Yeah I mean I understand why people are pissed, but I have already written off winning the league, I never thought it we had even a 1% chance of winning it.
So I understand rotating Jesus and Mahrez and hence being forced to play Bernardo out there. It's also good (but really bad) to know Stones can't really be relied on consistently.
So now we know, against Real Madrid for example the starting line up MUST include Mahrez, Jesus, Laporte and Dinho, rest about in other games to get these 4 fit for important games. Hopefully the other players can get in form with the rotation. I would also probably go Bernardo over David in midfield, as he provides more protection with Gundogan.
On Gundogan, how did people not notice how great his passing was? Honestly shocked how people can blame him for anything, he isn't a defensive midfielder, he is a deep lying playmker.
Cancelo also had a terrible 2nd half but I can forgive that somewhat as he only started playing more, but something must have happened either instruction or onfield, because he was quite more erratic in that 2nd half.
We scored 2 amazing goals that were both top class. We NEEDED defense.We needed a striker like Haaland today .....
Only to be replaced with rodri and gundog on the odd occasion.
We all know that and Pep knows it and has even mentioned it. But will ALL systems there are strengths and weaknesses - ours relies on defenders being able to defend one vs one and numerous of them cannt (Stones, Mendy and Otto all be ing vulnerable at times). It relies on a mobile/clever defensive midfielder (Ferna) but at present we have at times got Gundogan who aint defensive minded and certainly aint mobile )
You have to weigh up the positives and negatives and there are far more positives to playing the way Pep does than negatives
My onlyslight criticism would be adapting that style of play when needed - Pep rarely if ever sacrifices this (you could see this as a huge positive as well - ie commitment to what he believes) but there is the odd game (Dippers away for instance) where i thikn he could do it but doesnt
I’m with you about Stones and I refuse to jump on the Stones hating bandwagon. He did the right thing shepherding Zaha away from the danger zone but Zaha managed to get a completely speculative cross in that shouldn’t have been any trouble but unfortunately it hit Fern.Their equaliser was a fluke.
We need to stop playing Fernandinho in Central defence. I know most will blame Stones but for me he did OK. He pushed zaha wide and Zaha smashed it across and it hit Fern and went in. Yet to see it on TV.
Stones looked like he got injured again.
That happened because KDB lost a tackle that was at least 80/20 in his favour & that allowed Palace to break. The number of tackles we lost that we should have won was criminal. There was one where Zara had 3 City players around him, all capable of winning the ball, but somehow came away with it unchallenged.
Having got into a winning position with minutes to go, yet again we didn't show the drive or desire to defend that lead. Soriano and Begiristain should be asking the same hard questions of Pep that Cook & Marwood asked of Hughes when his team went through a patch where we couldn't hold onto a lead. And if Pep can't answer those questions satisfactorily then he can have no complaints if he suffers the same fate.