Mentality

S S

shevtheblue

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Joined
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So where does everyone stand on this? I had an argument at work (quite heated as I was still pissed off from last night) with a fellow blue who thought we did OK because we only lost 1-0 over two legs against Real, who supposedly have a good goal-to-game ratio. He mentioned how I should stop for a second and think how lucky we are to get to watch City in the Champions League semi final, when in our lifetime we have also had to watch us in Division 2.

On a personal level, this really fucks me off.

IMO, and I understand not everyone shares is, this is one of THE biggest things that needs to change, fan mentality. Now I'm not saying we should moan after every loss, or go to the training ground (like Ahsan from CWP said they do on the continent) and chuck rocks at the players. We should however expect more from these guys, we're not in division 2 anymore and we don't have division 2 players anymore.
IMHO our squad can match up to Real's if even 8 of our players showed up last night to win the game, or indeed were set out in that way.
Too many times in recent years, and I will include when we won the league the first time, the season that Bobby was sacked and also every season under Pellegrini, our players have literally thrown games with their inept performances. Everyone is due a poor performance, but showing some mentality and getting through it to win the game (or lose with effort) is what tells the difference. And at times I feel like we as fans don't push these fuckers on either, almost resigned to 'oh well, it's typical City'.

Pep won't be used to that and it may be the first thing he has to put across, failure is acceptable but inept failure and self destruction is not something that managers, players or fans should accept, no matter what your history is. Last night was a roll over and be happy with what you got job, no team or fans should be OK with that.
 
yup dont get all the '20 years ago we were relegated' pish. times have changed drastically and the financial injection into our club means those days are really no longer relevant. this mentality needs to change. it would be the same for any team. with the money spent and players we've got we should expect every season to be fighting and challenging at the very highest level. no city fan should be happy with how last night went
 
It's human nature to respond to your surroundings and there's a weak mentality and nonchalant attitude currently ingrained in this team. That's partly because of the players themselves, partly failing on the manager to motivate and drive them and also slightly on us fans too. So many times we have need to get behind the team at home to give them that life and we haven't. Other times I've been amazed we aren't shouting and voicing our dissatisfaction also. Too often we sit and wait to be entertained without either encouraging or berating the players.

Whether this comes down to mentality or expectations of the fans I don't know but it does impact I think on the players, even if it's just marginally.

Also, and it pains me to say this because I hate them, but look at Liverpool tonight. Up against, 1-0 from the first leg and the passion of the manager and fans definitely impacted on the players.
 
Bayern went out the CL semis but went out fighting. Safe to say, judging Pep's previous we're going to be fighters under Pep's regime.
 
bugsyblue said:
It's human nature to respond to your surroundings and there's a weak mentality and nonchalant attitude currently ingrained in this team. That's partly because of the players themselves, partly failing on the manager to motivate and drive them and also slightly on us fans too. So many times we have need to get behind the team at home to give them that life and we haven't. Other times I've been amazed we aren't shouting and voicing our dissatisfaction also. Too often we sit and wait to be entertained without either encouraging or berating the players.

Whether this comes down to mentality or expectations of the fans I don't know but it does impact I think on the players, even if it's just marginally.

Also, and it pains me to say this because I hate them, but look at Liverpool tonight. Up against, 1-0 from the first leg and the passion of the manager and fans definitely impacted on the players.
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Maybe that is an unfair comparison , the Dippers had a massive advantage of having the 2nd leg at home , if we had lost our 1st leg in Bernabeu 1-0 , it would have been considered an excellent result and our home crowd for the 2nd leg would have been even more vociferous , and would have pushed us over the line , just like the dippers fans did tonight , and dont forget they were playing Villareal hardly the cream of europe . As for our players weak mentality and nonchalant attitude , this was allowed by what has turned out to be a "nice" manager who has virtually no control over our players who have massive ego's , he is a charming man , but he is not a winner , he won the first title with Mancini's team and the two league Cups victories are not relative to the amount of investment our owner have contributed. Not 100% sure Pep is the solution , but he will install tactics,effort and pride back into our team play , (because it has been non existent this season) and this will in turn create a better atmosphere in the stadium
 
The players are not prepared to do the hard things anymore or at least when things get tough are not prepared to fight for the cause and last night typified this.

Also we have to realise that we have installed a manager over the past three years who is not inspirational and not a motivator of people.

You would hardly pay money to see him give an after dinner speech unless you wanted someone to put you to sleep to be perfectly fair.

This combined with ageing players who are well past their best and or players who just are not good enough to be in a team to challenge for the domestic least of all the European title who again are flat track specialists and naturally you expect and often get what we have got over the past couple of seasons.

How many of the players we have bought into the club will still be with us in two seasons time if in fact one seasons time.

More than likely two of the five players we bought in over the past three windows will be gone and players you pay good money for have to contribute positively on a regular basis for at least 5 years for you to be able to improve.

When your captain goes down every couple of games time and again through injury you know things have to change drastically especially if you rely on your captain for motivation and inspiration.

City needed changes and big changes in personnel on and off the field in scouting , recruiting , medical science , condiitioning , training methods after the RM era and the club didn't address any of these critical areas properly in any way shape or form.

It started with hiring a stop gap manager and his uninspiring support team.

We never played as a team a complete unit under him because he is not capable at the top level of doing so as has been clearly demonstrated and although I disagree that we have/had the best team in the premiership under MP if he actually thinks we have and he has said many times we have then his failure to get the team to produce performances time and time again to demonstrate this is further evidence of why this manager is not equipped to manage in the premiership at the top level.
 
jimmygrimblesboots said:
Maybe that is an unfair comparison , the Dippers had a massive advantage of having the 2nd leg at home , if we had lost our 1st leg in Bernabeu 1-0 , it would have been considered an excellent result and our home crowd for the 2nd leg would have been even more vociferous , and would have pushed us over the line , just like the dippers fans did tonight , and dont forget they were playing Villareal hardly the cream of europe . As for our players weak mentality and nonchalant attitude , this was allowed by what has turned out to be a "nice" manager who has virtually no control over our players who have massive ego's , he is a charming man , but he is not a winner , he won the first title with Mancini's team and the two league Cups victories are not relative to the amount of investment our owner have contributed. Not 100% sure Pep is the solution , but he will install tactics,effort and pride back into our team play , (because it has been non existent this season) and this will in turn create a better atmosphere in the stadium
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Agreed, but i'm not sure we would have pushed them over the line. I have heard it many a time from our own fans that they don't really care about Europe and the league is the priority and in my opinion that is flawed. We should want to win everything equally, but not wanting to win the Champions League is distinctly small time, it is undoubtedly the biggest club competition in the world and winning it would surely catapult us into another tier much like our league win did. The home game was special for atmosphere, if we can recreate that in Europe a lot more you can only hope it will drum into the players as well.
 
I miss this word. Mancini used it in every interview - "we have a good mentality in this moment"

I also miss the spirit we had at times then. The whole atmosphere at the club is complacent, this season and last.

Is it too late to get Bellamy back and fit?
 
hutton who blue said:
Good points but you must feel optimistic about our new man in charge don't you? I do and I think all Man City fans do.
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It's the only thing that's got me through the last few months to be honest, when it comes to City anyway. After the Rags game, I actually said I wouldn't watch another City Prem game until next season, but alas the sucked me back in and then punched me in the dick with that Southampton performance. I have faith in Pep though, it can't get any worse, right? ;)
 
shevtheblue said:
It's the only thing that's got me through the last few months to be honest, when it comes to City anyway. After the Rags game, I actually said I wouldn't watch another City Prem game until next season, but alas the sucked me back in and then punched me in the dick with that Southampton performance. I have faith in Pep though, it can't get any worse, right? ;)
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Future's bright. We have Pep in charge. Watch us go. I can hardly wait.
 
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shevtheblue said:
So where does everyone stand on this? I had an argument at work (quite heated as I was still pissed off from last night) with a fellow blue who thought we did OK because we only lost 1-0 over two legs against Real, who supposedly have a good goal-to-game ratio. He mentioned how I should stop for a second and think how lucky we are to get to watch City in the Champions League semi final, when in our lifetime we have also had to watch us in Division 2.
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'The only reason I felt 'lucky' on Wednesday was because we only lost by one goal. We were a big club back in the seventies and are a big club again now. We are expected to go toe to toe with any club in the world. That's not entitlement or whatever, it's both ambition and a reflection of how big we now are.

There's no other way to paint things recently other than the players and manager together have let us, themselves and the owners down big time.
 
If you win the lottery and buy a Rolls Royce you don't accept it breaking down every couple of months just because your old Fiat used to break down every couple of days.
I'm sure Forest fans miss the glory days of twice winning the European Cup but accept they aren't going to be repeating the feat any time soon as they don't have the players or manager. We should be basing our expectations on our current squad and circumstances not the shite we endured through three decades of crap managers, players and chairmen.
We've spent over 80% of our history in the top division and only one season at the third level. Only 7 English teams have won more trophies than we have. We are not Accrington bloody Stanley.
 
Some good psychology in here (I'll try and leave out the pretentious terminology) as fans and as a club we have been going through a fast paced period of transition, from perennial no hopers/comedy club to challengers and expectations of being as dominant as the Dippers in the 70s 80s & Rags post 1992. So we have players who are also at those stages, maybe we have a squad that is mostly still in the challengers mindset, quite a lot of the spine of this team were bought over 4 years ago.

In a similar vein when we tumbled out of the top division in the early 80s we were a seriously big fish and it took a few years to adapt to watching the shite being served up throughout most of the 80s a feeling the rags are probably going through now.

the whole club needs a boost of something and hopefully Pep is it, MP (dead man walking since Feb last year IMO should have been fired off at Christmas and Benitez should have put in on a fixed short term deal, I'm certain had that of happened we'd have put up a stronger challenge to Leicester (FFS) - CL performances we can say we've improved which statistically we have, but apart from Sevilla away did we really experience any real sense of optimism until we met PSG, and in hindsight we got an okay passage through to the semis.

Sorry, thought dump over, roll on next season sick to the back teeth of this season, this manager and most of this squad
 
Anyone who found loosing to Madrid 1-0 on Wednesday acceptable should go and support another club.

As a club we were weak and pathetic, I though we were an embarrassment to our owner.
I would rather in the 2nd half have gone after Madrid and lost 4-0, rather than loose like pussys 1-0.
As a club we are far too nice, we have become a happy clappers club, not a club for winners.

When Vasquez smashed into Sterlings ankle at the end of the game , I did not see one of his teammates react, I would love to see Fernando, Otamendi etc go up to Vasquez and react...show passion, show you care!
 
Fans react to what they see on the field. I have seen lots of big european matches and a performance with intensity and passion generally provokes the same reaction from the fans. The Villareal coach highlighted how difficult it was facing a side playing with such intensity last night, a charge I have never heard labelled about City.

The fact that this team turned a showpiece occasion such as a Champs Lge semi-final into a game with as much passion as a friendly speaks volumes.

There is an apathy about the club at the minute. Managers and players are both seeing there time out. It has transmitted to the fans who, if like me, are bored to tears of this slow, methodical build up.
 
Mikejl said:
Some good psychology in here (I'll try and leave out the pretentious terminology) as fans and as a club we have been going through a fast paced period of transition, from perennial no hopers/comedy club to challengers and expectations of being as dominant as the Dippers in the 70s 80s & Rags post 1992. So we have players who are also at those stages, maybe we have a squad that is mostly still in the challengers mindset, quite a lot of the spine of this team were bought over 4 years ago.

In a similar vein when we tumbled out of the top division in the early 80s we were a seriously big fish and it took a few years to adapt to watching the shite being served up throughout most of the 80s a feeling the rags are probably going through now.

the whole club needs a boost of something and hopefully Pep is it, MP (dead man walking since Feb last year IMO should have been fired off at Christmas and Benitez should have put in on a fixed short term deal, I'm certain had that of happened we'd have put up a stronger challenge to Leicester (FFS) - CL performances we can say we've improved which statistically we have, but apart from Sevilla away did we really experience any real sense of optimism until we met PSG, and in hindsight we got an okay passage through to the semis.

Sorry, thought dump over, roll on next season sick to the back teeth of this season, this manager and most of this squad
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Interesting theories! In retrospect it does seem we need some time to adjust the mindset. A few years ago in Champions League we seemed rather nervous when facing Napoli, not to mention the biggest teams. And then it's been two years group stage and two years round-of-16. This year is quite a huge jump to the semi-finals, and playing in Santiago Bernabeu might be quite a pressure for some of our players, especially those who haven't played there yet. Coupled with some gap of quality we have in the team against Real, I'm not that aghast about the performance. Next year should be better because we've already got experience as a semi-finalist.
 
Think we're all confused how we're supposed to think.
One minute we're being told to ditch the "lickle City" mentality then we're being told we're "spoiled brats" and "raggish".
East Level 2 sums it up for me.
 
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I seem to recall that when I studied management many moons ago, there was a style of management called 'country club' where the employees enjoyed themselves, but very little was achieved. I can't help but think City have gone 'country club'.

I suspect Pep's arrival will come as an uncomfortable shock to some people at the club, and there will be tears before bedtime. I expect radical change, and some players (not necessarily ones that get slagged off on here every week) wanting to leave.

But ultimately, it will be for the best.
 
Amid the gloom, I can find one thing encouraging about Wednesday. That is, we have finally broken the hoodoo about advancing in this competition. We could even have made it to the final if we'd shown more balls.

This might change our mentality in Europe where we've seen ourselves as underdogs and pretended we're not interested.
 
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