FA Cup 3rd round draw

City have been drawn at home to Nottingham Forest in the Third Round of the FA Cup sponsored by E.ON.

The tie will be played on the weekend of January 3rd/4th, and will be the first time the two clubs have faced each other in the cup since Forest’s Championship-winning season in 1977/78.

>>mcfc.co.uk

Definitely a tie we should progress through as we bid to make a dent in this year's competition.

We've not come up against Forest for a while, but I remember some good games against them in particular during the mid-late 90's.

Bitter and Blue live chat

Join myself and Jack from the excellent City blog The Lonesome Death of Roy Carroll, this Thursday (16th) at 8pm for a one hour live chat.

Feel free to submit questions, post comments or simply drop by.

Carling Cup fixture switch

Manchester City have avoided an early-season fixture pile-up.

Unlike the eight other English sides in Europe, City, who reached the Uefa Cup via the Fair Play League, did not get a bye into the Carling Cup third round.

Mark Hughes' side were due to play their second round match in the week commencing 25 August, when they already have a Uefa Cup tie scheduled.

But City will now play their Carling Cup tie in the week of the third round, week commencing 22 September.

>>bbc.co.uk

I guess it puts an end to this concern.

A tough first week ahead

Something I touched upon previously when it was announced that we would not receive a bye into the 3rd round of the Carling Cup become more apparant today as the club were told that we will have to play our fixture in the competition in the first week of the season - along with our opening two league fixtures and the UEFA 2nd leg against FC Midjtylland.

The following week is an international week so the club were left with no choice which now sees the week as follows:

• Sunday 24th, West Ham (H)
• Tuesday 26th, Carling Cup 3rd round
• Thursday 28th, FC Midjtylland (A)
• Sunday 31st, Sunderland (A)

I know many Premier League sides put out fringe sides (something Eriksson did early on) in the competition and I don't see any other outcome than Mark Hughes playing a virtual reserve side, particularly if we are drawn away as to compound the schedule we face, the UEFA Cup tie is away meaning plenty of travel in addition to the games themselves.

Despite it being the start of the season, I don't think physically the players would cope with such a schedule so the hope is that we land an easy (home) tie in the Carling Cup and have built a solid enough lead in the UEFA game so we can afford to leave out many of the players who are likely to feature prominently in the season.

Which on the plus side, should give us more opportunity to see more of the likes of Evans, Sturridge and Weiss as well.

UEFA Cup first qualifying round draw

The first qualifying round draw was made earlier today of course, and we are pitted against Faroe Island Champions EB/Streymur.

In all honesty I have absolutely no idea who this side are, and even had to make a cursory check to see exactly where they were located (although the club ebsite provide a nice pen picture of our forthcomng opponents). It isn't the largest of towns shall we say. The Guardian reports that the village has just 199 residents in the coastal village of Streymnes, and given their stadium has a capacity of just 1,000 the game may well be moved to the national stadium.

Despite the early start to the season and that the players will not be 100%, there is absolutely no reason at all why this tie is not wrapped up by half-time of the first leg. Looking at the Northern Section of the draw we are in, progress should also be made pretty comfortably through the second qualifying round as well.

The matches will take place on Thursday July 17th & 31st.

UPDATE:

Vital Football have some footage of one of last seasons games played at The Stadium. Should be some trip.

2008/09 fixtures released

Mark Hughes’ first Premier League game in charge of Manchester City will be away at Aston Villa.

The 08/09 Barclays Premier League fixture list was released this morning and revealed that the Blues will travel to the Midlands for their opening fixture on August 16th.

Our first home game, a week later, will be against West Ham United. Our first encounter with Manchester United is at home on November 29th, with the return on May 9th 2009.

Newly-promoted Stoke City pay their first visit to the City of Manchester Stadium on October 25th, while Hull City will be the visitors for the game on Boxing Day.

>>mcfc.co.uk

Obviously subject to much change once the suits at Sky and Setanta get together (not to mention our potential UEFA Cup involvement), but our 2008/09 fixtures as announced this morning can be found here, with the full Premier League opening day fixtures posted over at Football Rants.