Abu Dhabi FC Preview

Despite the years having passed since Manchester City became Abu Dhabi’s plaything it still seems bizarre that a fixture against the ‘other’ Manchester side would fill a Villa fan with dread.

Those of us old enough to remember ‘City’ embarrassing themselves at Villa Park as we chased the title against United will never be able to buy into their new image.

That said, the new City have won nine in a row against Villa and seventeen of the last twenty with Villa’s most recent win coming in 2013 under Paul Lambert thanks to an Andi Weimann strike.

It is also true however that City have had more than a little helping hand from the officials over that period but with Jonathan Moss now safely retired the hope is we will only be facing eleven players at any one time on Saturday.

On that point what fun is to be had with Mike Dean being in the VAR chair on Saturday - expect him to want to be noticed as usual.

Back to Lambert though and he has relevance in this current fixture too as there is a real worry that City could rival that terrible day at Stamford Bridge in 2012 when Villa shipped eight and when in his 22nd game in charge Lambert was exposed as the fraud many had suspected just weeks into his reign.

The parallels with the current situation at Villa are chilling, although it has taken some fans significantly longer to accept that Gerrard is / was / and will continue to be a wrong ‘un.

In fairness, keeping him in post for the weekend at least means the new boss won’t have to face City in their first game in charge.

The risk is though that Gerrard breaks another hugely unwelcome record.