It's not Pellers..It's not even the team..

It's easy to manage City when you have Hart in nets, Zabaleta at right back, Kompany in central defence, Yaya in his pomp, Silva and Aguero.

Just smile at everyone, and "go out and play".

It gets difficult when you have injuries. But it's obviously a major error to play in defence a 35 year old, and in midfield a player who may well retire at the end of the season because these are choices. They are not decisions forced on the manager.
 
Lancet Fluke said:
He's only a safe pair of hands if he keeps us in the top 4 (actually top 3 really). Lose on Sunday and the reality is that we aren't fighting for a title, we are fighting for our top 4 status.
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We are indeed, if all our players are fit and raring to go he can squeeze us a title against worse teams, players start to age and get caught with injuries we look a shambles, he under performs but like ya ya he will be stood on the pitch come the weekend

Nice bloke though
 
The feelig is that we're having a pretty poor season after a lot of talk about regaining the title making real progress in Europe and those first five games when we looked in a different league to the rest of the PL. Is it Pellers? Is it the team? Is it the injuries? Is it a bit of everything? Or a bit of everything and a bit more besides? I haven't a clue, but I was interested to come across the following in Balague's Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning. It describes the things which had convinced Pep that a parting of the ways with the club were in his and its best interests. Some of what he describes may seem eerily similar to City not only this season, but also in 2012-13:-

"Pep recognised the symptoms: not competing well has nothing to do with playing well or badly, it is about looking after the little details. Barcelona forgot that they needed to be Barcelona in every minute of the match; yet often they weren't effective enough when it was required, conceding sloppy goals because of lack of concentration, making the transition between attack and defence too slowly, or simply starting games a little too relaxed and then reacting too late. Such attitudes and errors, to name just a few, cost points and titles. Barcelona also failed to change their style even when the conditions (pitch, weather) were against them. Is flexibility in terms of a team's primary style a sign of weakness or of strength? Isn't adapting a virtue?"

I think we see all these features in City's play recently. A rugby pundit put it rather differently before last Saturday's match with Scotland by saying that under Stuart Lancaster England was packed with 99 percenters (players and staff who give 99% of their all, not intentionally, but that the one percent extra makes the difference between being also-rans and world champions. With the links with Pep dating back well before the new season, but reaching fever pitch lately, is this not the problem with City; the manager and players have slipped into 99%ism.
 
Bony
Nasri De Bruyne Navas

Is a front 4 better than most teams can put out and they are all fucked.
 
Injuries are hugely detrimental but I think a good manager doesn't ask every player to play the same way. You have to start accounting for a drop in quality when your stars are injured. You need to change how you might play not carry on gung-ho. Example: Since we lost Kompany and Mangala, we have the tools for a devastating counter attack game but we have never played this way once. Instead we rely on a slow and aged cb and expect him to play a high line and be as good at it as kompany or as physical as mangala.
He continues to play Yaya like he is in the form of two years ago and he isn't even 50% of that player.
Injuries are a big factor but so is Manuel.
 
Irrespective of how the season pans out their has to be a serious look at all these Injuries throughout the season. Many of them are recurring with seemingly short term fixes being the order of the day.

It's interesting that our opponents Spurs have only 2 injuries and have played I think just 4 matches less than us, so arguably a similar schedule.
Are we managing the players properly?
 
BLUEMATT23 said:
Irrespective of how the season pans out their has to be a serious look at all these Injuries throughout the season. Many of them are recurring with seemingly short term fixes being the order of the day.

It's interesting that our opponents Spurs have only 2 injuries and have played I think just 4 matches less than us, so arguably a similar schedule.
Are we managing the players properly?
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I can't see our injury record improving next season, Bayern have been battered with injuries this season.
 
[QUOTEtired ue"Manchester_lalala, post: 9198168, member: 10140"]I can't see our injury record improving next season, Bayern have been battered with injuries this season.[/QUOTE]

Very true
 
ColinLee said:
Since we tend to have a lot of possession then surely we wouldn't expect to top the charts in distance covered?
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If we were winning more games i agree it wouldn't matter. But as we're losing some games it would suggest we're not working hard enough in games we lose, to regain possession. Surely the minimum is legwork?
 
Well done Pellers on tonight's win. Good team selection and tactics.

What a difference having a few players back from injury makes as well!
 
IanBishopsHaircut said:
It's the ridiculous injuries that have potentially derailed our season

Never known anything like it

If we had a full strength squad we would be breezing this league

We have constantly had either injuries or players coming back from injury

So much so that we have barely had a settled first 11 since the beginning of the season

Look at Leicester yesterday..they played like a team..a consistent one who have been fortunate not to have any long term set backs on the physio table..coupled with the fact they are not fighting on all fronts for trophies..fit..rested and hungry for it..it doesn't matter how many world class individuals you have in your team..if there is no consistency you will lose as often as you win

It's the elephant in the room that nobody is seemingly acknowledging

We have been desperately unlucky with injury this season
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We've both repeated this opinion all season, mate, and tonight - and Spurs - vindicates it completely.

Oh god, how I would love us to finally get into top gear for the rest of the season. I'd love to shut up the naysayers inside and outside the City tent who've been unable to acknowledge the incredible injury problems we've faced.

We deserve some luck with our big players over the next few months. Leicester have barely had a single injury.
 
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