At 70 minutes, I resigned myself to defeat and was remarkably relaxed. Pep made his intentions very clear with his eleven (When Mendy starts you know how he views the game!) Fair enough to use one or two of the lads out of form, but all of them? And all of the front three too?
Sterling is in dire dire form and is a slave to confidence far far too much. The drop off in his ability when he’s off it is shocking and I think is why, even when he is on form is still shy of world class. The best of the best don’t lose it for that long and that badly imo. He just needs something to fall for him though and it will swing the other way, but for the time being keep him out of the team for his own sake.
Torres should pay for a fucking season ticket for the amount of watching the game he does. Yes he’s young, but as a winger for Man City I expect you to beat a man every now and again, or create a chance. But he is anonymous 90% of the time, and 100% of the time if ever on the wing. Personally think he should be a striker if anything, but yeah, dire too.
Jesus is the one who actually looks decent when he plays with the rest of the first teamers, but he made poor decisions today, particularly releasing the ball at the wrong time.
And don’t get me started on the double pivot. It worked at Leicester the other week, but usually when we play that system we push the fullbacks on and leave the centre backs exposed and that’s how the goal came. When you read Chelsea’s team sheet you knew exactly how they were going to attack us and we opened up for them really.
Based on the 11, Pep clearly looks at Villa as a big big game. Hopefully this pays off for him like the Leeds-Dortmund game did.
