Four former Gunners facing their old team in what promises to be an intense afternoon at the Emirates tomorrow.

Seeing Patrick Vieira and Kolo Toure in different colours has always been a strange feeling and I hope they will be given a warm welcome when they step onto the pitch tomorrow. The same will probably not happen for Emmanuel Adebayor. You know, I always base my conclusions on facts, on what I see, and what I saw when we played them away from home was disgusting to see.

Now granted, I don’t know what happened in the background, whether he was really driven out of Arsenal by Arsene Wenger as he said, but for what he did in September, kicking his old team mates and celebrating the way he did, he deserves no respect.

As for the other two, I will never forget them. Going back to what we were discussing earlier this week, the hunger and the winning mentality, Patrick and Kolo were two who would have killed for the Arsenal jersey, especially the Frenchman and especially against Roy Keane’s Manchester United. Who can forget the fights between those two?

And let’s not forget Sylvinho, of course. Even if he cannot be placed on the same level of the other two in terms of how much he spent with the Gunners and how much he gave to the red and white colours, he could feature and that could mean 25% of City’s starting eleven made up of former Arsenal players. Bizarre isn’t it?

Manchester City

They simple cannot afford a defeat. After scoring six against Burnley, three against Wigan and five against Birmingham, they were stopped by Scholes’ late winner last week so they will try to bounce back in order to keep their fourth place dream alive.

Johnson, Petrov and Lescott are all set to miss out for Roberto Mancini’s side but Micah Richards is back after missing the last four games through a knee injury.

Favourite line-up

According to Arsene Wenger, Lukasz Fabianski will be a top class goalkeeper one day. The problem is of course that there are games to be played today before the “one day” comes and that will certainly not be tomorrow. Meaning, that we desperately have to go out there with someone who is not low in confidence.

Vito knows that with Wojciech Szczesny asking questions about a possible return, his future at Arsenal may be uncertain, reason why he would be determined to impress if called to start. Alex Song should be back in midfield and hopefully, Robin van Persie is fit enough to start from the first minute.

Pre-match Interviews

Speaking on Emmanuel Adebayor, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger asked fans to behave and keep the club’s line of conduct. The Frenchman explained that what happened months ago is history now and everyone should focus on supporting the home team.

He explained:

We want to keep our line of conduct. No matter what happened in the first game, it is important that we have a positive attitude and encourage our players.

More than ever we will need the crowd to be behind us tomorrow and let’s focus on that. I expect everybody to behave well.

Funnily enough, Roberto Mancini said the same exact words, only that they were targeted towards the Togo man. The Italian, who was not in charge of Manchester City when that happened, explained how the striker should focus on his team, adding how last September’s celebrations were a “mistake”.

He said:

I remember the game against Arsenal. I watched it on TV. I don’t know why it happened but in that first game Emmanuel made a mistake.

On Saturday it is important that he only concentrates on City because Emmanuel is important to us when he is doing that. If he scores again I will be happy but it is important we don’t have another situation like the first one.

The Gunning Hawk Coverage

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