Spurs (A) - Post-Match Thread

[Bill Walker]

We couldn't break Spurs down, in my opinion it was a bad team selection by Pep we should have played Foden and Sterling instead of Mahrez and Silva who are both completely out of form.
We actually need to get rid of Mahrez imo.
He's friggin hopeless.
Make those changes and we win.
Why did he drop Foden FFS ?

 

[blue by birth]

Excellent post. If the humble fan can see this why can't Pep. Teams know that we can't score whilst we are messing about passing the ball aimlessly across our 18 yard box. They also know if they force us wide we haven't got an aerial threat for balls into the box, and inverted wingers gives the defence time to get back in numbers. 3 or 4 times yesterday Mahrez cut inside and tried to whip a cross in to Torres who's a midget. Our play is broken at the minute. Until something changes we could find ourselves in for a long hard season.

Torres is 1.84m ie 6ft..hardly a midget mate..
Hopefully Pep might realise that Mahrez offers fuck all and for all the skill he has he has no desire to win tackles or track back.
I'm not putting the defeat on Mahrez but we effectively play with 10 men when he's in the team.
Kev looks like he needs a rest, I would leave him out of Wed's game and play Phil.
I'm a bit like Kev and I don't know the rules on handball anymore... It seems like they change it all the time and always to our detriment.
Win our next 2 league games and then hopefully Pep will set up a bit differently for the rags game and we can get a morale booster.

 

[Scottyboi]

The entire team aren't all suddenly shit players, something is very wrong at city and it feels like it began when Mikel left and the rest of our spine.

Bernardo has fell off a cliff, Kev looks fucked and keeps forcing things. Ederson keeps misjudging any through ball. Sterling has gone from a world beater to an egg beater.

I actually thought Rodri played well yesterday.

I personally don't see it turning around any time soon this is 2 years of slow decline from our peak and we are a shadow of ourselves.

2 years ago we would have gone to Leeds away and put 5 past them.

We have been crying out for a left back for 4 years now and spurs picked Reguilon up cheap without so much as a sniff from us.

 

[sir baconface]

I've banged the transitional phase drum for ages but we should still be doing better than we are. I do firmly consider the players a bigger issue than the manager and it does look like a bigger shake-up of playing staff than we have had is required.

The best shake-up we could have for this season would be to pull off the coup of getting Messi in January - I won't stick me head in a bucket of water to await that happening. Of course that could be a spectacular flop if it happened but the reverse is more likely: one spark could start a fire.

No, no. Another chequebook solution that moves us towards a footballing Hollywood.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

On another note – and I know that this is a recurring comment from a number of us on here – I was shocked at myself for not caring much about the result yesterday. VAR and its wafer-thin decisions is absolutely sucking all passion out of the game.

 

[Mancini Manus Domini]

I believe those taking issue with Ederson are plain wrong. He's had great success at coming out to deal with attackers who have breached our defensive line. It's inevitable that it's not always going to work but I'd rather he keeps on doing it than surrender the initiative to the attacker.

Garry Neville was making a big deal of his performance when he knows fuck all about goal keeping. He was still banging on about De Gea being the best in the world when Ederson and Allison had long since taken the art of goal keeping to another level in the Premier League.

 

[simon23]

We couldn't break Spurs down, in my opinion it was a bad team selection by Pep we should have played Foden and Sterling instead of Mahrez and Silva who are both completely out of form.
We actually need to get rid of Mahrez imo.
He's friggin hopeless.
Make those changes and we win.
Why did he drop Foden FFS ?

agree on this but Im not sure Sterlig was 100% fit so it may have forced Pep's hand slightly

Completely agree on Mahrez - I want him gone asap

 

[HelloCity]

 

[eyalluvitt]

The entire team aren't all suddenly shit players, something is very wrong at city and it feels like it began when Mikel left and the rest of our spine.

Bernardo has fell off a cliff, Kev looks fucked and keeps forcing things. Ederson keeps misjudging any through ball. Sterling has gone from a world beater to an egg beater.

I actually thought Rodri played well yesterday.

I personally don't see it turning around any time soon this is 2 years of slow decline from our peak and we are a shadow of ourselves.

2 years ago we would have gone to Leeds away and put 5 past them.

We have been crying out for a left back for 4 years now and spurs picked Reguilon up cheap without so much as a sniff from us.

Losing my Reguilon was a mistake on yesterdays showing

 

[LongsightM13]

Moureen has made a career out of sitting back, and telling his players to use the dark arts. Pep isn't going to ruin his reputation doing that he has more class.

He’s ruining his reputation with the shitshow that has been the last 18 months though

 

[Kippax77]

I bet we look brilliant in training, pitter patter beach style football without any real tackles being made.
Then we go into a real game and just look so soft compared to our opponents.
I know they have now made football virtually a non contact sport, but we lose possession so many times in duels all over the pitch.
I gave up counting how many times Mahrez lost the ball when he got fronted, and even Sterling when he came on had 5 attempts of running with the ball but got dispossessed 4 times.
We really do miss a backbone to our team, like we had with Vinny, Fernandinho and yaya.

 

[Chippy_boy]

I missed the game yesterday and just watched the recording on Sky.

Sad to say I fast forwarded for the last 15 minutes as it was obviously we would not score if we had an another hour and a half.

The one thing I would say is can we just write to the FA and ask that they do not bother with VAR for us. It would make the game flow much smoother if they just disallowed our goals and allowed the ones against us. Save a lot of buggering about.

 

[madden150]

Confidence is shot in the final third. We dont look like scoring, we dont look dangerous. It makes it easier for teams to defend against us when are forward play is so predictable. Part of the reason why I think we get found out on the break so much. I'd love a new striker like Haaland brought in to this side to get us firing. Despite what others are stating, I dont think we are a million miles off tbh. Possession wise we are the best in the league but that obviously doesnt win you games.

 

[Chippy_boy]

We actually need to get rid of Mahrez imo.
He's friggin hopeless.

Ederson is more of a goal threat.

 

[citymad]

We couldn't break Spurs down, in my opinion it was a bad team selection by Pep we should have played Foden and Sterling instead of Mahrez and Silva who are both completely out of form.
We actually need to get rid of Mahrez imo.
He's friggin hopeless.
Make those changes and we win.
Why did he drop Foden FFS ?

The Spurs game was far more important than olympiakos which is the only reason I can think of that Foden was rested. I agree Mahrez needs to go and not become an option. He completely slows any speedy attack we might have ....and they’re becoming very rare these days. In defence of Sterling first of all he probably wasn’t fit enough for a full 90 and I just couldn’t imagine him making a difference. That Spurs 6 was rock solid.

 

[hgblue]

But perhaps you and he might see there’s plenty of ground between those two extremes?

Our beautiful football is metamorphosing all too often into fruitless possession. Neither effective nor particularly aesthetic.

Every single PL manager - Noddy and all - seems to know how to beat us. Luckily, a number of them still don‘t possess the resources to convert that knowledge into points.

I honestly get the feeling watching City these days that the players are happy to dominate possession. Someone needs to remind them that possession stats mean fuck all. Teams are letting us pass it around, sitting in games and waiting for the opportunity to hit us on the break. We can all see this tactic, it’s not rocket science. Our intensity has dropped, our work rate has dropped, and our performances have become predictable and dare I say it a bit boring to watch. It feels to me like something isn’t right in the dressing room, I can’t put my finger on it, but where’s the passion and desire? The drop off in performance levels are too great to be a coincidence. The players certainly didn’t seem to be lifted by Pep’s contract extension did they? Worrying times.

 

[the-ecstacy-of-eight]

We couldn't break Spurs down, in my opinion it was a bad team selection by Pep we should have played Foden and Sterling instead of Mahrez and Silva who are both completely out of form.
We actually need to get rid of Mahrez imo.
He's friggin hopeless.
Make those changes and we win.
Why did he drop Foden FFS ?

Not really dropped though; Foden hasn't started a league match since the Arsenal game. I just don't get it.

 

[purplenose]

Until we get a decent finisher or Aguero fit and on form this is what is going to keep happening.

First half the only real difference between the two sides was our goalkeeper one of his costly moments. For all the good stuff he does he does seem to choose the worst moments to drop a bollock,

This together with the bewildering decision to leave Foden out, who does look to have goals in him unlike just about every other player on the pitch yesterday and that includes Kev. Bringing him on so late was a waste of time, likewise with Sterling, but then bringing Sterling on at all against decent opposition is a waste of time currently. likewise sadly Mahrez. I would ship the pair of them out and bring someone in who can offer something different.

2nd half was just plain poor, despite the stats making it look like we were unlucky, the truth is different. They wanted it, defended well and took their chances and as a result were the better side and deserved to win.

Yes of course there were the usual VAR issues on top of that thundercunt of a referee, but to blame either would be hiding from the truth.

 

[Eoiyflem]

At this point in time I can't see us finishing top 4, all the euphoria of beating UEFA undone by our own ineptitude. The team at the minute is so demoralising to watch.

I love Pep but his decisions recently are absolutely fucking baffling. Foden not playing, Bernardo and Mahrez playing, leaving aguero on the bench. Just sooooooooo frustrating and tbh if you think it's getting better any time soon, you're deluded.

 

[Tokyo32]

honestly get the feeling watching City these days that the players are happy to dominate possession. Someone needs to remind them that possession stats mean fuck all. Teams are letting us pass it around, sitting in games and waiting for the opportunity to hit us on the break. We can all see this tactic, it’s not rocket science. Our intensity has dropped, our work rate has dropped, and our performances have become predictable and dare I say it a bit boring to watch. It feels to me like something isn’t right in the dressing room, I can’t put my finger on it, but where’s the passion and desire? The drop off in performance levels are too great to be a coincidence. The players certainly didn’t seem to be lifted by Pep’s contract extension did they? Worrying times.

I think you are expecting too much from the players. They are trying to find the spaces but teams are so well drilled and organized that there is little to no space to exploit. They are doing what they are told to do so maybe it is the manager. The main problem yesterday was that we kept trying to break spurs down but we could not find space to exploit, perhaps we should have stopped and made them come at us but it is the manager who tells them to have patience and keep trying.