Bodo/Glimt (A) | CL | Post Match Thread

Almost sounds like a confidence issue. The thing which makes me think it can’t be that is that these awful performances followed a great 2-0 victory v Newcastle. I just didn’t see these performances coming at all.

The only thing I can think of, which is almost certainly wrong, is that Pep Lijnders has knackered them with the running and the press combined with the lack of players to pick because of injuries. Maybe they look tired because they are. They couldn’t press a grape right now let alone crush one!

When you're dealing with a relatively young and new team, confidence / development isn't linear. Decision making isn't yet ingrained, so emotional responses are more likely to occur to set backs.
 
I'm afraid that that is RAN for you. Positionally he isn't good.

Can't you see that without wingers, Pep was using his full backs to get width. It didn't work but you should understand the objective.

The problem was the players attitude and the absences. We had an unbalanced team but what do you expect with 10 absences?
How do you get width from a left footed right back who continually comes inside?
 
Some OTT reaction for sure. It was poor, not last Sat poor, but still not good. Putting the mistakes to one side, it's some of the basics which are lacking atm. It's standing out to me now and I've mentioned it a couple of times and that's the lack of fight. Half hearted challenges, players zipping past ours unchecked, 50-50's ending up with the other team regularly. All these things, amongst others, are leading to goals. It's a problem.

Why are you trying to find some fundamental tactical, or strategic problem when it's obvious that our very young defence was in pieces and we lacked the wingers to open up a side playing a low block and counter-attacking at every opportunity. That was a very young side missing 10 players and the senior players who were playing were low on energy.

I thought we tried, and we did create some opportunities. We looked a bit demoralised but we didn't give up, and we didn't lose our discipline.

Please do not spend the rest of the week slagging our players and Pep off. This is a time when the fans need to get behind the team for the Wolves game.
 
There hasn't been one City reverse I haven't met with alactrity. It might take a couple of days on some occasions but it's the manner of the loss that gets to me. Bodo have ne'er won a CL game, the guy who got the brace hadn't scored for six games, and I've just seen the two min highlights. Whether it was the bounce of the ball on the plastic pitch that did for our defenders, but fuckin' 'ell. I shudder to think what awaits us on Saturday.
 
I'm wary of getting into conversations about 'lack of fight' and stuff like that. It's an easy thing to say when you've been outfought in a match (which happens even if the players care a lot). But the reality is that teams fight in different ways. I daresay last night, on an artificial pitch, with a current injury/unavailable list of 11 senior players, there was a need for nobody to do anything stupid which would lead to a bad injury. It's a delicate balance and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the players couldn't do more. Just that the 'fight' stuff needs to be a bit more nuanced and thought through.

What I'd like to see a little more of, is the courage on the ball and quality on the ball that I've come to expect from the side. There were enough players on that pitch last night who had the nous to play better but simply didn't. Too many bad decisions, safe passes, and a general lack of ideas.

Completely agree with the last part of this. A lot of players seem scared to be the one to try and break the game open. We need an ego and/or imagination like KDB or David Silva willing to take control.
 
True. I think it’s the scale of the drop off which I don’t see coming.

Try being a Liverpool fan then. They won the title at a canter, spent half a billion on shiny new toys in one window, and are now fighting for a CL spot.

My point is that there hasn't been some enormous drop off. There's been two very bad games in a moment where there's a ton of injuries and a makeshift back 4. A week ago we went to Newcastle and played and ran them off the park.
 
Look at the difference man. Pass and move, pass and move, pass and move - all with movement off the ball from players trying to create angles for those on the ball. Night and day to the shit served up now.


Had the players that could do that back then. Unfortunately those players have come and gone and it's now time to find new ones.

One thing I will say, imo the player market in today's game is absolutely piss poor you literally struggle to count World class players on one hand these days.
 
Try being a Liverpool fan then. They won the title at a canter, spent half a billion on shiny new toys in one window, and are now fighting for a CL spot.

My point is that there hasn't been some enormous drop off. There's been two very bad games in a moment where there's a ton of injuries and a makeshift back 4. A week ago we went to Newcastle and played and ran them off the park.
Agreed though the team we fielded against Newcastle we could pretty much field again without anyone coming back from injury.
 
I would rest Foden, Harland, Rods, god even Reijnders at the minute, but we are threadbare at the moment.

Just an aside - I know Carney is the current national darling, but as an ex pro herself, her character assignation of Max last night, was disgraceful. I'm sure she would have loved that on national press when she was 20. I was always going to turn it off pretty soon.
 
Not trying to polish a turd but somebody told me I was an idiot when I suggested that this was a potential banana skin.
I said it after the home loss! I said that we were going to have to win at home to Galatasaray (when I thought that might be easier than it feels today!!!) to get through in the Top 8, but even that isn’t assured now!

What’s amazing, and even more galling, is that was Bodo’s first ever Champions League Group Stage victory!

Given who we appear to be at this moment, it is extremely depressing to think that a home game against the bottom team in the Premier League…by a wide margin, with record low points…feels like it could be a banana skin and we are following that with a must win CL game against a team with an ex-City player who has a very good chance of popping up with a winner against us!

What an absolute dog shit few days!
 
Sometimes you have to brave the storm and come out the other side and go again.
Okay, nothing is lost, we are still in the Champions League, FA cup, League cup and 2nd in the league.

Maybe it's best to have a Fall/Slip up now and still be in all the competitions, then late on and out of everything
We need to regroup and go again, it's that simple. Football can be overthought and you forget the simple things like playing with a smile, We are looking like the weight of the world is on our shoulders right now, but it's not

#We Go Again
 
Almost sounds like a confidence issue. The thing which makes me think it can’t be that is that these awful performances followed a great 2-0 victory v Newcastle. I just didn’t see these performances coming at all.

The only thing I can think of, which is almost certainly wrong, is that Pep Lijnders has knackered them with the running and the press combined with the lack of players to pick because of injuries. Maybe they look tired because they are. They couldn’t press a grape right now let alone crush one!
Alleyne looked good at Newcastle but he made a bad mistake last night. We looked in total disarray when they counter-attacked and we were outnumbered as Ait-Nouri was often on the right side of midfield.

It was a young side, trying something new and we played very badly but we suffered without a normal defensive unit, and a winger. What does Foden, Cherki or Reijnders do when they get the ball? Run through a tight defensive block? We were feeding Ait-Nouri but they managed to bottle him up.

We just have to take the defeat, not lose our minds, and get behind the team on Saturday.
 

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