City v Arsenal post match thread

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Did anyone notice, or remember whilst busy flapping & whining, that after the start when, as Pep said, all of Arsenal's openings came from our errors on the ball, City actually took over the game for the rest of the half, even with Kolarov & Fernando at cb & our 'shit' centre mids (who played pretty well) & Wenger was actually the one doing major flapping, along with Kevin Campbell, at half time ?

What happened then ? He brought on fresh legs including Theo Walcott. We didn't bother doing anything special to counter that & just continued with our own plan. As it's pre season.
 
Neville Kneville said:
Did anyone notice, or remember whilst busy flapping & whining, that after the start when, as Pep said, all of Arsenal's openings came from our errors on the ball, City actually took over the game for the rest of the half, even with Kolarov & Fernando at cb & our 'shit' centre mids (who played pretty well) & Wenger was actually the one doing major flapping, along with Kevin Campbell, at half time ?

What happened then ? He brought on fresh legs including Theo Walcott. We didn't bother doing anything special to counter that & just continued with our own plan. As it's pre season.
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There was a 20 minute spell in the first half when we looked simply superb in all aspects of our play. I am confident that will be more indicative of how we play this season rather than a disjointed, leggy second half.
 
Hart's a gonner.
Looked uncomfortable and conceded again to his left. Great stop on his right v Walcott as opposed to going down in instalments for their first.
Don't understand why we started without any recognised CDs and never gave Denayer a run out.
Sagna looked much more assured than Zabba who appears to have completely lost any defensive capacities.
Zivchenko and Garcia looked decent and so did Tosin until that pass. He will learn from that.
Kolarov is not a CD. Hope yesterday cemented that in Pep's mind.
Other than that I thought we looked decent for 20 min or so.
Going to be a slow start.....
 
ell said:
We look seriously under cooked, I'm worried about the lack of pre season games and obviously the euros/Copa having a big effect with players coming back late.
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We should have fucked the tours off this year and just stayed at home to really prep for the season. I know why due to new commercial commitments in China that likely wasn't possible, but its grating to see the business prioritized over the football, considering we're still a football club..

Aside to that, anyone who genuinely though we would rule the league from day one was always setting themselves up for disappointment. As were those who thought Pep would come in and make every player world class. There will be adjustments and casualties. Just try not to flap your heads off before we get into our groove.
 
Burtonblue said:
Hart's a gonner.
Looked uncomfortable and conceded again to his left. Great stop on his right v Walcott which as opposed to going down in instalments for their first.
Don't understand why we started without any recognised CDs and never gave Denayer a run out.
Sagna looked much more assured than Zabba who appears to have completely lost any defensive capacities.
Zivchenko and Garcia looked decent and so did Tosin until that pass. He will learn from that.
Kolarov is not a CD. Hope yesterday cemented that in Pep's mind.
Other than that I thought we looked decent for 20 min or so.
Going to be a slow start.....
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The thing is, Pep knows that Kolarov isn't a cb, but he's up to something. There are a whole bunch of players who could have played there instead of Kolarov, even with the current injuries etc, who would be better at cb.

There is a reason Guardiola has been using Kolarov. Whether it's because he's teaching him something & sees more to him than we do, or he's teaching the others something or if it's just to keep the team under pressure to teach them to cover, it's not because Pep is either a fucking idiot, or has no other choice, as seems to be the suggestion by at least half the flappers on here.

He didn't have to use Kolarov & Fernando at cb, he is experimenting with something. I can't fucking stand Kolarov, but I know Pep Guardiola knows his fucking stuff, so if he wants to try something with Kolarov, he can jolly well do so.
 
I never argue with people about pre-season. They are designed to bring the players back to the requisite fitness levels. Results are meaningless and performance isnt even the point, really. However, one we get started. I hope our players can adjust to the new style without the stupid bitching and moaning that went on in Bobby's last season.

I don't expect a flying start. We had one of those last season and we all know what happened after that. Be calm and be adults about this because it is going to take time.
 
Neville Kneville said:
The thing is, Pep knows that Kolarov isn't a cb, but he's up to something. There are a whole bunch of players who could have played there instead of Kolarov, even with the current injuries etc, who would be better at cb.

There is a reason Guardiola has been using Kolarov. Whether it's because he's teaching him something & sees more to him than we do, or he's teaching the others something or if it's just to keep the team under pressure to teach them to cover, it's not because Pep is either a fucking idiot, or has no other choice, as seems to be the suggestion by at least half the flappers on here.

He didn't have to use Kolarov & Fernando at cb, he is experimenting with something. I can't fucking stand Kolarov, but I know Pep Guardiola knows his fucking stuff, so if he wants to try something with Kolarov, he can jolly well do so.
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God damnit, Nev, stop talking sense.
 
'Under cooked' lol. Never heard this expression relating to football before last year.
 
Mr Ed (The Stables) said:
"I didn't hang about for the after match pearls of wisdom. What was said?"

Something about Pep making the players go over to the City fans to applaud them, and Hamman thought the body language between Pep and Hart wasn't great. No footage/pics though just Hammans observations.
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I saw it. You could see a problem if you wanted to or not if you didn't.
 
Neville Kneville said:
The thing is, Pep knows that Kolarov isn't a cb, but he's up to something. There are a whole bunch of players who could have played there instead of Kolarov, even with the current injuries etc, who would be better at cb.

There is a reason Guardiola has been using Kolarov. Whether it's because he's teaching him something & sees more to him than we do, or he's teaching the others something or if it's just to keep the team under pressure to teach them to cover, it's not because Pep is either a fucking idiot, or has no other choice, as seems to be the suggestion by at least half the flappers on here.

He didn't have to use Kolarov & Fernando at cb, he is experimenting with something. I can't fucking stand Kolarov, but I know Pep Guardiola knows his fucking stuff, so if he wants to try something with Kolarov, he can jolly well do so.
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I'm just assuming he is seeing if Kolarov can play there because there's a chance we might not be able to offload him this summer and he might have to find a use for him.
 
domalino said:
I'm just assuming he is seeing if Kolarov can play there because there's a chance we might not be able to offload him this summer and he might have to find a use for him.
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Well you would imagine if that was the case, he would try him at left back, or left midfield.

He played Kolarov and Fernando, at cb. He has a bunch of other players, who could have played there. He is trying something out.

That 'something' was not 'let's try deperately hard to beat Arsenal'. It was something else.
 
domalino said:
I'm just assuming he is seeing if Kolarov can play there because there's a chance we might not be able to offload him this summer and he might have to find a use for him.
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Just cant understand why Denayer isn't being given any minutes, if he doesn't fancy him then fair enough but for the life of me I cant see what hes doing playing Kolorov there.

If he doesn't fancy either Denayer or Mangala then buying Stones alone wont be enough with Vinnys problems.
 
Neville Kneville said:
Well you would imagine if that was the case, he would try him at left back, or left midfield.

He played Kolarov and Fernando, at cb. He has a bunch of other players, who could have played there. He is trying something out.

That 'something' was not 'let's try deperately hard to beat Arsenal'. It was something else.
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But I think Pep knows that he's not going to be able to play in those positions for him. He's not fast enough or capable of beating anyone on his own - so LW is a no go, and I don't think he's got the positional awareness, speed or energy to do the fullback role.
 
flb said:
Just cant understand why Denayer isn't being given any minutes, if he doesn't fancy him then fair enough but for the life of me I cant see what hes doing playing Kolorov there.

If he doesn't fancy either Denayer or Mangala then buying Stones alone wont be enough with Vinnys problems.
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It could be as simple as Kolarov has a particular characteristic in his play which is similar to someone else, who will play that position, but is injured or not yet signed. Or just the fact he's left footed.

Or perhaps he sees Kolarov's long ball abilities as a potential weapon in a back 3, so is testing him out under pressure, to see if he can be trusted or taught to play there.
 
domalino said:
But I think Pep knows that he's not going to be able to play in those positions for him. He's not fast enough or capable of beating anyone on his own - so LW is a no go, and I don't think he's got the positional awareness, speed or energy to do the fullback role.
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Yes but he's not going to base the pre season on just purely finding out how shit Kolarov is. Testing him out for sure but there is a reason behind what he's doing. Either because he sees something in Kolarov which can be used, or there is a tactical significance which is good for practice purposes.
 
Despite all the negativity bordering on hysteria, I didn’t think Kolarov was that bad last night, and certainly no worse than Clichy or Zabaleta. Collectively a dodgy first 20 minutes, but then it calmed down.

In contrast, we seemed to lose our way further up the pitch, particularly for Arsenal’s first goal, when we suddenly appeared outnumbered on the counter attack.
 
Neville Kneville said:
The thing is, Pep knows that Kolarov isn't a cb, but he's up to something. There are a whole bunch of players who could have played there instead of Kolarov, even with the current injuries etc, who would be better at cb.

There is a reason Guardiola has been using Kolarov. Whether it's because he's teaching him something & sees more to him than we do, or he's teaching the others something or if it's just to keep the team under pressure to teach them to cover, it's not because Pep is either a fucking idiot, or has no other choice, as seems to be the suggestion by at least half the flappers on here.

He didn't have to use Kolarov & Fernando at cb, he is experimenting with something. I can't fucking stand Kolarov, but I know Pep Guardiola knows his fucking stuff, so if he wants to try something with Kolarov, he can jolly well do so.
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Pep is clearly up to something with Kolarov.
I recall him making some comment around how impressed he was with Kolarov's condition when training commenced and used him as a shining example when commenting on fitness.
All I can say is that based on what I have seen with my own eyes yesterday's experimenting did not appear a glowing success.
Like you I am not an admirer of Kolarov but I would be happy to be proved wrong if Pep can turn him into a world class CD.
I thought it was a shame not to see what our recognised defenders could do yesterday in our last warm up game but I guess it was far more reasonable to experiment yesterday than v the mackens...
 
What I saw yesterday was the same old City from last year. But the most most annoying thing was out total inability to hoof the ball up field when the defence are under pressure. Last few games we have played it out of defence easliy and confidently, yesterday that confidence dissapeared and we got to learn that isnt the time to do tippy tappy at the back.
 
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