Man City host Brighton for the first of two meetings this week
By Ian King
City’s midweek Carabao Cup win against Brighton was less than convincing
With changes made to both teams from their usual starting XIs, Manchester City edged past Brighton in the League Cup on Wednesday night without looking particularly convincing. It took a penalty shootout to separate the two teams, and both may feel that the second meeting between them in three days at The Etihad on Saturday afternoon is clearly the more consequential of the two encounters.
And there’s a case for saying that yes, if the early season whispers about whether Brighton could “do a Leicester” this season are to have any substance about them, this is a fixture the visitors need to win. City and Arsenal are tied at the top with Brighton five points behind them. A Brighton win would make this Premier League season really start to look like a three-horse race. Defeat, and the eight-point gap would already look insurmountable.
City went unbeaten for 55 years against Brighton, but only because they didn’t play them
It remains the case that Brighton are unbeaten in their last four league matches against Manchester City, with the last two meetings between the two sides at The Etihad having ended in draws and Brighton having won their last two at The Amex.
One little peculiarity of this fixture is that Manchester City went unbeaten against Brighton for 55 years. The teams met for the first time in the the FA Cup in 1924, with City winning 5-1 at The Goldstone Ground. Subsequent to this, though, they didn’t play each other again until August 1979, when City won 3-2 at Maine Road, but that five and half decade long run ended at the end of December that year, when Brighton won 4-1 at The Goldstone Ground. In 1983, it was City who formalised Brighton’s relegation from the old first division with a 1-0 win.
Rayan Cherki offers City a goalscoring outlet beyond Erling Haaland
Manchester City’s goalscoring options aren’t all about Erling Haaland, you know. Rayan Cherki has scored six goals in 13 appearances for City already this season, the sort of goalscoring form that could see him end the season with 20+ goals, if he can avoid injury. The unusual stat about Cherki – for someone who plays in his position – is that he’s far more likely to score goals than create them, having scored twice as many goals as he’s registered assists.
One of the more perplexing sales of the summer was Spurs’ decision to sell Luka Vušković to Brighton without giving him a shot, even though the defender earned rave reviews last season on loan. His early performances this season have indicated, not for the first time, that Brighton have seen something in this young defender that Spurs were unable to.
Brighton’s injury list is considerably longer than Manchester City’s
Manchester City have three injury concerns for this match. Antoine Semenyo is expected to be out until December with a leg injury, while Matheus Nunes was left out of their squad on Wednesday night after suffering a groin injury and Ilian Ndiaye found himself in the same boat after suffering what was reported as cramp. Both could potentially return for this match.
Brighton didn’t suffer any fresh injuries on Wednesday night, but they still have a lengthy list of absentees. Evan Ferguson, Stefanos Tzimas, Kaoru Mitoma, Femi Azeez, Pascal Struijk, Mats Wieffer, Yakuba Minteh and Zadok Yohanna will all be missing. It’s not all bad news, though. Ferdi Kadioglu and Chema Andres have both been passed fit to play.
There’s been little to indicate that these two teams aren’t extremely evenly-matched
It would be easy to put either too much or too little emphasis on Wednesday night’s meeting between these two teams, given how many changes both teams made to their starting XIs. But the ultimate takeaway from it is that there wasn’t very much between these two, and this seems borne out by the fact that there are only two points between them in the Premier League table as we reach the end of October.
It does remain the case that Brighton have stuttered since beating Crystal Palace 5-0 at The Amex a couple of weeks ago. Their goalless draw away to Jablonec in the Europa Conference League was less than inspiring, though their performances against both Liverpool and Manchester City were decent, although they ended up losing both fixtures.
But City have looked less imposing with each passing game since their 3-0 win at Liverpool in the first match after their guilt over systematic cheating was first confirmed. They got past Ipswich, but they were uninspiring away to Aston Villa, while Brighton’s under-strength team matched their under-strength team all the way in the Carabao Cup.
The question of whether the adrenaline boost they took from their performative outrage over having been found guilty of financial doping is already wearing off is as valid as it was before the midweek meeting between these two teams. So I’m going for a draw, this time. 1-1 doesn’t sound unrealistic, giving Arsenal a chance to reclaim top place in the table for the first time since the middle of September.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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