Huddersfield Town host Manchester City at the John Smith's Stadium on Sunday afternoon, in a match live on Sky Sports that they're bizarrely calling part of this weekend's Christmas triple header.  
Town lost again on the road at Bournemouth in the last match. City won again on the road on Saturday, making it a club record seventh consecutive league win away from home. It was their 16th consecutive victory, in all competitions, if you include beating Wolves on penalties in the League Cup. They made that 17 wins on Tuesday night beating Feyenoord 1-0 in the Champions League. The only team to take league points off them this season are Everton, who got a 1-1 draw at the Etihad back in August.
It will be important for Town to score first in this game, similarly to the United game, because if we don't, it could be Spurs all over again. We don't do well when we concede first, usually getting tonked while pushing forward for an equaliser. The only match we've won this season from behind was against Rotherham in the League Cup.
But with our team at home, in the atmosphere we create these days and with the confidence of the reality of us holding them to a goalless draw in the Cup last season, anything can happen. And of course, Christopher Schindler and Jonathan Hogg will be back.

A brief history of Manchester City: Founded in 1880 by members of St Mark's Church in Gorton, as a means to stop local gangs beating the crap out of each other. They had a few mergers and name changes in the next few years and built up a rivalry with another Manchester based club called Newton Heath. They went on to become Manchester United and in 1894 the team that had morphed into Ardwick AFC by now, renamed themselves as Manchester City.
Ardwick had been founder members of the Football League's 2nd division a couple of year's earlier and in 1899 the newly named City won it to gain promotion to the First Division. They won the FA Cup for the first time in 1904, beating Bolton Wanderers 1-0 at Crystal Palace.
In 1923 they moved from their Hyde Road ground to a new one in Moss Side, with a capacity of 80,000, Maine Road. They reached the 1926 Cup Final, got relegated in 1927, but got promoted straight back again.
The 1930s started as a good decade for City, reaching two Cup Finals, winning it in 1934 and then in 1937 they won the League title for the first time. Strangely though they were relegated the following season and won promotion back in the first season after the 2nd World War.
In 1956 they won the Cup again, beating Birmingham City 3-1, the game being remembered for goalkeeper Bert Trautmann playing on despite having broken his neck in a heavy challenge.
Back down again in the early 60s for a couple of seasons, but they came back under the management team of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison who guided them to promotion and then to their 2nd League title in 1967/68.This was turning out to be a golden era for City as they won the Cup again in 1969, the European Cup Winners Cup and the League Cup twice.
One of the most famous games of this era was when former Town player Denis Law scored the goal for City at Old Trafford to relegate their neighbours United in 1974.

Not much on the honours board in the next couple of decades. They were founder members of the new Premier League in 1992. They moved from Maine Road to the city's Commonwealth Stadium in 2003, known now as the Etihad. The club were just treading water, not very financially sound, until in 2008 they were bought out by the Abu Dhabi United Group, which transformed them immediately into the millionaire moneybags club they now are.
They won the FA Cup in 2011, the Premier League in 2012 and 2014, the League Cup in 2014 and 2016.

Head to Head



City lead in the overall head to head with 25 wins to Town's 22, with 29 draws.

One of those draws was last season in the FA Cup when our second XI earned a creditable 0-0 draw against high flying, big spending Manchester City. And we almost won it, with Philip Billing unluckily having a goal disallowed.
We would've won the replay too if the ref had blown for full time after 10 minutes. Harry Bunn giving the Terriers a deserved lead. But some pathetic hounding of the referee by City's under performing superstars pressured him into giving them every decision going and we ended up departing the competition.

We also lost to them in the FA Cup in 1987/88. It was one of 5 games we played against them that season. The first was a narrow City victory at Maine Road. Then we met in the Cup and almost got revenge. Duncan Shearer scored twice, only for City to get a very late equaliser to take it to a replay. That ended 0-0 and so we played what turned out to be our last ever 2nd replay before they were scrapped in favour of penalty shoot outs. We lost that though, but did eventually beat them when they returned once more to Leeds Road for the league match in April and got beat by Carl Madrick scoring the only goal of his 8 match Town career.

There have been other Town victories against City in living memory, this isn't a Man Utd situation. Despite the fact that they now are one of football's biggest club's, in 1998/99 they were actually a division below us. They came straight up in their League 1 season, beating Gillingham on penalties in the Play Off Final and when we went to Maine Road in the next season under the management of ex Man Utd star Steve Bruce, we absolutely battered them and the 1-0 scoreline flattered them we were that much more better. Chris Beech scored the goal, a brilliant header from the edge of the area.
The season before, we helped relegate them by winning at Maine Road, with Rob Edwards scoring what is generally accepted as one of the finest goals in the club's history. Have a look at this.

This is the first meeting of the two clubs in the top flight since the 70s of course. In our two season stint back then we drew twice, lost once at theirs but beat them 1-0 at Leeds Road in April 1971 with a goal from Trevor Cherry. Earlier that season we drew at Maine Road 1-1 on Boxing Day with City's captain Tony Book sticking the ball in his own net for our goal.

So what's happening at the Etihad Stadium?  Managed nowadays by Pep Guardiola, the former manager of European giants Barcelona and Bayern Munich. As a player he was a defensive midfielder, considered amongst the best of his generation and a part of the European Cup winning team at Barcelona under the management of Johan Cruyff. He was capped 47 times for Spain.
After taking the Barcelona B team job, he then succeeded Frank Rijkaard as coach of the first team, going on to win the Champions League twice and La Liga three times. He finished at Barcelona and took a year off before taking on the job at Bayern Munich where he went on to win the Bundesliga three times. Then at the start of last season he was tempted away to join Man City and so far has won sod all, struggling even to beat little Huddersfield Town in the FA Cup.



Notable players in their squad:- Fabian Delph, is probably the best known of their squad. Officially the worst player to ever pull on an England shirt, he first came to prominence at Leeds United, where he was made to look absolute garbage by the immense performance of Huddersfield Town's Jim Goodwin in a memorable victory for the Terriers at Bellend Road back in our centenary year.
Despite this, he still managed to con Aston Villa into paying Leeds half a dozen Mars bars to secure his services the following year. He spent six years at the Villa, causing several managers to get the sack for being unable to offload him. Eventually they got relegated. Not before Delph had snuck out unnoticed though. Unbelievably he got set on at the Etihad Stadium. Even more unbelievable is that he's still there and Pep kept him on and let Aaron Mooy go. Unbelievable!

There are others in their squad who you may have heard of - John Stones, the former Barnsley defender, now an England international. They're so proud of him in Barnsley that he has his own dedicated lamppost in the town centre opposite Marks & Spencer's and next in row to the great Charlie Williams.
He signed for Everton for £3m when still a teenager, having made his Barnsley debut as a 17 year old. Won nowt there so signed for Pep at City at the start of last season and still hasn't won owt, apart from a huge hike in wages and his transfer fee rocketed to a reported £47.5m. Not bad for a Barnsley lad.
However, he got injured on Saturday at Leicester, with Pep saying he will be out for six weeks.

Recent form: Town are 10th in the Premier League with 15 points, but seeing as we're last to kick off this weekend it's possible that by 4 o'clock on Sunday we may be a bit lower. City are top with 34 points, a lead of 8 pts over their local rivals, Newton Heath FC.

Last 6 matches:

Town 0-4 Spurs
Swansea 2-0 Town
Town 2-1 Manchester Utd (Mooy, Depoitre)
Liverpool 3-0 Town
Town 1-0 West Brom (van La Parra)
Bournemouth 0-4 Town

City 0-0 Wolves (City won on pens) (EFL Cup)
West Brom 2-3 City (Sané, Fernandinho, Sterling)
Napoli 2-4 City (CL) (Otamendi, Stones, Agüero, Sterling)
City 3-1 Arsenal (De Bruyne, Agüero [pen], Jesus)
Leicester 0-2 City (Jesus, De Bruyne)
City 1-0 Feyenoord (CL) (Sterling)


City's line up at Leicester on Saturday:

31 Ederson - Brazilian goalie recently made his full international debut.
2 Kyle Walker - ex Sheff Utd and Northampton, plays for England.
5 John Stones - injured and will miss this match.
4 Vincent Kompany - captain, should've been suspended today but ref missed blatant red card at Leicester.
18 Fabian Delph - ex Beeston Utd, plays for England.
17 Kevin De Bruyne - not a bad footballer, plays for Belgium.
25 Fernandinho - Brazilian midfielder, spent a long time in Ukraine.
21 David Silva - World Cup winner with Spain, over 100 caps for them.
7 Raheem Sterling - a bit of a knob, plays for England.
33 Gabriel Jesus - ex Nazareth and Bethlehem Town striker, good with crosses.
19 Leroy Sané - just a shit Izzy Brown.  

Substitutes:
1 Claudio Bravo - City fans love him.
3 Danilo - Brazilian international right back.
8 İlkay Gündoğan - played for David Wagner in the Dortmund 2nds.
10 Sergio Agüero - scores goals, quite a lot and quite often.
15 Eliaquim Mangala - French centre back, likely to replace Stones in defence.
20 Bernardo Silva - Portuguese midfielder.
42 Yaya Touré - big softie, cried when City forgot his birthday.

One other name worthy of a mention, who could get a game against little Huddersfield is Phil Foden, the 17 year old star of England's recent under 17 World Cup win. He made his City debut on Tuesday night against Feyenoord, coming on as sub in the 75th minute.

(26-11-2017, 18:59)Lord Snooty Wrote: Well that was a good first half.