Not sure I share the enthusiasm for Clattenburg - he's one of the better refs but he did just recently give us an absolutely UNHEARD of 3 penalties at OT, and he might be a little more on the reluctant side to award us anything should he come under lots of scrutiny. I mean if it's stonewall I reckon he has the balls to do it, but I can see some 50-50s not quite falling our way.
On the game, I'm excited. They started well against Arsenal and looked the better team but began to run out of steam towards the end and were lucky to hold on for a point. If there's one part of games we excel at, it's at home in the first 20-30 mins. We'll be absolutely rabid out of the blocks and if we give them the run around early they should start to tire. They have more threat than any other team we've played this season, but if we can make any early dominance count in terms of the score, I'd back the crowd to carry us home. Either we blitz them completely in the first half, or if they somehow are drawing or lead in the second half the last 20 mins will just be one way traffic towards their goal.
Don't think we'll go for the diamond because it leaves us too exposed down the flanks which is one of the areas City threaten from the most, particularly the FBs overlapping. If we did I think it would have to be Allen in there (if he's fit) because I'm not sure Lucas has the stamina to play that role the way we would need him to. If we play 4-3-3 I would go for one of Allen/Lucas instead of Coutinho (though Coutinho + Sterling has done well for us in big games and is always a possibility, but I would prefer to have a more attacking option available on the bench) and encourage Hendo and Allen to press the living hell out of the City midfield. I'm not sure about having to rely on Gerrard man-marking Silva, but if you deny City time and space on the ball he won't get it as often and therefore won't be able to do anything with it.
I fancy it to be much tighter than a lot expect, but I don't see us losing, and I'm pretty optimistic we'll win. City actually attempt to play football (unlike Chelsea - a game I'm much more worried about) but I'm not sure they will be able to cope with the tempo and pace of our game when we're at home. I'm not sure they will have faced any team as direct us as this season (by that I don't mean long ball, more than in these games we always look to attack and often at breathtaking speed) and we always have set pieces on our side. On the flip-side of that, we need to avoid silly FKs in and around the box, but so do they.
Barring any glaring individual errors? 2-1 to us.
