Admittedly we had too many poor shots from outside the area last night, but in general, the shots on target stat can be a bit misleading. I think we hit the post 3 times, but they count as shots off target even though hitting the post is often closer to scoring than an on target shot straight at the goalie. Aguero especially usually tries to hit the corners, so he either scores or narrowly misses the target.We won in a game that last season against similar opponents we would have drawn or lost but the commen thing is inaccuracy with our shooting.
22 shots only 6 on target.
We will always give teams a chance if we don´t sharpen up our shooting. Got to assume a shot is taken because there is a good chance to score but if that player simply misses the target ie fails to get his shot where a save needs to be made then same as last season.
Richard Keys on BEIN reckons that according to the laws of the game Segios disallowed goal was not offside. There is a clip on YouTube of the discussion and reasons why.
He says he would have expected the ref to know the rules.
Not teckie enough to post a link.
Hope I don’t miss out on my 100 goal bet because of this.
(Edited)that was easy for him (Richard Keys) to see the little flick after the game and 20 odd replays from every angle it was the right call in my book by the ref but next season video ref will give the goal unless the rule change and what andy gray was saying on the same show last night that BFS had 2 players in a offside place right on the goal line and infront of the keeper and when he got a free kick near the box and told his players just smash the shot and if the player blocking the shot and the ball and flicks to 1 of his players then your on side and score
then Richard Keys said it would be ungentlemanly conduct and offside that is how bad the rule is and needs
to change so defenders can block the shot if the rule is not changed then defenders will just stand off and let the player shoot and you don't want that in football
I've not seen the replays but if anyone uses the phrase "ungentlemanly conduct" in connection with offside then anything they say about it is null and void.
Regarding Newcastle’s tactics.
City had their captain and central defender taken off with the score at 0-0. Guardiola decided that Newcastle’s attacking threat was so lame that he didn’t need a specialist defensive midfielder to protect his makeshift defence and that he could put another attacker on (Jesus).
On seeing this Benitez was happy to continue to defend until the last 15 min and force city to take Aguero off, bring the masked mangala on so that Fernandinho could go back to dm.
Newcastle may not have had the players to attack until subs were made, but, constantly sitting back made it a training exercise for City until 75 min. They wasted an hour before even attempting to get on level terms. This, for me is beyond poor. When the rags went behind Maureen didn’t even have to tell them to come back out on the attack and force a mistake.
Who knows? A more positive approach by Rafa after the Kompany substitution may have caused Pep to make a second sub early in the game and anything could have happened. Too cautious when city had a setback Rafa.
Pitiful effort though Newcastle displayed for 80 minutes, nevertheless I cannot blame them.
The evidence this season shows opposing teams that whatever they do, they are likely to lose. However, it also shows them, that if they sit back and soak it up for 90 minutes, there's just a prayer that they will manage to keep us from scoring, and also a prayer that they may manage to nick a goal off a counter attack or more likely a corner or other set piece. Being 0-0 or even 1-0 down after 80 minutes keeps them in with a chance of a point.
If they have a go, they are much more likely to get beaten or even thrashed. It's understandable why they park the supertanker.
They should provide Oxygen every 4 flights.Still aint got my breath back after walking up those 14 sets of stairs!
Indeed. And Newcastle will have encouraged them by giving us a mildly shaky last 10 minutes. Shit as it is, you can’t really blame “smaller” teams for a safety first mentality.
Walking back into town in pubs in town and next day heard loads of toon fans and they were convinced that they were the first team to give us a game in ages just goes to show what a 1 nil score does they felt alright about their performance ??
We are facing teams doing this every game now. It’s difficult and painful to watch, but as long as we come out with 3 points and no injuries, does it really matter. It just shows that teams are so scared to try and play against us that they would rather just try and stop us scoring.
To be honest I would have thought the positive points of my post would have taken care of the context of the negatives...Then don't say shite because it deflects from some very good points that you made.
We dominated because we are so good. We won the ball back brilliantly for most of the game and would have dominated them regardless of their overly negative tactics. Even when they had their final flurry, they actually created very little.
City did what they needed to in the middle of a heavy fixture load. The only significant issue yesterday was the finishing. Your criticism of some of the passing was accurate but I don't think it was of much consequence because we still created enough to have won by more.
I think its more likely they just dont want to get hammered than that they are anti City.Agreed. The really sad part is that those same teams won't park the bus when our main rivals face them though. It's almost like all the clubs are just jealous of us and would be happy to prevent only us from winning the league.
It's just an anti-City / anti-Arab thing with these small time clubs and their mentality.
But we're strong enough to overcome them.