return it will be interesting to see whether the likes of Ireland, Bellamy or Onuoha get any significant time on the pitch. Jo has featured heavily in pre-season thus far, but that is surely due to end soon.
It’s a shame that Carlos Tevez, David Silva, Jerome Boateng and Nigel de Jong have all remained in Manchester to work on their fitness. It leaves them with just the Valencia game before the season starts.
“The pitch is lovely and it’s a great stadium – I hope there’s a decent crowd and a nice atmosphere for the game.
“The new ruling on Under-21 players is good for a lot of the home-grown lads because obviously we’ve had a lot of new players come in, but it means we are still very much part of the squad.”
Dortmund, who also finished 5th in their league, will provide a decent test for City. They’re not a side with many familiar names. The Serbian defender Neven Subotic is highly rated and was linked with City among others last season.
One thing Dortmund don’t lack is fans with a whopping 76,656 average attendance last season. Whether the 81,000 capacity Signal Iduna Park Stadium is rammed tonight remains to be seen.
Hopefully City can return to winning ways as we step up our preparations for the new season. Attention will be focussed on Aleksander Kolarov though with only a few days training behind him, we shouldn’t expect to much.