Monaco - Post Match thread.

Going to sound stupid now but isn't the problem that you can't play with only one defensive or even central midfielder, bring Ya Ya on to play beside/infromt/behind Fred1 and we've got 2?
It's how I see we've come unstuck in most of the Prem games we've lost / drawn.
You're absolutely correct.
The theory is that the fullbacks come inside to help out, or we look like we go 3 at the back and a centre half or full back pushes up. Sadly it hasn't worked on at least 8 occasions this season with the pivot player being outnumbered and bypassed - a good few times due to the shear pace of opposition players breaking against us. This later reason is why I think it won't work too well for Pep going forward regardless of the standard of player we have. Barca and Atletico exposed this against Bayern in the CL over the last two seasons and the pace of Monaco and various players in the Premier League have killed us this season. One of our AMs has to get back quickly to defend when we lose posession - a box-to-box role if you like - when Pep has done this (both Monaco 2nd halves) we have looked much more solid. We also need to be able to switch to a defend in depth mode and hit on the break.to mix things up.
 
It's Friday and I am still bewildered by what I saw on Wednesday evening. City were completely outclassed and outplayed in every department of the game by a team which was quicker in both thought and movement, and I have to give credit to a superb Monaco side on the night. They were simply too good for us. We were too strong for them at the Etihad but in Monaco they were far and away the better side. Obviously, I can't say they would have beaten anyone on the night but it would have taken an excellent team to hold them and on the night City were a long way short of excellence and I don't know why. It wasn't lack of effort, it wasn't lack of ability and it wasn't lack of planning. The papers have given it Pep in the neck for fielding an eleven which was too attacking, but who should have played who didn't? Ya Ya is mentioned but Ya Ya's weaknesses are defensive and I think he would have struggled with the pace of the Monaco team. We may well have been crucifying Ya Ya today for being played round too easily. The sad fact is that with the possible exception of Ya Ya no-one on our bench was anything other than a mile short of those already on the pitch, though personally I might except Zaba from that. That was - and it pains me to say it - as near as damn it to our best eleven and on the night Monaco made mincemeat of it. We had been warned. Pep had been telling all of us how we had to play and hammering the message home at every opportunity - and on the night we couldn't do it.

Partially this was an "on the night" matter - we had an awful night where none of our players were anything like their norm, let alone their best. Fernandinho was swamped because he couldn't make an accurate ten yard pass in the first half at least and Silva, KdB, Sterling and Sane seemed to be content to observe, rather than play in the match. Clichy and Sagna were played out of the game by forwards who were too good for them. We have to accept that many of our team were not good enough on the night and some are simply not good enough at all. Willy did OK but will never be a keeper in a team which wins the CL. The problem in our goal is not that Joe is now in Turin so much as that his replacement has had his worst season ever, a real nightmare. We know the full backs are not good enough and are too old. It seems unlikely that Vinnie will ever lead our team again. All I can say is that Pep did try to bring in Bellerin, Bonucci, Laporte, the two lads from Atletico to bolster the defence which shows he was aware of the problems, but they wouldn't come... He's sure to try again this summer. We couldn't adopt a more defensive approach on Wednesday because we haven't got the players. And we couldn't attack until Monaco showed signs of being unable to keep the level of intensity up in the second half.

So, at the moment I think promises of jam tomorrow will have to be our diet. I do believe that Pep has been aware of the problems since his earliest days at the club and he will bring us a very successful future but it certainly didn't begin on Wednesday night.

A very good post. Difficult to maintain patience but we have zero option. All we can do is back the club. I steeled myself to read the Times and Mail on Thursday morning but, if anything, I thought they were too kind. Or maybe we have a tendency to be too harsh.
 
It's Friday and I am still bewildered by what I saw on Wednesday evening. City were completely outclassed and outplayed in every department of the game by a team which was quicker in both thought and movement, and I have to give credit to a superb Monaco side on the night. They were simply too good for us. We were too strong for them at the Etihad but in Monaco they were far and away the better side. Obviously, I can't say they would have beaten anyone on the night but it would have taken an excellent team to hold them and on the night City were a long way short of excellence and I don't know why. It wasn't lack of effort, it wasn't lack of ability and it wasn't lack of planning. The papers have given it Pep in the neck for fielding an eleven which was too attacking, but who should have played who didn't? Ya Ya is mentioned but Ya Ya's weaknesses are defensive and I think he would have struggled with the pace of the Monaco team. We may well have been crucifying Ya Ya today for being played round too easily. The sad fact is that with the possible exception of Ya Ya no-one on our bench was anything other than a mile short of those already on the pitch, though personally I might except Zaba from that. That was - and it pains me to say it - as near as damn it to our best eleven and on the night Monaco made mincemeat of it. We had been warned. Pep had been telling all of us how we had to play and hammering the message home at every opportunity - and on the night we couldn't do it.

Partially this was an "on the night" matter - we had an awful night where none of our players were anything like their norm, let alone their best. Fernandinho was swamped because he couldn't make an accurate ten yard pass in the first half at least and Silva, KdB, Sterling and Sane seemed to be content to observe, rather than play in the match. Clichy and Sagna were played out of the game by forwards who were too good for them. We have to accept that many of our team were not good enough on the night and some are simply not good enough at all. Willy did OK but will never be a keeper in a team which wins the CL. The problem in our goal is not that Joe is now in Turin so much as that his replacement has had his worst season ever, a real nightmare. We know the full backs are not good enough and are too old. It seems unlikely that Vinnie will ever lead our team again. All I can say is that Pep did try to bring in Bellerin, Bonucci, Laporte, the two lads from Atletico to bolster the defence which shows he was aware of the problems, but they wouldn't come... He's sure to try again this summer. We couldn't adopt a more defensive approach on Wednesday because we haven't got the players. And we couldn't attack until Monaco showed signs of being unable to keep the level of intensity up in the second half.

So, at the moment I think promises of jam tomorrow will have to be our diet. I do believe that Pep has been aware of the problems since his earliest days at the club and he will bring us a very successful future but it certainly didn't begin on Wednesday night.

Can't argue with any of this. We have all seen this coming. The team is still too old and were exposed by a brilliant younger side. I am optimistic we will get there. The competition in Europe is getting stronger. Next year we will have an improved PSG, Milan with Chinese money, Plus the usual suspects from Spain. We are playing at the top now and no one gets a free pass. For me we are still years away from a CL final...barring some freak results like when Chelsea won it.
 
It may be addressed already but I'm struggling with this technicality from wed night.

Kun played. I thought his yellow in the first leg ruled him out. Obviously not. Therefore when they showed the names at the start of the game he had no yellow next to his name while sterling and other did.

What happened the yellow vs them at home? Did the cheats rescind it after the fact?
 
The last time I felt this down with City was when Crouch scored the winning goal for Spurs to prevent us from finishing in the top 4.
 
Monaco was an excellent away trip and hope we get them again in future years. Nice/Monaco - I've definitely been to worse away days.
The problem is lay in the Summer of 2016. We failed to offload a large chunk of our squad so Pep has been forced to play what he has which simply isn't good enough to compete nor play the way he likes. We have the best manager in the world, the best infrastructure of any club in the world and I have no doubt that some of the youngsters in our squad and yet to come through will be the best we have had in many years. Keep the faith. Once Pep has his team and all players fit we can judge him then. I thought we would win everything in sight this year but how naive I was. Let's hope we secure 2nd and an FA cup win, wouldn't be so bad after all would it? Next year will be totally different I am convinced.
 

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