Given – A brilliant display of goalkeeping with superb judgement and handling. 9
Onuoha – Drifted into the centre a little to much for comfort but redeemed himself with some excellent tackles as Barca failed to get the better of him. 7
Dunne – Another lionheart performance from the captain who thoroughly deserved to lift the Joan Gamper trophy. 8
Toure – Showed he has the quality at this level and won bragging rights with his brother. 7
Zabaleta – The Argentine continues to look a capable deputy at left-back and was once again our toughest tackler. 8
Weiss – A terriffic display from the youngster who conquered some early nerves to take the game to the opposition. 8
Wright-Phillips – Surprisingly given a central midfield role, but did his best for the team. 6
Ireland – A temperature into the 90’s didn’t stop Superman from running all night long. Also managed to pick out some fine passes, none better than the one for Petrov’s goal. 8
Barry – Not quite able to show the composure that we’ve seen thus far, but still nearly sneaked a goal on the stroke of half-time. 7
Petrov – Fabulously taken goal as he continues to stake a claim for a competitive start. 8
Tevez – Lone striker may not be his preferred role, but he had a valuable hour on the pitch and showed glimpses of his talent. 7
Subs:
Ben Haim – The Israeli’s form has been steadily improving and there were some excellent interceptions here when others were starting to tire. 7
Garrido – Fears that his tackling might not be quite up to the Messi challenge proved unfounded as the Spaniard slotted in admirably on a return to home soil.
Trippier – What an experience for the captain of last year’s youth side! 6
Etuhu – The direct running of Kelvin gave the defence a welcome respite. 6
Bellamy – Inches away from a second goal with the last kick of the game. Would we have seen a repeat of the famed golf club goal celebration? 6
Man of the match: For being the best youngster on the pitch according to Mark Hughes, I’d nominate Weiss.
Goals: Petrov 27 for City.
Richard Dunne lifted a trophy(!) as City triumphed in front of 94,000 Catalonians thanks to Martin Petrov and a sterling defensive display. Mark Hughes will have been delighted to have come through a fixture, which many deemed unnecessary, unscathed and with confidence boosted for the campaign ahead.
Fears over players getting crocked were allayed as we remembered Barcelona are the antithisis of cloggers. There wasn’t a tackle in the match to concern the City physio, even if Zabaleta did take exception to one hefty challenge.
Huhges made five changes from Saturday’s starting eleven with Robinho, Adebayor, Bridge and Richards all missing while Bellamy came on in the second half. Surprisingly, Nigel De Jong was on the bench in his civvies, which implied he may not have been fully fit.
The back four lined up with Dunne (left side) and Toure (right side) at centre back, while Onuoha and Zabaleta were both away from their preferred positions at right-back and left-back respectively.
With Weiss and Petrov on the flanks, Wright-Phillips was another out of his favoured position, playing in the middle with Barry and Ireland.
Carlos Tevez started as a lone front man and showed some good touches in a difficult role where he was often isolated and didn’t see a great deal of the ball.
City started sluggishly and barely got a touch. Yaya Toure was dominating midfield and if he ever wants to swap Barcelona for playing alongside his brother I don’t think Mark Hughes would be complaining.
Barca are able to dominate thanks to their slick passing and a focus on pressing the opposition in their own half. There’s always the chance that if you get past this, there can be space to exploit in the their half. That’s the theory; putting it into practice is somewhat harder as Manchester United found out, but after 27 minutes City did just this. A couple of passes saw the ball reach Ireland in the centre circle and he pierced the Barcelona back line with a perfectly weighted through ball. Petrov was away and slotted coolly past the Pinto in the Barca goal.
1-0 to City and Puyol departed soon afterwards, shaking his mane with disbelief. The goal knocked Barca from their rhythm while City were lifted and the remainder of the first half was a more even contest. Young Weiss in particular looked to have shaken off some early nerves and was proving a real handful.
At half-time Barca brought on Ibrahimovic and Messi, while we introduced Ben Haim for Toure. Incredibly the Barca star pair disappointed, despite both going close to scoring, while Ben Haim exceeded expectations. The Israeli made some excellent interceptions and showed good positional awareness, particularly in the latter stages when the heat was taking it’s toll on some of his colleagues.
If this was intended as an exercise in improving our defending of corners, then it was a resounding success. Shay Given and co came through with flying colours after facing what appeared to be a constant stream of balls into the box. Admittedly, this was one area where Barcelona could have learnt a thing or two from Stoke or “set piece” Sam Allardyce.
Given was fantastic throughout, giving a masterclass in judgement and decision making. The woodwork also came to City’s rescue on two occasions, with the seond resulting from a stunning strike by Messi in stoppage time. City immediately went down the other end and Bellamy nearly reprised his goalscoring exploits on this ground for Liverpool, with a shot that fizzed just wide of the post.
The referee, who had seemingly been waiting for Barcelona to equalise, then decided enough was enough and the Blues had secured a victory over the European champions. The watching Khaldoon Al Mubarak must have been delighted. City’s supporters certainly were, and the grin on Richard Dunne’s face when he went to lift the trophy showed what the players thought of it all.
Mark Hughes:
“We are a young team, we are developing as a team and the opportunity to come to the European champions, compete with them, was vitally important.
“I wanted them to enjoy the experience and that’s why I gave most players the opportunities; for the young players, the opportunity of playing at the Nou Camp was a great experience for us.
“Barcelona have great depth, great young talent, but I thought Vladimir Weiss was the best young player out there tonight.”
Pep Guardiola:
“City are a team with big stars and we knew it would be difficult.
“They scored a goal and almost scored another at the end, but we had our chances too and it was a good match.”
Two away wins on the bounce, now if we can just sort out the home form…
External reports:
Daily Mail picture special
Manchester Evening News
MCFC Offical site
The Sun
The Telegraph
Blog reports:
The Lonesome Death Of Roy Carroll
Man Cit Issues
Manchester City Mad
Norstander
City visit the Camp Nou tonight after being invited to play Barcelona in the prestigious Joan Gamper trophy. Whether it is right to be playing this fixture after the start of the Premier League season has split opinion amongst many fans and pundits.
It may not be the conventional thing to do, but these are not conventional times at Eastlands. For the City hierarchy it is an opportunity to raise the club’s profile and build our links with one of the most prestigious clubs in world football, whose star players we keep failing to sign. Last year Ronaldinho, this year Eto’o, next year Messi?
For Mark Hughes, it represents a chance to hone the teamplay and tactics of the side as he seeks to assimilate all the new signings. Carlos Tevez has the opportunity for more match time as he seeks to build up his fitness levels.
Mark Hughes:
“It’s a high-profile, prestigious game and given everyone else in the Premier League is playing as well we thought it could also add to our match fitness.
“It’s still early in the season and we are still making sure everyone is up at the right level of fitness, so that will come into my thinking when I pick the team.
“We will want to give a good account of ourselves but key for us at the moment is the game at the weekend.”
For Kolo Toure it represents the first opportunity to play against his younger brother since he joined Barca. Several of the players have said how they are looking forward to playing the Champions of Europe at the Camp Nou. This is hardly a friendly they will find a chore.
Nigel De Jong:
“Playing Barcelona in the Nou Camp is a bit special, especially the form they are in now. We’ll be able to see where we are standing after a long pre-season and that first game. We’re all excited – I’ve never played at the Nou Camp, so this is my first time.
“I watched the Champions L eague final, I think everybody here did. Barca were very impressive, but they had been all season – that’s why they won the three big prizes, the Spanish League and Cup as well as the Champions League. They play football at its best.”
It seems fair to assume that whilst keeping one eye on Saturday, Hughes will be required to put out a strong line-up. It wouldn’t do to get panned, and given this is traditionally Barca’s final warm-up game before the new season they are likely to be running at close on full speed. A daunting prospect, yet also thrilling.
Hughes has stated that Carlos Tevez is set to play a bigger role than he has so far, while Wayne Bridge and Emmanual Adebayor are both set to miss out with minor knocks. This could mean an opportunity for Ryan McGivern to line up against Lionel Messi as Javier Garrido may be on the move soon according to reports.
For Barca, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is set to make his debut and 70,000 tickets have already been sold with a 100,000 capacity crowd expected to fill the Camp Nou as Catalonians flock to see the new striker. Even for City fans it will be interesting to see how the Swede measures up as a replacement for Eto’o. It seems difficult to believe that Barca gave £40 million PLUS the Cameroon striker for Imbrahimovic.
Eto’o was eventually rated at £17 million in the deal, some £8 million less than City had agreed to pay, but that’s history now. Though it could be worth mentioning to David Moyes that arguably the most potent striker in Europe last season who scored the crucial first goal in the Champions League final is valued at less than we have already offered for Joleon Lescott. But hey, Eto’o is a year older.
For those unable to attend the fixture, it’s being screened live on the City web site.
According to The Guardian’s Daniel Taylor, the club have been looking at expanding the capacity of Eastlands to 60,000 with a new training ground alongside the stadium. There would also be development of the surrounding land to create a sports village. The article claims the plans are at an early stage and have yet to be discussed with Manchester City Council.
This news may not be as startling as it initially sounds. When ADUG took over the club there was initial speculation they may look at developing the ground and surrounding area. A good offer to the Council, with whom City have always enjoyed a decent relationship, is unlikely to be turned down. Afterall it’s not like they could rent a 48,000 seat stadium to anyone else. Giving a cash injection to the Council that could be reinvested on other services would show them as having managed this particular legacy of the Commonwealth Games very well.
Geographically there is comfortably room for developing the ground on three sides with just the South Stand being close to Ashton New Road. The other parts of the article regarding the training ground and sports village make less sense. There is a decent amount of space around the City of Manchester Stadium, but I’m not sure there’s enough for the multiple training pitches and other facilities that would be needed to surpass what we currently have at Carrington. The benefits are unclear especially given the recent overhaul of facilities there and the fact it’s more accessible on a daily basis for our mostly Cheshire based players and staff.
The sports village has long been under way with the velodrome, athletics track and squash centre. These would seem to be best left to the Council to develop as part of the overall regeneration of East Manchester. There seems little logic in City getting involved with other sports.
With regard to filling a 60,000 capacity stadium, I believe this is attainable if we were to be challenging for the Premier League and Champions League on a regular basis. Arsenal are filling the 60,000 Emirates stadium having moved up from 38,000 Highbury and many of their season tickets are priced over £1000. I doubt sufficient football supporters in the North would pay these ‘London prices’ but in terms of bums on seats there’s no shortage of people interested in attending top quality football. Manchester has a good catchment area in Cheshire (home to many City fans already) and the ever expanding Warrington. The location of Eastlands is more accessible for people East of Manchester than Maine Road, and when the tram line is finally built it will be easier to access from Piccadilly Station.
Such major changes and blatant seeking of new fans may not play well with all of our traditional supporters. It’s true that we would be losing touch with some of our roots despite the continued investment in City In The Community, etc. The shared experiences many of us have of Maine Road and life outside the top flight would seem a world away. One fears for Colin Shindler‘s mental health given the trauma he’s already been through with ‘this Abu Dhabi lot’.
Personally I feel incredibly lucky to be watching some of the world’s finest players each week, and if more City fans are able to share that with me then I’m all for it. In fact I’d say if we really are to be challenging for the European Cup on a regular basis, then I’d be looking to add more than 12,000 to the current stadium. I’d go for a 65,000 capacity at least!