hilts
Well-Known Member
He made some mistakes today no doubt about. Worse than that, he didn't react to what was happening. I understand lining up cautiously with Villa having a new manager to impress, but I disagree strongly with him dropping Navas after his display on Tuesday. He was exceptional and he certainly didn't play like he needed a rest when he actually came on. In fact he created our two best chances which I still can't believe we missed. You could probably argue that the same 11 should have all started today.
After the break it was obvious that Villa were content with a draw. They offered almost zero counter attacking threat. With that in mind, why take off the only attacking player (maybe with the exception of KDB) left who actually has a cutting edge (Yaya) to bring on a more defensive player. Furthermore, the Villa crowd were silent up until that point. Introducing Delph woke them up and they got behind their team for the last 15.
Finally, only bringing Kelechi on with 7 minutes remaining is utterly mind boggling. I'm sorry but it's actually beyond a joke that we lined up chance after chance and promising situation after promising situation but still decided to leave our only natural striker on the bench. In those 7 minutes he still managed to put one on a plate for Fernando. The more obvious choice was Kelechi for Fernando. Anyone can see that surely?
On Tuesday, Pellers took a lot of praise for how we played and he did deserve it, however he only did what every pundit and every City fan has been crying out for him to do in Europe for the past 2 years (play with a midfield 3). It just worries me that it seems to take him a while to catch on. He doesn't react quickly enough to situations and he makes a rod for his own back all too often. Dropping Hart against Spurs for example (If Willy has a blinder, he has to play the week after, if he has a howler, Pellers takes the stick). It cost us 3 points that day, and I think how he set up today cost us another 2.
Too add balance, regardless of how we set up we still created 3 absolute sitters today and should have won easily. I've no idea how Sterling missed from less than 6 yards out, and I've no idea what De Bruyne was attempting. But the 3 points would have only papered over the cracks that have been there all season. We only turn up for segments of the game and that has been the case for as long as I can remember, even under Mancini. Maybe that will never change while we have certain players in our side. Neither will our lack of a cutting edge. I don't think I've come across a team who miss sitters as routinely as we do.
Despite all of that, I still fancy us for the league. Not because of Pellers and not in spite of him either. Overall he's a good manager and he's done very well, but in truth, he isn't top, top class. We all know that, so at times he will struggle to extract the maximum from us - and that's what happened today.
Pretty much bang on that fella