Manchester City v Celtic post match thread

It’s hard to judge the team on a meaningless friendly. I was impressed by Mcatee at times, a player who I think has all the talent to be a city player. My worry is he’ll end up like palmer, where as I’d rather we gave him a chance.
 
Pre season is pretty funny for us these days.
In the last 2/3 years teams really do treat these friendly games against us like cup finals.

We saw with Arsenal and Liverpool fans nearly crying with happiness when they beat us in the charity shield. We have mentally destroyed these clubs fans over the years.

Celtic are near the end of their pre season and played nearly their best team.

We’ll probably lose all our games but who cares. Get minutes in the legs, slowly get everyone back at the right time fully rested, promote the club in the US and just get ready for Chelsea.

It’s highly likely the rags will beat us and we’ll bizarrely see everyone write us off, yet in May we’ll be celebrating 5 in a row and the others will all be in crisis again.
 
Cheadle_hulmeBlue said:
It’s hard to judge the team on a meaningless friendly. I was impressed by Mcatee at times, a player who I think has all the talent to be a city player. My worry is he’ll end up like palmer, where as I’d rather we gave him a chance.
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I am among the few on here who have consistently banged on about McAtee being the lone player our academy has produced that has a similar skill set and approach to the game to El Mago (I am not claiming the same talent, mind).

Which is why I have desperately wanted to see him given a squad role so he can play in the Bernardo role in some games to see if he could perform at the level required.

I hope he is given his chance this season, but I am not sure he will be.
 
My concern is that we are not developing good defenders in the academy. Rico Lewis exception who let’s be honest has practically played midfield. Can’t think of any we’ve developed.
 
Minutes in legs and overall an eye opener for some of the young lads.

JWE & Mbete won’t cut it. Nonetheless, one can hope that this serves as motivation for them. By their own standards, they’d have been disappointed. Doyle showed why he was highly regarded when he was called up to the EDS. Composed. Regarding Phillips, his positioning in the first half didn’t allow Ortega to find an out ball. Still feels like it doesn’t click for him. As he dons the shirt of City, you never want to see a player fail.

Bobb with a goal and 2 assists was really good. I believe he has a future at City. McAtee is talented but you can tell he’s not used to being in a City first team. Nonetheless, more to come.

O’Reilly has alway been able to find space and makes good runs as seen a few times in the first half but he would’ve realised that he can’t just dribble as he pleases or hold onto it in grown men’s football. He’s had a few bad injuries in the past couple of months. Nonetheless, he has a glimpse of what it’s like now.

Peronne could make it at City. Has the intelligence and skills to do it. Susoho was unruffled. Calm under pressure which I wanted to see from Phillips. Wright also very assured in his passing and kept looking around him and directing from deep. Lewis won’t be a RB at City. If that is his future, I’d be surprised. He found good spaces in the midfield in the second half. Great on the half turn.

Jack looked lively. Some good passes in the final 3rd in the first half. Ndala is a live wire. Still looks as exciting to watch as in the youth set up. Still has more developing to do. Haaland had some really good link up play. Made a few runs where he wasn’t found but looks focused. Took his goal well.

Some of the other lads were just about decent. They’ll definitely need loans or will possibly get sold. Nonetheless, they all got a work out in against opposition they’ll normally not play.
 
Vienna_70 said:
I would say that the majority of it was City, though there was a considerable Celtic following in attendance too.

You will have to take that with a pinch of salt, as it wasn’t easy to judge watching on TV.
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I was there and think you got it right. I'd say it was about 70% City, 20% Celtic, 10% other/couldn't tell.

The Celtic group behind the goal was well organized and had some good cheers. Their team gave them much to cheer about the first half.

Wish them well going forward and hopefully enough there for our team to learn from.

The 2 intruders on the field and the length it was allowed to happen was totally uncalled for. Maybe this was mentioned prior, but I did question the Secret Security presence when that happened.
 
Blu3m00n91 said:
My concern is that we are not developing good defenders in the academy. Rico Lewis exception who let’s be honest has practically played midfield. Can’t think of any we’ve developed.
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Toisin just signed for Chelsea and Harwood-Belis to Southampton for £20m.

There’s 2 recently who are now PL defenders.
 
simon23 said:
Result is completely irrelevant but there were some things to notice

Bobb and to a slightly lesser extend Mcatee were very good.

Haaland link up play was good and a good goal

Grealish - looked a lot fitter but he really needs to add end product instead of just being good at retaining possession. His final pass in the attacking third leaves a lot to be desired

Perrone looked good but not sure he will be good enough to break into the first team

Phillips - just aint a city player...his decision making and awareness is just a few seconds too slow and even in a friendly it is so obvious that he just isnt upto scratch.

Ortega - the difference in his distributon compared with Ederson is worrying. He is probably the better shot stopper and you can make the excuse he is playing with a very inexperienced back 4 plus Kalvin Phillips but he kicked the ball straight out of play at least 3 times in the first half when under no pressure.....what we gain in shot stopping we lose in build up play and confidence of the defenders when the Gk has the ball at his feet - losing Ederson (if we do) will out our defenders under a lot more pressure.
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Simply can't argue with any of that. I had been thinking if Bielsa is Pep's mate, get him in to see if he can work some life back into the lad, Phillips. I have willed him to succeed, but last night I finally gave up on the kid. He has no movement, and hasn't anything other than a 5 yard sideways pass in him. Real shame.
 
Black&White&BlueMoon Town said:
I was there and think you got it right. I'd say it was about 70% City, 20% Celtic, 10% other/couldn't tell.

The Celtic group behind the goal was well organized and had some good cheers. Their team gave them much to cheer about the first half.

Wish them well going forward and hopefully enough there for our team to learn from.

The 2 intruders on the field and the length it was allowed to happen was totally uncalled for. Maybe this was mentioned prior, but I did question the Secret Security presence when that happened.
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I was looking for your thoughts, as I wanted to ask about your impression of the overall quality of match production as someone that attended. Not the performance from our lads, which I thought was actually fairly good given the circumstances, but rather the general match-going experience.

From my perspective watching from home the entire thing came off very amateurish (I have posted my full take on the first page of the NYC prematch thread, if you are curious), like our hastily arranged friendlies of the 90s, but perhaps it felt different there?

I think the online and broadcast coverage—pre-match, in-match commentary, and post-match—definitely didn’t lend an air of quality usually associated with City (or credibility to football broadcast in general), unfortunately, but maybe absent that and the way things look on the tele, it wasn’t quite as bad.
 
SebastianBlue said:
That is including taxes and fees, to be fair.

Still far too high for the occasion (friendly where we have almost no senior players participating), location (university town a bit away from larger population centres), and venue (uncovered handegg stadium not really great for watching football), though.

When I checked on Thursday there did seem to be a lot of resale tickets on offer, so I am not sure if that was a reflection of ticket speculation (entities buying up large quantities with the intention of reselling them at high markups for profit), a reaction from fans to the announced US squad being mostly kids they haven’t heard of, or both.
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I'm not sure what it was either, but after attending in ATL last year for a double header (NEW v CHE, BRE v BHA) and how well-attended that was, I wasn't taking any chances to see City play, and knowing the deal on mostly who was going and not going to play.

I will note that there appears to be some artificial releasing of tickets to the tune that one would think that the other seats "not available" were already taken. This appears to be a much more manipulated releasing of a few tickets at a time to give the appearance of being sold when tickets either weren't, or went to some third party (Stubhub, etc.).

We went to our original seats in sect 231 in the far corner of one side, and hardly a fan there. No one bought seats or planned to sit there. We then went to the seats at midfield in the 2nd deck which was also hardly taken. Found good seats with a great sightline under the upper overhang which we figured would provide good cover for rain (that never came). The lightning warning did, and they tried to clear out the stadium at that time, but those of us with a not-cheap beverage in our hands could only be bothered to get under the structure for more than decent coverage while the storms never came and the sun soon came out.

SebastianBlue said:
But, regardless of the cause, the venue was obviously far bigger than the demand at the going price levels.
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It was hot and muggy, and now I've got a data point for a future friendly outside of a major venue. The Mercedes-Benz stadium in ATL has a retractable roof which was used last year to keep it more than comfortable inside, better food options and beer prices (it needs to be seen to be believed), and a much better parking situation than Chapel Hill.

I could have guessed all that prior, but now I know.
 
bluemonkey71 said:
My brother was in town and took some pictures.View attachment 126255View attachment 126254View attachment 126253View attachment 126252View attachment 126253
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Not a bad turnout, but I reckon that may have been close to a sell out if we hadn't had our off the the field problems. After all the Americans do love to follow a successful team. Lots of factors contributing I suppose, price of tickets, the economy and the fact that most of the first team weren't back yet. Should be better as the tour progresses and the players return.
 
SebastianBlue said:
I was looking for your thoughts, as I wanted to ask about your impression of the overall quality of match production as someone that attended. Not the performance from our lads, which I thought was actually fairly good given the circumstances, but rather the general match-going experience.

From my perspective watching from home the entire thing came off very amateurish (I have posted my full take on the first page of the NYC prematch thread, if you are curious), like our hastily arranged friendlies of the 90s, but perhaps it felt different there?
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I'll check that out, haven't had a chance to read that yet. Oh, it was very amateurish, from the whole "clearing out of the stadium" prior, to the 2 intruders on the field, to the ticket manipulating going on to keep those prices high.

I'm not sure what the correct ticket price should have been to get more fans there on a hot and humid night on a weekday evening in the middle of the summer, but those that did attend for the most part were mostly fans that cared about the teams and the sport.

Of the 3 universities in the area, UNC has the absolute worst parking situation, but I get that CHE v Wrexham played there last year, so they went back to the well for that. Add in their colors (and that's the only thing UNC has in common with City), and I can see why this venue was chosen.

SebastianBlue said:
I think the online and broadcast coverage—pre-match, in-match commentary, and post-match—definitely didn’t lend an air of quality usually associated with City (or credibility to football broadcast in general), unfortunately, but maybe absent that and the way things look on the tele, it wasn’t quite as bad.
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I'm planning to re-watch it on ESPN today at some point, so I don't have a take on that yet.
 
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