Crvena Zvezda (H) | CL | Post Match Thread

Gabriel said:
On reflection a fairly frantic game on account of us failing to take early chances, and that in turn leads to greater openness, which may leave us susceptible to tiredness and then to injuries. On such nights we miss the composure of Gundogan or Kovacic who can slow the game down and keep the ball.

With the squad already stretched thin, we now desperately need our attackers to be clinical and to start scoring with their first chances, but even that knowledge adds a little pressure to them which means they might have more such games.
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Think Stones is a big miss at the moment, having him there to slot in next to Rodri makes us harder to get through. Last two goals we have conceded there’s been way too much space in the middle for the opposition to go into.
 
feedmpenzaandhewillscore said:
Think Stones is a big miss at the moment, having him there to slot in next to Rodri makes us harder to get through. Last two goals we have conceded there’s been way too much space in the middle for the opposition to go into.
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True. I keep forgetting that he gives us a solid base by playing in midfield. The current openness makes it feel as if we are creating more chances and arguably suits the attacking players better than our traditional stranglehold football, so it’ll be interesting to see what balance we strike when more players are available.
 
Great performance, easy win really. Although at half time it seemed like it was going to be one of those nights.

Their keeper had a weird game. Made some absolute world saves, but then dropped one in his own net and fumbled a couple before reverting back to worldies....

Gomez played well I thought. Lads behind me saying he can't play football. Obviously they know more than Pep....

I thought Foden played well and was everywhere, another night he bags a few and a few assists. Love Doku. Nunes looked steady away. My mate booed him (he's a wolves fan) so apologies if anyone heard that. Dick head. To be fair he chants and celebrates when we score..

A great night.

Another point, I thought the away fans were pretty normal. I thought they'd be like Zagreb etc where they're all skinhead numptys. But they seemed alright.
 
mancity2012_eamo said:
I sometimes feel these are like practice matches.
Sounds arrogant and we hate that I know. Most of us being of a certain vintage I’m guessing.

But I don’t look at it as take the points and file it away.
I really think we are on a learning curve here and there is a new City style emerging.
We are taking total football to the ten man defence and working on ways to work through smaller and smaller spaces e I for one think when we get this right watch out Premier League, you’re in trouble.

I’m not the greatest optimist in the world but I see something very promising happening here amongst all the missed chances.

I’m really enjoying watching us even when we go a goal down to the first attack from the opposition. There’s no panic and I even feel it in the match day thread. I don think many other people are panicking.
Sloppy or not it’s like there’s an air of inevitability.

This is practice Lads. Wait until we get going in January.
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Totally agree. I’d like us to play a better team and know those games are coming, I think we will then see us at our best. At times last night it was too easy. We obviously make it look like that, it’s not chance, but I think when we really have to concentrate and be clinical we will see the lads step it up again. Could be frightening. Nunes is a very graceful player and his running along with Alvarez and Foden first half was class.
 
Gabriel said:
True. I keep forgetting that he gives us a solid base by playing in midfield. The current openness makes it feel as if we are creating more chances and arguably suits the attacking players better than our traditional stranglehold football, so it’ll be interesting to see what balance we strike when more players are available.
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Grealish is also a miss, he doesn’t have the explosiveness of Doku but the trade off is we go up the pitch more in a controlled way. Doku was excellent again last night and must be a nightmare to defend against, Nunez also looked pretty handy on the ball. These two players won’t have had more than 10 days with Pep, will be interesting to see what they will be like in 6 months.
 
I thought we were excellent last night bar the profligacy in front of goal. Even when we went a goal down you knew we would come back and win. Doku is going to be exciting, Nunes looked good first half, Walker gets better with age, Ake also excellent.
These injuries mounting up are a concern though, but obviously with our over inflated squad we can cope easily, still nine 60m internationals occupying the bench, lol
 
A quick word about the red star fans, thought they were great, no hostility towards City fans and were quite noisy in the ground. Thought they would've brought more though
 
Axel Freed said:
Nice to see Red Star Belgrade live - a famous old club. And that’s about it really.

Another fairly meaningless procession of a game against hopelessly overmatched opponents - yep it’s CL time again

And they’re expanding it next year to about ninety clubs. Brilliant idea.
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I guess that will be good for Erlings CL goal talley... he'll be scoring 20+ goals a season in Europe!
 
Thought your players were very sloppy and pretty casual with their finishing in the first half. Glazer was playing well but most of the shots that were on target went straight at him. Red Star played better defensively than I expected (although you did create loads of chances, I thought they'd be even worse).

I warned you about Bukari in the pre-match thread, I said he's one of the fastest players in world football and he timed his run for the goal perfectly imo. I also said that Ivanić, who assisted the goal and had that one decent solo run in the second half was a good player techincally but a bit too slow.

In the second half, I thought your players took the game more seriously and played much better. In the away game you'll need to start the game like that, because a lot of great teams lost in that atmosphere after conceding a few quick goals (their 2-0 win against Liverpool in the season Liverpool won their most recent UCL is probably the best example). If you take it seriously from the start, it could be 5,6-0 easily for you.
 
shemnel said:
fair comments, the match report i read was incorrect then, strange, and they didnt show that on the telly (suprisingly)
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Most of the fuckers were in our end tbf! I had a woman directly in front of me with a RedStar signed shirt on, in fact the whole row were RedStar fans with scalves and all. Personally don't have any issues with it except its taking tickets from City fans (although most gave this game a miss anyway!), but all it takes is one fucking nob to gob off from either side and all hell breaks loose.
 
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