So part one of Mancini v McCarthy is over with Mancini the victor however, this weekends tie at the Etihad Stadium will be a completely different proposition.
Several changes were made for the midweek venture by both sides but for sure Mancini will have one eye on the upcoming fixture against Villerreal when thinking about Saturdays selection.
McCarthy on the other hand has no such distractions with his teams sole participation currently being in the Premier League until the FA Cup starts for them in January.
On the plus side for Mancini, two of the three closest sides will have already kicked off and finished their games before City take the field, with United travelling to Everton (come on you Toffees!!) and Chelsea taking on Arsenal. However, Mancini is a born winner and I doubt that he will relax his team selection if for example the earlier results end in our favor.
Last season we played Wolves in our last game in October (30th) and lost. We also followed that fixture with a European commitment, again away, which we lost to Lech Poznan. So it is critical to ensure a win this weekend and keep that run going through to Wednesday and hopefully beyond.
In our history of League games against Wolves we are really evenly split. Having met 106 times we have won 41 of them with Wolves winning one more at 42. Interestingly we also had this fixture almost 50 years ago to the day when City played Wolves, again away though, on October 28th 1961.
In that game we ended up on the losing side by a score of 4-1. Also 75 years ago, again almost to the day we played Wolves, again away and again a loss. October seems not to be a good time historically to play Wolves for us. It’s lucky for us that our history is changing!
Our October record in the league against Wolves is grim reading. We have played the Midlanders fourteen times within the month of October and we lost eight and only managed two victories. However it evens up much more when you look at Home games against Wolves within that period, with out of six games we won, lost and drew two. Scoring seven and conceding the same.
Interestingly for those who are into ‘weird’ stats we won against Wolves at home in October during the 1967-68 season 2-0. In that same season we beat United at their own ground 3-1, beat Spurs on their own ground 3-1 and beat Everton 2-0 at Maine Road before winning the League!
Although the scorelines are not exact (except the Everton one) they were all convincing wins just like this go around.
While it is important not to forget our history we must also not forget that we are all witnessing history in the making. City currently are performing above expectations and hopefully Saturday will see us continue along this path.
Certainly I expect Mancini to send out a side we are all more familiar with on Saturday to really put the Wolves side to the sword again.
Possible Starting Eleven: Hart, Richards, Kompany, Lescott, Clichy, Barry, Toure(Y), Silva, Aguero, Balotelli and Nasri.