International Break: How are we doing?

New players - really impressed with all of them - KDB looks a natural (still not as good as silva but then who is) and could be a very key player for yrs to come. Otemendi - love his fighting spirit, his aerial ability despite being short and think he will also get better. Sterling givers us something that no one else does and he will get better with confidence and i expect him to be a bit up and down as any 20 yr old would be. Cant wait to see delphi take some of the pressure of fernandihnio.

Special mention for fernando who looks more like the player we thought we had bought...espeically in the last couple of games

Only concerns re players are Kolorov and Cabellero for me - two huge weak spots whenever they play...Navas is frustrating as hell (but he was awesome when he cam on vs Newcastle and needs to do more of that)

MP - i know his philosophy is to attack but i feel that if we are to get anywhere against the very best he must adapt our style of play a little....some of the pundits call it naivety but I don't think it is...its more a determination to stick to his principles of how he wants the games played and 99% of the time i agree with him...but on the odd occasion we need to change slightly (against the likes of barca, munich and even arsenal)

Rivals - Chelsea are imploding and i love it!

Utd look dangerous while also looking awful. Martial looks a good buy but rooney is shot......however van gaal has got them a bit better organised defensively than they have been and they have the ability to just hit teams on the break and i think we will see a lot of that form them this season.....we need to be careful when we play them as we could play right into their hands with the way we play but what i am hoping for is that we dominate possession so much that they won't be able to get hold of the ball long enough to hit us.

Arsenal - look very good but they do every year before they implode after february - however i expect them to push us all the way

Liverpool - again love that they have imploded especially after all the crap they threw at us in the sterling transfer. Im gutted they sacked rodgers however as they may get Klopp ( a manager i would dearly love to see at city) and who could really turn them around to be a force as could ancelotti

Injuries - this is where we need a bit of luck (i hate the international breaks as we usually lose a couple of players). We need to make sure Kun, Silva, Kompany, kdb and Yaya stay fit and get delphi and clichy back asap (great to see Zabba back -even though Sagna has been great this season)
 
coleridge said:
I thought that MP said last week that Vinny could travel with Belgium but not play. Suppose it's not his decision, though.
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Id be suprised if he goes and doesn't play any of the matches. I hope your right, but like you say, once we agree to him joining we have limited control.
 
Definitely doing a lot better than I was expecting before the start of the season. The extra year given to Pellegrini at the start of the season has helped enormously IMO, I was worried about how things would go if it was ridiculously obvious that he was off next summer. Think going forward we look excellent again, like we did in Pellegrini's first season and clearly this is going to give us a reasonable chance of winning the title. Still really don't like Pellegrini's defensive system and after a few games of looking tight at the back we have returned to constantly stepping up, relying on shit linesmen rather than our defenders' ability and too often nobody even presses the ball when we do it. It baffles me that it is still going on. Subsequently even ordinary teams are getting behind us too easily and too often. The quality we have at the other end will probably be enough to get away with it, ultimately.
 
Lancet Fluke said:
The quality we have at the other end will probably be enough to get away with it, ultimately.
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I take it from the number of times that I'm reading this that it's the new narrative amongst those who don't rate Pellegrini. Whatever we win this season is because we have better attacking players than anyone else. No credit to the manager required. Very sad.
 
At the last break we were firing on all cylinders. Then came the break and the International teams sent some of our players back broken, Delph, Silva and Aguero out of sorts.

I fear for Vinnie he hasn't kicked a ball for us for weeks and Belgiums manager is saying he could play in their second game. Outrageous if that happens. I hate the International break!!!
 
BillyShears said:
I take it from the number of times that I'm reading this that it's the new narrative amongst those who don't rate Pellegrini. Whatever we win this season is because we have better attacking players than anyone else. No credit to the manager required. Very sad.
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Don't call me sad Billy. You're reading what you want into my post. I didn't say anything about "because we have better attacking players than anyone else". We have quality going forward, I feel that quality will probably ultimately offset the lack of quality we show at the back, that is all I am saying. I know that having great attacking players doesn't guarantee great attacking performances, we saw that last season and in Mancini's final season. I actually think we have better players than the opposition all over the pitch not just the attacking players and IMO Pellegrini deserves credit for currently getting the best out of those attacking players but deserves criticism for some of the stuff that happens defensively.
 
Lancet Fluke said:
Don't call me sad Billy. You're reading what you want into my post. I didn't say anything about "because we have better attacking players than anyone else". We have quality going forward, I feel that quality will probably ultimately offset the lack of quality we show at the back, that is all I am saying. I know that having great attacking players doesn't guarantee great attacking performances, we saw that last season and in Mancini's final season. I actually think we have better players than the opposition all over the pitch not just the attacking players and IMO Pellegrini deserves credit for currently getting the best out of those attacking players but deserves criticism for some of the stuff that happens defensively.
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I know you think Pellegrini deserves criticism for some of the things which happen defensively. However I think those criticisms, are at best misplaced. I also think it's both disingenuous and lazy to pick out defensive performances where our entire first choice back 4 has been unavailable (Spurs/Borussia) as an example of how we have weaknesses in our defence or how we are repeating previous mistakes.
 
Big week coming up for some our players. The S. Americans have two world cup qualifiers and we'll be holding our breath Sergio and Fernandino come back in one piece. Spain will hopefully qualify in their first game so that they don't need to take Silva to Ukraine for the second game.
 
BillyShears said:
Completely disagree. Klopp's great talent was in building a side which developed it's technical quality together. It wasn't about individuals more about the collective and how the collective worked together. What he had was a handful of very technical players at Dortmund and he'll get the same at Liverpool. Coutinho, Lallana, Firmino, Benteke, Henderson, even Can - are all players who IMO will flourish under a coach like Klopp.
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The player's you've named were kind of my point and I disagree on Henderson. He's got 4 attacking players and Can, I'd say Clyne too actually who can play the way he'd like to, the likes of Henderson and Milner are nowhere near good enough on the ball and never will be to play midfield for a high pressing technical side. Technical defensive minded players with high workrate are like gold dust as we've found over the past few seasons.
 
Two points clear in the league, three probably if you factor in goal difference, though in truth we probably should be about 4 points better off than that. More points already in our CL group than last year and still in the LC with a home tie to come. Doing rather well, I'd say.

Only worry is injuries, with my only real concerns being Clichy and Delph. If Gael does not come back in the next month, then the load asked of Kolarov will be too great and will have an impact on the rest of his season; we've seen this before with Zabaleta. In Delph's case, I fear that this may be a season to write off, since it'll be difficult for him to get to full speed having had precious little pre-season and game time at a new club. Hope I'm wrong.
 
Bluemanc100 said:
International breaks are a pain in the arse.... that is all
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Not this 1 it's come at just the right time! Time for players to recover from injury and tirdness! Yaya, fernando, nasri, navas all get a rest clichy, delph, vinny will be closer to a return and hopefully all the rest will come back injury free
 
Just picking up on the OP.


It's early days and we've started well. The Spurs defeat was a calamity defensively but with so many defensive/midfield injuries I think we've started well and we can't complain too much considering we're top.


I disagree that Arsenal were always our main threat. They're a strong side but Chelsea were our main rivals this season so the fact we've taken advantage of their poor results makes our start even better. I also query Sanchez being the best player in the league. That's based on him returning to form suddenly and having an excellent game against the rags. Arsenal needed that performance after a woeful midweek result and their pace tore united to pieces. There's still a question mark over their leadership on the pitch and whether they can break teams down. Like us they're often picked off on the counter attack and their defence is prone to the occasional implosion.


We're the best side in the league and I'd suggest that on their day Silva, KDB (on current form) and Aguero are all better than Sanchez. If we can use the break to get the likes of Yaya, Kompany, Zabaleta, Clichy and Delph closer to fitness and more training time for Bony, and Nacho who are returning from injury then we'll be in good shape. Two big games in the league coming up that can cement our place at the top.


I'm still concerned by our home form. We've often conceded the first goal and been too susceptible to the counter attack. Bournemouth will certainly follow the West Ham gameplan and we need to be more wise to teams playing that way. Newcastle had several good opportunities to extend their lead as well. Beat Bournemouth and the rags and we'll be in excellent shape. I thought we would be in a battle with Chelsea to win the league with Arsenal perhaps threatening at times but ultimately falling short.


The fact Chelsea are so far behind is positive, our run in is tough and we need that gap. I want to see the team kick on now and bury this inability to get to the top and stay there. City have still never managed to get to the top and stay there and put pressure on other sides the way Chelsea did last season. We like to chase rather than stamp our authority on things so I want to see that mentality change this season and we're in a good position to do so.


As for the CL... the two games against Sevilla will be vital. They are showing glimpses of returning to form. Their win against Barca could be the catalyst to their revival. I still think we can win the group. Monchengladbach are by no means the whipping boys and could yet influence things in the group. Juventus are a good side but we didn't deserve to lose to them so I remain hopeful we can win the group but either way qualification is a must and then luck of the draw will come into it. What may be in our favour this season is that English teams may not win their groups which opens the possibility of more teams we could face if we finish second. In previous seasons we've had limited choices but surely we deserve a slightly kinder draw for once?!
 
BillyShears said:
I know you think Pellegrini deserves criticism for some of the things which happen defensively. However I think those criticisms, are at best misplaced. I also think it's both disingenuous and lazy to pick out defensive performances where our entire first choice back 4 has been unavailable (Spurs/Borussia) as an example of how we have weaknesses in our defence or how we are repeating previous mistakes.
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I know you think my criticisms are at best misplaced and disingenuous but that is because you aren't remotely objective about Pellegrini. The difference between you and me is that even though I desperately wanted Mancini gone, it doesn't mean that I feel the need to ignore any failings in Mancini's replacement to in some way justify the position I held on Mancini. It is blatantly obvious that you do. I am actually fairly ambivalent about Pellegrini (despite you putting words into my mouth on several occasions and implying that I hate him or something) I understand that there are good things that he does, there are things I really don't like about the way he sets us up defensively and I do like and respect him as a man because he seems a decent bloke. The day we start defending properly rather than relying on linesmen I will stop criticising him for adopting that system. And it doesn't matter who the personnel are in defence, I don't think they should be adopting that system. We go through phases where we ditch it and we look solid again but we have consistently returned to it and looked dodgy again.
 
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