mancityblues.com

If you have ever seen the movie "Being John Malkovich", you'll know that the gist of the movie involves the protagonists discovering a tunnel that literally goes into Malkovich's brain, allowing them to see exactly what Malkovich sees, hears and thinks. Considering the F.A. Cup draw yesterday, it would have been interesting to access Mancini's thought processes as "Lovejoy" announced the tie against Chelsea. So much for the lucky scarf, eh?

Other bad news includes the mounting injury list - at the time of writing, there are doubts about Kompany, Richards, Ireland, SWP and Bellamy. One also has to wonder how yesterday's bruising encounter affected the likes of Barry, Bridge and Lescott, and Tevez will obviously be missing - clearly Mancini has limited options for Tuesday. On the plus side, Adam Johnson will be available for selection, and the return of RSC is quite encouraging. Stoke have their own injury issues to worry about too, with Etherington, Lawrence and Wilkinson all likely to be missing, although I feel that Pulis's team actually caused City more problems when they reverted back to their usual style of play.

It's safe to assume that City will be in for more of that bombardment in the coming fixture, and there are no easy, or guaranteed, ways of countering this tactic. Mark Hughes had some success by leaving three City players on the halfway line, so reducing the number of big Stoke players able to join their attacking set-pieces, but I doubt that Mancini will adopt this idea. Simply put, City will have to get their heads on the ball, and for me that means that Toure has to either move to right-back or warm the bench - Kolo just doesn't seem to prosper against big, physical forwards.

Assuming that we are unable to keep a clean sheet, it will be imperative that no quarter be given in midfield, and that the forward line is 100% committed - I suspect that in order to win this game, City will need to score at least twice. Taking this into account, and the limited player roster we have right now, this is my line-up to battle Stoke -

---------------------Given ------------------------

Toure ----Onuoha ------Lescott -----Bridge/Garrido

---------------------Barry-------------------------

-------Zabaleta ---------------------Vieira--------

--Adebayor ---------------------------- A. Johnson-

----------------------RSC--------------------------

Bench Taylor,Garrido/Bridge, Boyata, DeJong
Sylvinho/SWP/Ireland/Petrov - depending on fitness

This formation is roughly a 4-3-3. A three man midfield of Zaba, Barry (if he can play twice in 4 days) and Paddy V are given the remit to put the boot in and play in the attackers when possible - all these players can find a forward pass as well as tackle. I feel that the extra height of these three will be very useful against the giants of Stoke, and it's worth noting that a four/five man midfield is not really required when the ball is usually 20 yards in the air. If required, though, this team can easily become a 4-4-2 with Zaba on the right and AJ on the left.

Up front, I've gone with AJ on the left, Ade on the right and RSC as the pivot - he showed some success at bringing others into play in the cup game, and City looked more dangerous at set-pieces with the extra height of the Peruvian (and Vieira, too). In defense, I prefer Ned and Lescott in the center, Toure at right-back and Bridge at left-back. If Bridge isn't up to it, Garrido, and his excellent set-piece delivery, is a good alternative.

In summary, I think that a bit of pressure has been put on Stoke after the cup result, and that may help City. As I said earlier, we will probably need to score a couple to gain victory, but funnily enough I have a good feeling about this game - must be the onset of dementia. ~Bloovic~