Sporting CP (A) | CL | Post Match Thread

[SamBlue]

Poor Bernardo, I imagine him on the plane back to Manchester reading Camus or Sartre, all those unanswered questions for a little man.

Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva to TNT Sports: "It's disappointing because we're a bit in a dark place right now. Everything looks to be going in the wrong way.

"Even when we are playing well we don't score our chances and we concede too easily. We definitely need to look inside and check what we're not doing well. And we need to get better very quickly otherwise it will be very difficult to come back from these losses.

"It's football. It's difficult to find reasons for what is happening to us. I don't remember in seven-and-a-half seasons this team losing three games in a row. It just looks like this team is going the wrong way now.

"The good thing is even though we have lost these three games we are still in a good position especially in the Premier League. After losing three games we are still in the main competitions fighting for everything. But we need to better, obviously.

"Our injured players need to come back because we need them and it's just not good enough tonight."

 

[East Level 2]

Of course, the result stopped being important in those days, we weren’t ever going to abandon the team however shit things got. We embraced it and have been rewarded by the footballing gods in ways we ever could have imagined.

I doubt anyone is thinking about abandoning the club after three defeats. However they are rightly asking WTFIGO?

 

[Gordyola]

Can we please stop saying Nunes is ok and making excuses for him.

The man is absolutely wank. How can there be so many of you who just won’t have it?.

Not making excuses for him as there is no need he’s playing out of position and doing well his stats back that up Yeah stupid pen but he was trying to recover and the slight pull resulted in a pirouette

 

[Joe Corrigan's legs]

Thought we played well 1st half and looked like we were back in the groove but then we surprisingly capitulated ... the 2 pens were needlessly conceded and demonstrated our shocking indiscipline during that 2nd half ... twas a difficult watch and our lack of physicality out of possession is borderline incompetent territory ... we have become so easy to play through and sloppy in possession ... this is the collateral damage of the team selection v Spurs coming back to bite us in the arse ... really missed a Dias or Stones tonight for that bite in the tackle ... that said, thought JSP accounted himself well given the shitshow around him, good to see Kev return and Doku got more minutes in the legs .... we need them as we face the prospect of 4 defeats in a row ... need to pick ourselves up like champions do for Saturday ... come on City !

 

[skillman]

Pep’s interviews recently remind me of when he went at the team after Spurs in 22/23. He’s trying to get a reaction.

From saying Haaland can get a break during internationals if he needs one to insinuating some players aren’t going through the pain barrier or admitting to getting pissed off at NT injuries and that we pay the wages.

He sounds pissed off. And rightly so.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Hopefully tonight will inspire teams to have a go and we'll have less parked busses to deal with. In many ways a wake up call we needed, onwards and upwards.

 

[ayrshire_blue]

I would say he looked half decent when they were shit!
They really were shit for 30 minutes, all over the place at the back and the keeper looked garbage but we didn't capitalise.

When they turned it around he did his usual disappearing act.

Fair enough, don't really disagree that he didn't step up when the going became tough.

 

[Stoned Rose]

He's looked half decent against a couple of poor teams. Therefore he's brilliant.

Does my fucking head in.

I called him as complete and utter shit after his debut.

I genuinely cannot believe this many people can watch football and not be able to see when someone is gash.

 

[I'm Blue]

What goals.
Hes not scoring.

He’s the top scorer in the premier league, Gvardiol and Kovacic are the next best with 3 goals each and that’s the biggest problem.

 

[chris85mcfc]

3 captains on the night sort of summed up where we are at the moment

No real identity to our season, club captain clearly has major off the field problems, and isn't actually good enough to be playing every week

Of tonight's 3 captains, 2 of them came off the bench and its hard to say which one of them is closest to getting anywhere near their previous levels

Who actually is the leader of our team? Is it Walker, Gundogan, De Bruyne, Dias, Rodri, Bernardo or Stones, as I'm fairly sure all of them have been captain at some point this season. Can't think of any other side who has a different captain every single game!

Brighton is a huge game now, as we could be in serious bother going into December, when we play Liverpool and United.

I'm just not convinced it's all injury related, there looks to be something seriously wrong with the overall mentality of the team at the moment. That side put there tonight was capable of getting a result against an above average Sporting side, they certainly weren't a great side.

 

[youngbob]

Just having a look through the squad at the moment.

Ederson
Walker, Stones, Dias, Gvardiol
Rodri
De Bruyne, Foden
Bernardo, Haaland, Grealish

Ortega
Lewis, Akanji, Ake, Wilson-Esbrand
Kovacic
Gundogan, Nunes
Savinho, Bobb, Doku

Players in bold have all been injured or unfit in the last three weeks. Absolutely insane injury list.

 

[paulchapo]

Fuck me Celtic have the same points as us so far..... maybe Howson was right lol.

 

[Brewster's millions]

Manchester City:

1- squad approximate cost : $1.33 Billion
2- Annual wage bill $270 million

Sporting Lisbon :

1- squad approximate cost : between $250-$300 Million
2- Annual wage bill- around $40 million


Lets hope the club will invest more wisely

We should hire Lisbon’s director of football.

 

[Phil1]

We went 34 years without winning anything…… I think the old guard City fans will cope with this current blip. More recent fans sound like they need counselling after this trauma.

I was 33 when I saw us lift our first trophy in my lifetime.
Growing up in Manchester in the 80’s/90’s/ and early 2000s wasn’t much fun as we are scraping a penalty shoot out to survive in the same couple of days those cunts are winning a treble.
If this all ended tomorrow it would have been worth every fucking second of disappointment we endured to experience the last 15 years.

 

[RayCTID]

3 captains on the night sort of summed up where we are at the moment

No real identity to our season, club captain clearly has major off the field problems, and isn't actually good enough to be playing every week

Of tonight's 3 captains, 2 of them came off the bench and its hard to say which one of them is closest to getting anywhere near their previous levels

Who actually is the leader of our team? Is it Walker, Gundogan, De Bruyne, Dias, Rodri, Bernardo or Stones, as I'm fairly sure all of them have been captain at some point this season. Can't think of any other side who has a different captain every single game!

Brighton is a huge game now, as we could be in serious bother going into December, when we play Liverpool and United.

I'm just not convinced it's all injury related, there looks to be something seriously wrong with the overall mentality of the team at the moment. That side put there tonight was capable of getting a result against an above average Sporting side, they certainly weren't a great side.

Losing the Ballon d'Or winner hasn't helped either.

 

[Tevez City]

We should hire Lisbon’s director of football.

That will be a good start :)

 

[paulsimpson]

Poor Bernardo, I imagine him on the plane back to Manchester reading Camus or Sartre, all those unanswered questions for a little man.

Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva to TNT Sports: "It's disappointing because we're a bit in a dark place right now. Everything looks to be going in the wrong way.

"Even when we are playing well we don't score our chances and we concede too easily. We definitely need to look inside and check what we're not doing well. And we need to get better very quickly otherwise it will be very difficult to come back from these losses.

"It's football. It's difficult to find reasons for what is happening to us. I don't remember in seven-and-a-half seasons this team losing three games in a row. It just looks like this team is going the wrong way now.

"The good thing is even though we have lost these three games we are still in a good position especially in the Premier League. After losing three games we are still in the main competitions fighting for everything. But we need to better, obviously.

"Our injured players need to come back because we need them and it's just not good enough tonight."

Absolutely spot on Bernardo. Loves this club.

 

[TheBlueCat]

This'll probably get lost in the 50 odd pages that have suddenly appeared but, here goes:-

If you don't take your chances - shit happens. I could stop there but I won't.

If you play a kid at the back in his first full game, away, with a big crowd and against a bull of a centre forward, shit is likely to happen. The bull scored 3; he should have bagged 5.

If you give 2 penalties away with challenges the worst amateur is unlikely to do, more shit'll happen. Gvardiol didn't need to challenge his man as Akanje was right there covering. Nunes played like the wimp he's looked in all but the last 3 games, and his pull back in the area on the arm of the guy he gave the ball away to was pathetic - what did he expect?

Haaland - even he's lost a bit of confidence and that's not surprising as he isn't being fed enough, but, if you miss a penalty and the chance to get us back to 3-2, heads drop and more shit happens. Savinho; great dribbling tonight but no end product at all.

I think we can see that, without Rodri, shit will happen, but especially so if we keep playing the high line. I think that even Pep might have reached his limit on us getting caught out like we do repeatedly, so it'll be interesting to see if he tweaks things going forward.

Let's get through the Brighton game, then hopefully reset with a fitter squad and restart the season again like we did after November 2022 - our greatest season ever.

Agree with most of this except the bit about Haaland. He had more than enough chances to have hit a hat trick tonight, besides the penalty. He was not good enough today..

 

[Mr HJ]

Looking at the BBC report is odd - they say we were well thrashed yet we had 20 shots, 72% possession & 11 corners to 1 - that tells me we still do certain things very well - we just need to find a solution to stopping teams constantly having 3 v 2 on breaks and counters. We gave away 2 stupid pens tonight because we got caught on the wrong side - we need to pick our best 4 fit defenders and start from there.

I guess we will be fine but the game at the weekend has become very important now.

 

[ancoats]

You really need to re-think that song. Or perhaps you weren't kept in at the swamp in 2010 after the League Cup semi-final second leg.

Yes losing hurts

But maybe after all the glory and silverware over the past 9 years, it was always going to come at some stage
players are human after all and the backbone of this squad has given us everything possible and more