Spurs vs City post match

[Mike N]

While I'm thinking, is there a bigger cheat in the league than Danny Rose?

 

[Walking on the blue moon]

Sorry if it had been posted, but I thought this is a pretty good analysis of the match by Michael Cox.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...iola-eriksen-spurs-manchester-city?CMP=twt_gu

We did have a plan B, but it was probably implemented too late and it should have been plan A when we are missing players like KDB and Nolito. Though perhaps if we hadn't tried the original plan first, we wouldn't have known it wouldn't work.

Anyways, it is better that we lose and learn a lesson in October than pay the price in December or February.

 

[Colin Bells Boots]

Rose was a twat in the game at the Etihad last season too.

 

[MarsLlama]

While I'm thinking, is there a bigger cheat in the league than Danny Rose?

Sky Sports love the prick- three times they elected to show a five second close-up of him writhing on the ground instead of the City attack that was going on at the time.

I love Pep but I think he needs to take some of the blame for the loss. We knew Tottenham would press high and be physical before the game and not a lot was done tactically to combat that. We also knew that Tottenham have the two quickest fullbacks in the league and we started our two slower and often less reliable ones.

Sick of everyone saying that Bravo looks uncomfortable when in fact he is playing in exactly the same way he has for years. So what if Son gets really close to him before he clears? That's the fucking point. Very rarely does he make an actual mistake doing that and the booing of the Tottenham fans won't affect him, he's used to it. Not enough credit for the penalty save either.

I also think Nolito was nearly as big a miss as De Bruyne. Still a bit pissed off at him for that moment of complete stupidity against Bournemouth- I don't think it was a red but that's beside the point, it was still a stupid risk.

 

[simon23]

Agreed the defence had a poor game but we cannot depend on Kompany, he wont last half a season, what was missing was De Bruyne for me and getting caught in possession was a real problem, once they get the fitness and are quicker to offload the passes, it will come, too many players need too many touches to control the ball hampered us big time, Fernando in particular guilty of that.

6 wins and a loss is still a fantastic start and one we would have all settled for at the start of the season, Pep Included.

the defence did have a poor gambit it wasn't purely down to this...the selection of fernando and navas did us no favours

 

[blue62]

Thought the game highlighted a lack of balance in the squad:

Sterling / Navas / Sane fighting it out for 1 position on right-wing
The moment we lose Nolito - our lack of options for left wing ends up with Sterling / Navas looking less effective there
Gabriel Jesus will partially address this when he arrives, but given difference in team ethic + tactics since MP left, I would have preferred Pep to ask Nasri to stay + assess what he can do.
If other players have improved under Pep - why not Nasri who can play both left + more centrally with level of ball retention that Pep Loves.

Surprised Sagna + Clichy didn't start.
Is Pep really saying that Zabaleta + AK are our first choice full-backs in a difficult away game?
I don't particularly like Walker at RB for Spurs but I thought his aggression from the first whistle set a tempo / benchmark for Spurs that we struggled to match.

The fact that he started Zabs & AK tells you what he thinks about Sagna/Clichy. Yesterday he will have learned more in defeat. None of our current fb's are the answer in any particular combination. Minimum 2 new fb's required and don't expect new contracts Zab, Sagna or Clichy they will all be released in summer.

 

[Mike N]

Rose was a twat in the game at the Etihad last season too.

The scream he let out says it all about him.

 

[bondsman]

Just read a statistic in the Mail that said we have only won 39% of games when the two Ferns play together, and won 73% when they don't, interesting :-)

Don't need stats to argue Fernando should not be starting.

 

[kaz7]

I was very surprised he went with zabba and nando,both too slow against a young fit team and didn't change it before he did,it was like last year all over again

 

[pml79]

I was very surprised he went with zabba and nando,both too slow against a young fit team and didn't change it before he did,it was like last year all over again

Maybe pep was trying to prove a point or finally show to the top brass what we need or what Pep needs carnt see him doing the same against Liverpool n arsenal who I think are the other two away games we will get beat

 

[kaz7]

Maybe pep was trying to prove a point or finally show to the top brass what we need or what Pep needs carnt see him doing the same against Liverpool n arsenal who I think are the other two away games we will get beat

I expect he talks to txiki and soriano all the time so i don't think he needs to show them like that,maybe he didn't hook aleks or zabba because he wants them to overcome problems themselves but you can't give zab back his legs and once aleks head was gone then it was gone,i hope to not see that again,barca will have a field day otherwise

 

[gkmcfc]

Sky Sports love the prick- three times they elected to show a five second close-up of him writhing on the ground instead of the City attack that was going on at the time.

I love Pep but I think he needs to take some of the blame for the loss. We knew Tottenham would press high and be physical before the game and not a lot was done tactically to combat that. We also knew that Tottenham have the two quickest fullbacks in the league and we started our two slower and often less reliable ones.

Sick of everyone saying that Bravo looks uncomfortable when in fact he is playing in exactly the same way he has for years. So what if Son gets really close to him before he clears? That's the fucking point. Very rarely does he make an actual mistake doing that and the booing of the Tottenham fans won't affect him, he's used to it. Not enough credit for the penalty save either.

I also think Nolito was nearly as big a miss as De Bruyne. Still a bit pissed off at him for that moment of complete stupidity against Bournemouth- I don't think it was a red but that's beside the point, it was still a stupid risk.

So true. There were a couple of situations where perhaps our defenders put him under undue pressure and perhaps we're picking the back pass option a little too much. That's gonna be a learning curve across the board but we can't blame Bravo when that happens. Culturally fans aren't used to teams playing that way and naturally will get excited when they see us doing it. They'll expect their forwards to close him down fast and we gonna have to get used to teams doing it. I honestly felt a goal for us in the second half would've made it interesting as it wouldve put some doubt in the minds of the Spurs players but sadly it wasn't to be.

 

[Vic]

Just been slow-moing MotD2 - foul on Fernando before the own goal.

 

[waspish]

Just been slow-moing MotD2 - foul on Fernando before the own goal.

And thats what referees can do let tackles like that go and blow up for similar against us the fucking cheats.

 

[fatbloke]

I wouldn't call spurs a very very good team (they are no better than us) - we actually played the better football but they hit us where its clear we are weak. Lots of people said it before the game. What Pep needs to do if he cant change the personnel (which he cant at present and in the future if he has to play those same combo of players again) is to play in a different way out at least ask certain players to do some things different - Im hoping this is what he will do as if he doesn't Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal will all have a field day against us.

You cannot ask fernando to play out from the back...he is so slow he gets caught out...also it causes a problem for the centre halves as his movement ahead of them when they have the ball at the back isn't good enough.

Kolorov at left back needs to be told to concentrate on defending . I think he has always been overrated as an attacking influence but that aside both our fullbacks were pushing so high up the pitch that when we lost the ball they couldn't recover...these movements forward need to be tempered at least as it leaves us wide open......again against better teams who are going to rob us of possession in the centre circles the full backs should be further back than this at this point (against the weaker teams its not necessary but against spurs etc it is) - so there starting positions at certain points in certain games needs to change.

When we play navas he needs to be told to stop coming inside...he wastes everything and slow s everything down (strange for a player of such pace - well not that strange looking at his decision making!) He is so wasteful....when we break he should immediately break high and wide but he doesn't always do that and often gets in the way in central positions. Im also not sure what he was doing defensively yesterday as he offered no cover for Zabaleta. (this is not usually a problem with Navas)

The biggest single problem however is fernando in midfield as it has a knock on effect al over the rest of the pitch from the back four having less options to pass to, to this then isolating david silva (especially combined to when KDB doesn't play) to losing the ball int he centre circle simply because he isn't mobile enough and not quick enough of thought.

Pep needs to change things to sort out this. I don't know if Garcia is ready (my guess is not quite) which is a shame.....yaya isn't an option despite the ongoing feud with he agent as he would potentially have the same problems (though at least his use of the ball is better.) moving sterling inside into the kdb role is one option..it frees up fernandihnio to do the job fernando was trying to do...the one we have seen ferna do very well where he drops between the centre halves.....sterlings movement should be good enough to give options to pass to.

He could have started Sane yesterday...(though I'm not sure about this lad yet) and moved sterling inside - or vice versa) to play instead of kdb/..but pep chose to move ferna up and put fernando at the base of his midfield..this is where we lost it in the main along with the basic school by defending of Kolorov who for a pro not being able to use his right foot is shocking....2 goals in two games purely cause of that.

Give it a fucking rest pal.

 

[simon23]

Give it a fucking rest pal.

give what a rest..oh you mean an opinion that might differ from yours....no thanks ill continue.

In no way am i criticising Pep...for me the guy is awesome and I don't care where we finish, I hope he stays for life regardless of what happens. But we are here to discuss football and tactics/opinions so if you cant handle that then fair enough but you are in the wrong place Im afraid.

 

[GaudinoMotors]

give what a rest..oh you mean an opinion that might differ from yours....no thanks ill continue.

In no way am i criticising Pep...for me the guy is awesome and I don't care where we finish, I hope he stays for life regardless of what happens. But we are here to discuss football and tactics/opinions so if you cant handle that then fair enough but you are in the wrong place Im afraid.

Are you a sixth former?

 

[malg]

Phew, just back from a weekend away. Did we lose?

 

[simon23]

Are you a sixth former?

Now I am lost...what is your problem

I haven't slagged off pep...even he said he would have done things differently looking back so Im not sure why people are jumping on what was said. Like i said i want to discuss football and I can deal with differing opinions and people that don't agree...but I just don't get people who want to have a go at others for their opinions....I wonder what that says about them?

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

It's annoying but at 2-0 up it's what needs to be done sometimes. Wish we would do it more often to kill off games when leading.

We can't employ those tactics as we get bookings far too easy. We'd lose players, too.