City Watch: Blues looking for derby revenge

The international break is almost over, just a few more days before Manchester City are back following their defeat against Brighton. 

I’m not going to go into the details of the national games too much, I don’t think there should be a break this early in the season anyway, however, it would be wrong of me to not mention that England won both of their qualifiers against Moldova and Serbia.

Part of the reason that I’m not covering the international break in detail is that not a single City player made an appearance for England in their qualifiers, so there really isn’t much to cover!

Omar Marmoush did feature for Egypt, but picked up an injury just ten minutes into their second game against Burkina Faso and was forced off with a knee injury. 

I’ve said it enough before, but these players are simply playing too many games, and being punished with injuries as a consequence.

Let’s hope his injury isn’t too serious, because our first game back from the break is against the other side of the City, Manchester United. 

It’s easy to fall for the old cliches of ‘form goes out the window in a derby,’ but I think this could be an example of that being the case.

Both teams haven’t had an ideal start to the season, both only managing one win out of the three so far, with United also already eliminated from the Carabao Cup to Grimsby.

In this fixture last season, City dominated large parts of the game, holding onto a 1-0 lead from a first half goal from Gvardiol. 

Not going for the winning goal cost us a lot in the previous campaign, and the match against United was no exception to this, with the Reds scoring two late goals to win the game 2-1.

I’m not making any early excuses, but the Blues’ injury list going into the game doesn’t fill me with confidence, with as many as ten first team players confirmed or suspected out of Sunday’s game, including key starters like Phil Foden, Omar Marmoush, Josko Gvardiol and more.

This game does feel more important than ever, as a loss or draw would mean just one win from our opening four games. 

Previous title races have taught us that one point can really make the difference, and with just three points from a possible twelve, this seemed like an unimaginable outcome after the win at Wolves.

We are still very early in the season, so I don’t think it would be fatal for our title race chances, but we don’t really help ourselves. 

Forgetting everything else, I and every other City fan would just love to watch us beat United on Sunday, continuing to prove that Manchester is Blue!