Hello and how are you? This game needs no introduction as its all everyone’s been talking about it for months, it’s hotter than a desert, or a Sydney Sweeney jeans advert, the Venice Biennale or the latest gossip on You Tube political pundit street! And the media aren’t much on our side…do we need them? For them its City, all the way.

To answer the preview title question; it all depends on which Arsenal turns up, it’s been a theme all season. This is a team that has beaten Bayern, Atlético and Inter, but who drew with a poor Wolves side and looked like boys against Bournemouth. Until the beans are spilt, I have no idea why we were so scared to go into that game. I hope we’ve mustered a bit more courage after reaching the CL Semis, again.

One thing worries me, that this is being dubbed the ‘title decider’. I preach a bit of caution here; there’s still a handful of games to go and either of these two teams could still fall foul from teams wanting to stay up or grab a Europa place. It’s over only when it is, he said clinging like a fool to the sinking life raft of hope…but who wouldn’t, hopes all we’ve got?

Merino’s out for the Gun, but everyone else might be or might not, looks like we will wait until an hour before KO to know.

City reckon that dangerman O’Reilly will be ready after a hamstring problem, Stones, Dias and Gvardiol are AWOL due to injury.

I went over to Statto HQ and amongst the pizza boxes, discarded Bric-a-Brac, the dirty linen, the holy Coca-Cola tins, the punctured footballs, they gave me the figures: Manchester City, 52% chance of winning, Arsenal FC, by far the greatest team the world has ever seen; 22.6% (its risen in the last 24hrs!)…it’s the lowest all season.

Next up like, it’s a visit from the Geordies at ours. So, please, please, please COYG!

Mills 

I’ve been saying all season that eventually “performances will br reflected with results” , well guess what, they have. The problem with that statement is that statistics can be used to claim performances have been a lot better than my eyes lead me to believe. Well they can if you are selective with which stats you uses. Relatively speaking we score lots of goals and concede few, but our open play xG against top teams is dire ( usually < 0.3 ). Anyway, I’m no expert on such things so I’ll leave stats there.

What I do know however is how I feel going into this game, and it’s not good my friends. Of course I want to be positive, but I’m just not. Nothing I’ve seen in recent weeks/months give me much hope. My only hope is that these lads get in the huddle and say ” F*ck it, let’s get stuck into this lot”, but seriously, what’s the chances of that?.

I apologise if you can taste my distain for Arteta, but I can’t supress it any longer, my disappointment has has crushed me.

So in the words of Charlie Kirk “Prove me wrong”. Please for once , let me be wrong.

Pedantic George.