Team vs Stoke

Hart
Zabaleta, Kompany, Lescott, Clichy
Milner, Toure, Barry, Silva
Dzeko, Aguero.

Subs: Pants, Sinclair, Garcia, Toure, Tevez,
Nasty, Razak.

Lescott is tall, and more imposing than Nasty, probably tactical due to the size of some of the Stoke players, Huth, Shawcross are both very physical, bordering on dirty at times, and probably for this game Mancini doesn't want Nasty getting injured, whereas Lescott wouldn't be such a big loss!

'bordering on dirty'

good to see milner back. i like the team. good mix of steel and skill

Going to be a tough nut to crack Stoke, defending very well. need to take our chances, or this is going to get very frustrating!!!!!!!

Back to missing chances again, Aguero's 2 really good chances so far...
Come on City!!!

Cometh the hour...cometh the Zab!

Aguero, though been brilliant - really should've had a hat-trick!

Can see Tevez coming on for Dzeko and add more movement, as that first half we have destroyed them without being 4-0 up.

RVP again adds to his tally!!

Yaya........does he have any idea how to shoot?

I hate stoke and their anti football. I just wish the ref would warn them for timewasting. At least they won't carry on the same way in the 2nd half now that we've scored.

Thinking the sane thing, Tevez to run at them, up the pace, make them make a tackle in the box instead of trying to thread the needle everytime.
But Stoke came to defend a plan A, with 0 shots in the 1st half, they will try to come out and play in the 2nd half, which will play into our hands too.
We were unlucky not to score earlier, and we really need to to add to the tally before the 80th minute, when Stoke will then try to equalise.
Yaya needs some shooting practice!
David Hasselhoff athe game today, must be there to see Huth?

wanna bet Dawg?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Stokes first shot 60mins... need I say more

wow! Sinclair is coming on!!!

Good performance all round today, Vinny looked class, Clichy has impressed too.
Hart just made a good save and didn't switch off like at Sunderland.
Shame about Aguero, the fact that he walked off bodes well that its not a major tear, few weeks off thankfully from Prem games, so hopefully we won't miss him for too long.

the 'only' disappointment was that we didn't go for the 4th and 5th goals.

Never saw a more one-sided game....Stoke were rubbish.

Aguero - looks like a tweak....precaution. I'm going on Sat against Watford...but didn't imagine I would ever see Aguero anyway.

Balotelli and Dzeko up front is my guess....with Sinclair and Milner playing out wide.

Great win........shame Wigan did their usual capitulation against the rags...remember last year????

Zab, Clichy, Aguero and Vinny were awesome today........against a really poor team though.

Stoke have been on a 10 game unbeaten run, if the 1st goal hadn't gone in, they would have stayed tight, not attacked and tried to hold out for a draw, the goals, were well overdue, Aguero could have had a couple but for good defending by Stoke.
Can't complain, we won, a good performance, we just need to keep punishing teams until the end of the year, hope UTD do a Devon Lock again, maybe pick up a few signings in Jan to boost the midfield and Attack, but seeing as Mario looks untouchable, looks like he's going nowhere at the moment, we can only hope he has a good 2nd half to the season, then we can sell him for 30M+ in the summer and get a real striker....!
As for UTD, when has RVP gone 2 seasons without being injured? time for a season ending injury!?

That Stoke side were simply a less successful Reading. The Royals made it harder for us to score and had more attempts themselves. Stoke have had three attempts on goal in THREE GAMES at our place. Makes me wonder why we can't beat them at the Brittania, they are woeful when they come here.

I can't help but think that the loss to the rags is going to haunt us. If we'd defended better, if we'd have been a bit more clinical, we'd only be one point behind and all we'd need to do is win every game and we'd be champions again.