Al Hilal (N) | CWC | Post Match Thread

Well, I don't mind we went out.

We've learned much more about the manner of defeat against an above average team than we would have winning it. I didn't like the original setup and wondered why Cherki couldn't started as he deserved to.

I knew we were not going to play with speed when it started to go side to side as we had nothing maverick in the middle; that unknown quantity. It was like watching last season again.

I'm not saying Cherki is a guaranteed starter yet but, come on, changes need to happen sooner to give him time to get into the rhythm and affect the game. I will say, though, his little deft touches need to be firmer into his team mates in the Prem. He won't get the oppo standing off like in France and Al Hilal gave a very good metric of the Prem game.

What I do know for sure, and as I've been saying for absolute ages, is that Dias is never a Capt and not good at organisation. He will undo us this upcoming season. It's great that he 'shouts a lot' but I'd much rather let Stones coach the young'uns through the positioning/ lines on the pitch than headless Dias.
 
Obviously the victory over juventus papered over a few cracks and gave fans a new sense of optimism after the last season.
I think it is wishful thinking that a couple of new signings and a new coach was going to turn things around straight away.

We need a whole preseason to get going and for new ideas to be implemented. Rodri is only just coming back and the problems with the likes of Foden haven’t gone away just because the season is done.

Hopefully there will be a new right back on the way and maybe another signing pulled out if the bag.

We are in transition and will take a while to sort out.

I would like to see more of gonzalez and Kushaov though.
 
Lee the Blue said:
So glad I got up at 2am to watch that shambles. A few points to make after watching us conceded 4 goals to Al Hilal - when you do that you simply dont deserve to win

- I thought we'd realised fielding old men in central midfield doesnt work? Yet here we were again with Bernardo and Gundo deployed centrally and we waited until we were 2-1 down before making a change. STOP WITH THE OLD MAN MIDFIELD FFS

- Nunes isnt up to it, never has been and never will be. Pep had to withdraw him last night before he may have got himself sent off. Akanji comes on and though solid defensively he offers nothing in the oppositions half of the field, so this greatly reduces our effect as an attacking force. Priority 1 and 1A has to be to find a right back who fits Peps system and is up to the standard

- The goalkeeper; does he ever make a save these days? The "ole" wave at the 3rd goal as though diving is beneath him was annoying. The opposition keeper makes umpteen saves - every shot at our goal goes in. Ederson is injured too often these days and seems to be a man running his contract down to bugger off for high wages next summer. I cant be the only one who thinks we need a better keeper?

- 3 Centre halves on the pitch and we cant defend a crossed ball, for either the 3rd or 4th goal. Garbage

- Standard stuff from Savinho and to a lesser extent Doku - who was double marked most of the night. After great games they dont affect another one the same way for weeks. Their next games like the one vs Juve will be in November on what theyve shown so far

- No idea why Nico Gonzalez isnt seeing the field much at all and seems the final option in midfield. Always looks half decent to me when he plays but Pep clearly doesnt rate the lad at all. Khusanov too appears to have dropped into this envelope - the lad looked really promising but has since disappeared and Nunes, Rico,Ake and Akanji are clearly preferred to him - Im not sure why?

- Plus point is we should give them all the squad the month of July off to recharge, rest and clear their heads. Hopefully in that time we can use it to locate and acquire a right back and hopefully a goalkeeper who can make the odd save and looks like he wants to be here. Also time to remove all the dead wood in the squad - 8/9 need to go elsehwere, at a guess Ortega, Nunes, Stones (cant stay fit), McAtee, Reis (loan), Echeverri (loan), Grealish, Phillips, Walker for starters.
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I don't even know why half of you bother watching City, or following football at all. You're trying to psycho-analyse every result and every aspect of it and not you've decided we need to get rid of a while host of players including Echeverri who I don't think has even had the chance to play a full 90 minutes for us so far.

No mention whatsoever of the fact that we played in excessive heat and humidity for 2 hours against a team that plays in those sort of conditions most of the time, at the end of a long tough season with players who only arrived a week or two ago yet still managed 30 shots on goal which is enough to win 9 out of 10 matches. Great analysis, ever wondered why you're not a world class football coach?
 
marpleman said:
What relevance does that comment have?

If we had Gazza in his prime, we might have got a draw……
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What’s the relevance??

Unlike Gazza, Kyle Walker has been an integral part of every major trophy that Pep has won at City. His main job was to stop counterattacks and he was the best in the world at it. We need to replace that asap because a Pep team cannot function without it. Kyle of 3+ years ago would have prevented 2 of those goals on his own last night.
 
bluetonium said:
What marketing fool thought that'd work? Who walks in to a shop and buys a pack of Men Toss?
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Hehe - then again, I remember Frank Skinner saying that Man City and Man United sounded like a couple of gay clubs... :-(
 
Gingers Dad said:
Gutted we lost but a great game to watch. Even though we must have lost about 20 minutes a half to diving, cheating, injury faking Brazilians. Their footballers are all cnuts
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They were fucking horrible.
The kicking, diving and waving of imaginary cards.

Ref was fucking useless.

But fuck, we’re bad.
The defence needs burning to the ground and rebuilding.
The wingers are fucking useless and we can’t handle a ball over the top.
 
Micky Blue said:
Just watched it.

Doku and Savinho need to fuck off.
Utterly useless.
They offer nothing.
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Although that's a little extreme, their lack of chemistry with Haaland is worrying. If Doku beats his man and puts it near-post, Haaland is lurking at the far-post, if Doku dinks it far-post, Haaland has gone near'-post. In the unlikely event that Savinho beats his man and manages to clear the first defender, Haaland falls over in shock like the rest of us.
 
Micky Blue said:
Just watched it.

Doku and Savinho need to fuck off.
Utterly useless.
They offer nothing.
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I think you need to do the same. Doku created scores of chances and had two defenders on him most of the time. Savinho didn't have a bad game either, we had 30 chances in total but came up against a defence and keeper that earned their keep well on the night and got lucky on the break. We scored 3 times. You can't blame our wingers for the fact that we conceded 4.
 
Roachy said:
Some good stuff in there. Not sure about the squad being given July off though, although I agree with your sentiment. That would leave us with 2 weeks to prepare for the PL with new arrivals, fitness, tactics to implement.
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Yes, why not run them into the ground completely and collapse a quarter of the way into the season again because they haven't had a break? Sounds like a great plan, worked well last season.
 
M Gaudino said:
personally i have been saying for 2 years hes a very average keeper especially at saving the ball and he looks heavy. his keep attribute is not even something we utilise anymore as no teams press us in our own box. his long kicking creates a goal once in a blue moon as well and arguably its just a long ball punt which most keepers can have a crack at.

eventually when the stats remain the same game after game (we have lots of shots the opposition have very few and we concede) the conclusion you must draw is that the teams we are playing against generally have a guy in net who keeps the ball out more
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Their 2nd goal provided the perfect example as the striker will always be favourite in that situation, but doesn't always score.

Haaland and Augero might convert 7/8 out of 10, but Savinho/Sterling/Navas would be nearer to 2/3.

The goalkeeper needs to tighten the angle and hold his nerve, but Ederson often appears half hearted and not quite in the right position (hence the number of times he concedes penalties or gets rounded by clever strikers)
Even at Fulham on the last day he got away with some dreadful positioning for a home counter attack early in the Second Half.

Obviously he does make some saves (and none more important than Istanbul), but given the amount of times City are caught in transition, we need him to be more influential.
 
oddfellows said:
If we continue to play a high line then Khusanov has to start, he is the only defender with pace (see Kyle Walker 2017 until about 2023).

Stones, Ake, Akanji and Dias - who goes?
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You could get shut of fkin lot of em' for me .... whatever we've got at the back at the moment, it just isn't working ... that clearly showed at times last season, and it's still showing now!

I'm still p'ssed off with the two that Juventus got the other day!

It's probably just as well that we've exited this competition now before we had chance to run into the likes of PSG, Real Madrid or Bayern!
 
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