What will work against us?

pikku said:
Our defence is not that good, can be exploited by top teams I feel. Played bottom four teams in the PL plus United until now, hopefully we do well while facing top ten teams too.
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For a defence that isn't that good the goals we've conceded have been a penalty against Stoke and an individual mistake in the Derby which happens. Only the Sunderland goal would I put down to poor defending and with that being the first game of the season it's understandable.
Individually the back four have been outstanding, collectively they're still adapting to a new system. The more minutes together the slicker we will become. The lack of pace in the middle is the only thing that I think it's fair to point out but again, in the system we've adapted I doubt it will be much of an issue - especially with Kompany due back.
 
We might lose Iheanacho to the African Nations in January so Aguero will need to stay fit. Also, we need to cut out the stupid red cards, as sooner or later, it will cost us.
 
Pablo1 said:
For a defence that isn't that good the goals we've conceded have been a penalty against Stoke and an individual mistake in the Derby which happens. Only the Sunderland goal would I put down to poor defending and with that being the first game of the season it's understandable.
Individually the back four have been outstanding, collectively they're still adapting to a new system. The more minutes together the slicker we will become. The lack of pace in the middle is the only thing that I think it's fair to point out but again, in the system we've adapted I doubt it will be much of an issue - especially with Kompany due back.
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West Ham's goal didn't look like great defending - failing to stop the cross, keeper watching the ball sail over him, Clichy left to try to outjump an attacker six inches taller than him. That kind of thing could easily happen again.
 
Norbiton said:
West Ham's goal didn't look like great defending - failing to stop the cross, keeper watching the ball sail over him, Clichy left to try to outjump an attacker six inches taller than him. That kind of thing could easily happen again.
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Tbf I completely forgot about the West Ham game/goal but again I think that's more of an example of the team getting used to each other and not something I expect to see happen too often.
Pep has already made it clear that we will concede goals and he doesn't get hung up on clean sheets. In fact he said he wasn't bothered about them at all in one of his press conferences recently and puts far more emphasis on us creating and scoring more than the opposition as that's what wins games.
Sure, we'll unlikely be the solid unit we were under Mancini and to a lesser extent Pelligrini but then that's to be expected when you have a manager who sets up a team the way Pep does.
Regardless, I'm not having that we're 'poor' defensively which was what I was answering to in my original post.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
Sorry my mistake. I've got no interest in the African Nations so didn't check.
However, I'm right about the stupid red cards, which are probably more of a concern.
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Me neither, but I've heard the question asked before and I've seen people dismiss it as Nigeria didn't qualify. As I'm a lazy twat who hasn't looked it up myself I've done the natural thing and taken Bluemoons word for it - nothing can go wrong when you do that.. :-)
 
Pablo1 said:
Tbf I completely forgot about the West Ham game/goal but again I think that's more of an example of the team getting used to each other and not something I expect to see happen too often.
Pep has already made it clear that we will concede goals and he doesn't get hung up on clean sheets. In fact he said he wasn't bothered about them at all in one of his press conferences recently and puts far more emphasis on us creating and scoring more than the opposition as that's what wins games.
Sure, we'll unlikely be the solid unit we were under Mancini and to a lesser extent Pelligrini but then that's to be expected when you have a manager who sets up a team the way Pep does.
Regardless, I'm not having that we're 'poor' defensively which was what I was answering to in my original post.
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Hahahaha.

we'll unlikely be the solid unit we were under Mancini and to a lesser extent Pelligrini but then that's to be expected when you have a manager who sets up a team the way Pep does.
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Hahahahaha

You need to stop listening to the shit punditry going around at the moment that we're going to be vulnerable in defence. It's wishful thinking from people that don't know anything about Guardiola and it's the same people who said he'd struggle in England.

Guardiola has managed 7 seasons of football, he's had the best defensive record in every season he's ever played - including the 2 seasons in La Liga against coaches like Mourinho and Simeone who are known for their teams brilliant defences. In 11/12 Barcelona conceded 50% fewer goals than Mourinho's team.

And you think we won't be the "solid unit" we were under Pellegirini - that actually made me laugh out loud.

Guardiola's game plan, the way he sets up, the whole positional play system - it's all to do with structure, so that we are incredibly hard to score against. His much talked about "15 pass rule" is there so that when you lose the ball everyone is in position to defend effectively.

Take a minute to actually think of the goals we've conceded in the league. There's been 4 of them.

1 from a bullshit penalty. 2 from goalkeeper errors we can attribute to Bravo being late to arrive. 1 from Defoe.

The goalkeeping errors will go away. Bravo didn't win 2 Copa America's without being able to catch a cross. The bullshit opening day penalty won't happen again, and to be honest even Defoe's goal came in our first game when everyone looked confused about Pep wanted.

How many clear-cut chances are we seeing? Very few.

I would be absolutely amazed if we don't have the best or second best defence in the league this season, and there's absolutely no chance we ever concede 40+ goals like we did under pellegrini. It will probably be more like Mancini's best season - 29.
 
It's still early days to call this. 5 games in last season and the noises then were about how many points we would win the title by. We have beaten relegation fodder so far and Watford showed how poor the rags are. I think we will have too much for Everton but Spuds away will be a good test. They will be hungry and well organised and I think that Poch is probably the best coach in the PL after Pep. Our defence hasn't really been tested yet and will be interesting to see how they handle Lukaku. Love how we are playing and although we might get the odd defeat I'm confident that we will be far more consistent than in previous seasons - difficult to imagine any sustained loss of form from this squad under Pep.
 
domalino said:
Hahahaha.



Hahahahaha

You need to stop listening to the shit punditry going around at the moment that we're going to be vulnerable in defence.

Guardiola has managed 7 seasons of football, he's had the best defensive record in every season he's ever played - including the 2 seasons in La Liga against coaches like Mourinho and Simeone who are known for their teams brilliant defences. In 11/12 Barcelona conceded 50% fewer goals than Mourinho's team.

And you think we won't be the "solid unit" we were under Pellegirini - that actually made me laugh out loud.

Guardiola's game plan, the way he sets up, the whole positional play system - it's all to do with structure, so that we are incredibly hard to score against. His much talked about "15 pass rule" is there so that when you lose the ball everyone is in position to defend effectively.

Take a minute to actually think of the goals we've conceded in the league. There's been 4 of them.

1 from a bullshit penalty. 2 from goalkeeper errors we can attribute to Bravo being late to arrive. 1 from Defoe.

The goalkeeping errors will go away. Bravo didn't win 2 Copa America's without being able to catch a cross. The bullshit opening day penalty won't happen again, and to be honest even Defoe's goal came in our first game when everyone looked confused about Pep wanted.

I would be absolutely amazed if we don't have the best or second best defence in the league this season, and there's absolutely no chance we ever concede 40+ goals like we did under pellegrini. It will probably be more like Mancini's best season - 29.
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Apart from all your laughing which was quite amusing I think you missed the point of my posts completely. I disagreed with the poster who said we were poor defensively. I went on to point out the reasons why as well. In fact your posts pretty much say what I said.
You carry on laughing though mate. Get it out of your system.
 
Pablo1 said:
Apart from all your laughing which was quite amusing I think you missed the point of my posts completely. I disagreed with the poster who said we were poor defensively. I went on to point out the reasons why as well. In fact your posts pretty much say what I said.
You carry on laughing though mate. Get it out of your system.
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I will. Anyone who thinks we won't be the "solid unit" we were under Pellegrini is going to get laughed at for hours.

And anyone who says conceding goals is to be expected with a coach who sets up like Guardiola has no idea how Pep sets his teams up.
 
domalino said:
I will. Anyone who thinks we won't be the "solid unit" we were under Pellegrini is going to get laughed at for hours.

And anyone who says conceding goals is to be expected with a coach who sets up like Guardiola has no idea how Pep sets his teams up.
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Even though Pep came out and said it himself? The Pellegrini comment, I suppose when we factor in the last 18 months could be argued against sure. Laughing just makes you come across as a dick.
 
Curbishley made a a good point yesterday that we must be a nightmare for opposing managers to plan against. Sit back and defend and we'll pass them to death, press forward and we'll catch them on the break. I suspect that the worst option will be to be caught somewhere between the two.

I expect we will eventually be beaten by a team that adopts either the ultra defensive approach, or the go for it approach, and enjoys more than a bit of luck. We might also slip up once or twice over the course of a season as result of the risks we take at the back. But that wouldn't necessarily mean that approach would provide the template for how to beat us. In recent seasons there has been an obvious way to beat City but I don't think that applies anymore.
 
Pablo1 said:
For a defence that isn't that good the goals we've conceded have been a penalty against Stoke and an individual mistake in the Derby which happens. Only the Sunderland goal would I put down to poor defending and with that being the first game of the season it's understandable.
Individually the back four have been outstanding, collectively they're still adapting to a new system. The more minutes together the slicker we will become. The lack of pace in the middle is the only thing that I think it's fair to point out but again, in the system we've adapted I doubt it will be much of an issue - especially with Kompany due back.
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We haven't played any top teams. Our defence is not tested yet. Bravo is not fully settled and Sagna/ Zab at RB doesn't fill me with confidence. Also all this premature talks of us walking the league is freaking me out.
 
pikku said:
We haven't played any top teams. Our defence is not tested yet. Bravo is not fully settled and Sagna/ Zab at RB doesn't fill me with confidence. Also all this premature talks of us walking the league is freaking me out.
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Just enjoy it for what it is. I could understand your reservations about Sagna/Zaba if we were playing with no protection from the midfield as we have done previously but I don't think the problems we incurred then are going to be happening again.
 
Saddleworth2 said:
It's still early days to call this. 5 games in last season and the noises then were about how many points we would win the title by. We have beaten relegation fodder so far and Watford showed how poor the rags are. I think we will have too much for Everton but Spuds away will be a good test. They will be hungry and well organised and I think that Poch is probably the best coach in the PL after Pep. Our defence hasn't really been tested yet and will be interesting to see how they handle Lukaku. Love how we are playing and although we might get the odd defeat I'm confident that we will be far more consistent than in previous seasons - difficult to imagine any sustained loss of form from this squad under Pep.
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Yup. We'll fcuk up on the odd occasion but we've now establishing a system that should be less susceptible to fluctuations in player form than we have become accustomed to.
 
The only way to beat us tactically is to mark the space, ignore the movement and take your chances when you have the ball, it's pretty simple really but then when you defend like this your chances of hurting us in return end up reducing down to zero. Other than that you need to beat us at everything we are strong at which is to keep the ball more, hurt us more and defend better. No team has even come close to that yet, United did in the 2nd half of derby but still you always felt for the chances they had they equally could of conceded as many on the counter as they could ever of scored.

I think the toughest games we will have will be against the enigma managers like Klopp who don't have multi-million £ players but instead players who will do exactly what he wants. Klopp demands energy and he also has the tactical ability behind him to work things out so I think on their own Liverpool will be a tough fixture. I don't think they will be a threat to the title though, they will make mistakes at the back and they are heavily reliant on certain players not getting injured.

The key against us is to defend well and do the damage with the ball but every team has so far underestimated the work rate you need too. The main thing we have shown so far is yes something different tactically but teams have also not been able to deal with the new level of work rate we have put into games. I think we can challenge teams like Barcelona even more because we have just about everything now to give them a proper game. Whether we can defend against Messi, Neymar and co I don't know but at least that part will be down to individual ability and not through lack of trying, that is all Pep wants really.
 
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