[themaclad]

v

LAST TIME OUT
Birmingham City 0 Preston North End 1

MANCHESTER CITY 8(EIGHT) WATFORD 0


In the 50 plus years that I have been watching North End this is only if I am right the third competitive meetings between the sides at Deepdale although given the demolition City carried out on Watford on Saturday by 10pm tomorrow night the phrase competitive may not be required. Previous two visits ended 2-1 PNE with Macken tapping one in from 45 yards City later bought him and a 1 all draw.

CITY'S TRANSFERS IN
RODRI 63 MILLION
CANCELO 58 MILLION

Both of these slightly dwarf our record fee for Tom Bayliss.

Until the arrival of Pep, City had started to collect titles but the Spaniard now seems to be on the way to trying to win them all however he comes up against the best other bald manager in the league Alex Neil. Who when interviewed after Saturday's win did seem to have a wry smile when asked about the City score.


Always though City must have had an irrational hatred of us based on two players they sold to us, neil Young, we thought we were getting the man who scored in the Cup Final in 1969 instead we got this man,


we also got Dave Connor who had the nickname of Boils given he missed a couple of matches due to the fact he had boils.

Given Pep will not want to lose tomorrow he will no doubt put out a side that will be strong and contain several youngsters, already said he is playing Garcia, no doubt Foden wil play might even see the Nmecha brothers but given ther schedule having played Shakatak in Ukraine last week were they beat the English Jazz funk band 3-0 then the walkover against Watford with them playing Everton on Saturday and another European game next week the main players will not be at Deepdale.
Lee Mason is the referee so we will get sod all then

[themaclad]

Match Officials: Manchester City Home
Despite 18 years on the lists as a match official in the professional game, Tuesday’s referee will be in the middle for the first time at Deepdale.
Premier League referee Lee Mason will take charge of the tie with Pep Guardiola’s side in what will be his fourth game of the season, having so far issued nine cautions and one red card, in his last game, Southampton’s 1-0 win over Sheffield United at Bramall Lane.

Whilst this is his first time in charge of PNE at Deepdale, he has done two of our games on the road, both at Turf Moor against Burnley.
They came in consecutive seasons with results at the opposite end of the spectrum. In December 2007 the Lilywhites triumphed 3-2 against the Clarets; goals from Chris Sedgwick, Neil Mellor and Simon Whaley giving Alan Irvine’s side the win, with McCann and Gudjonsson seeing red for the hosts.
The following year it was North End who saw red, with Callum Davidson sent off and the visitors losing 3-1 despite Barry Nicholson’s goal.

The season of the 3-2 win was also the first year Lee took charge of City, in fact he did twice that year, their first home game – a 1-0 win over Derby and then a week after doing PNE he refereed City’s 1-1 draw at Aston Villa, just three days before Christmas.

The rest of the officials’ team for Tuesday night see Marc Perry and Nick Hopton as assistants, whilst experienced Championship official Tony Harrington will be the fourth official.



OAP Memory don't remember this

Last meeting
This is the first time the two sides have met in more than a decade. Our last contest, an FA Cup fifth round tie also played at Deepdale, took place in February 2007.

City won 3-1 that day, with Michael Ball, Stephen Ireland and an own goal enough for the victory after David Nugent had given the hosts an early lead.

[St Charles Owl]

Good luck in this one!!! Man City will play a second XI, but that in itself would probably finish in the top half of the PL!!

[themaclad]

Not too fussed really good to play them bigger game Saturday after it’s a given we will win tonight

[themaclad]

Enjoyable game full report tomorrow

[themaclad]

Preston North End 0 Manchester City 3 Sterling, Jesus, Ledson og

PNE line-up: Ripley, Fisher, Rafferty, Ledson, Storey, Davies, Potts, Browne ©, Barkhuizen (Nugent 63), Johnson (Bayliss, 76), Harrop (Ginnelly, 71). Subs not used: Rudd, Bayliss, Green, Stockley, Huntington.

Manchester City line-up: Bravo, Sterling (Mahrez, 73), Gundogan, Jesus, Angelino (Mendy, 60), B Silva, D Silva © (Bernabe, 63), Cancelo, Foden, Garcia, Harwood-Bellis. Subs not used: Carson, Rodrigo, Otamendi, Dionkou.

Attendance: 22,025 (5,637 Manchester City fans)

Referee: Mr L Mason

In the main enjoyed this game, we gave it our best shot with our mainly second string side which I thought was fine and fair gave some of the lads who had played in the earlier rounds first dibs.
City made nine changes including a 17 and 18 year olds at centre back, but still played Sterling, Silva, Jesus, Bernardo and Gundogan, not bad for reserves.
Almost the perfect start for North End Ledson cross and thought Harrop should have scored with his head from close range but missed the ball. City then began to dominate the ball and began to press us back although Barkhuizen's pace did cause them problems as we lobbed the ball behind the back two.
One thing you cannot do is let them counter, the pace of Sterling was incredible, can actually see why he hs played a few games for England, he scoreed the first, just ran straight at the centre of our defence before firing home with a slight deflection of Davies. Then it was a case of how many, second Sterling again caused problems fed the ball to Jesus ball under Ripley two up. Third we didn't really clear the ball and City got the second ball and Sliva tried to dink the ball over Ripley, Ledson's connection made sure it went in.
Although mainly one way we did have a chance when Barkhuizen was through but his shot was straight at Bravo.
Second half was slightly lower key Jesus missed a sitter as did Garcia, Foden hit the bar and at the death Ripley made a great save from Jesus whilst we hit the post through Harrop.
City brought on Mendy built like an excessively large out house, he bombed down the left and put in some quite fantastic crosses all at pace. North End brought on Nugent for his second debut for the club and he got a useful 30 minute run out. By the time the game had finished North End had eight players on the pitch who had played in the Senior Cup tie against Chorley the week before.
Great experience against a quality team but Saturday against Bristol City is a bigger game in teh grand scale of where we want to go.

Preston manager Alex Neil: "Man City were the better team. They treat the Carabao Cup the same way as the Champions League. That's why they're champions. For the first 20 minutes, we started brightly on the front foot and went chasing the ball for the first goal. The goals they scored were stuff we talked about.

"But when you play against that quality with their speed, it's one thing to talk about stopping them. It's another thing to do it. We can't get too hard on ourselves. We did OK to stick to our task in the second half. We had five regular starters not in the team. All in all, I was happy but frustrated with the goals."

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola: "[I am] Very pleased because they are third in the Championship. We took it seriously as always. You can't do what we've done in previous seasons if you don't take every game seriously. I grew up in the Barcelona academy, they taught me you have to win every single game or at least try.

"They [the two centre-backs] did really well. Taylor [Harwood-Bellis] and Eric [Garcia] combined perfectly. They played with each other for a long time in the academy. They have incredible personalities. It wasn't easy with long balls and second balls but we can count on them."

On Raheem Sterling: "He was 19 or 20 when he came here. In two or three years he will be a better player than now. I know his work ethic. He didn't play last game, but he came here with incredible humility and played at an incredible level. Even David Silva, won absolutely everything, came here in the Carabao Cup and played as captain, played in a difficult position like holding midfield.

"That's why when we lost to Norwich everyone is saying disaster. What are you talking about? These guys deserve incredible respect."

[johnno_pne]

Thanks for the report maclad.

One query, you may know the answer... Regarding this : "Attendance: 22,025 (5,637 Manchester City fans)"

So, about 300 seats not available to away fans (for segregation?) but up to about 1100 not available in the home stands. How were those unavailable seats split IP/AKTE/STFS ?

Also, what is a realistic top crowd these days. Seem to recall 23,000 for Man Utd in the past.

[themaclad]

Possibly some seats may have gone due to railings at front of Kop and Kelly also a block between spectators adajacent to the Kop in the Finney and Invincables made have been meshed off if you get my drift.

[johnno_pne]

Possibly some seats may have gone due to railings at front of Kop and Kelly also a block between spectators adajacent to the Kop in the Finney and Invincables made have been meshed off if you get my drift.

If you mean taped off, so that they cannot be used, yes I see what you mean.

Two examples seem to show this exactly :
https://www.pnefc.net/contentassets/7dbf....jpg/Large

https://www.pnefc.net/siteassets/02-imag....jpg/Large

so that is for segregation too, is it ?

It looks like there would be around 150 decommissioned seats in the second photo. Were there more than that on Tuesday ?

Must have been a good night, all the same, with 22,000.

(and not getting beat by 8 goals  )

[themaclad]

Think the police have say about capacity especially night games and losing by 8 never on