Shakhtar Donetsk (H) CL Post-Match Thread

PEP I'm delighted to be in next round. It was more difficult than people think. Sometimes the opponent has to come here and play. They have a lot of quality and important players. The second half was good. First half - a little bit of problems.
 
worst game of the season for me ? but city did what they set out to do before kick off and win the group tonight and nothing more ?? maybe just getting this year over will be a blessing and the transfer window open on 1st January can not come quicker enough for me. i hope to god we already have a couple of irons in the fire because we need a big lift and fresh blood to rotate a already injury hit and tired squad

the injuries have hit us hard in how we rotate and keep players fresh because nobody can have a 25 man squad that can be that good. it will always be a 17 to 18 squad of players of world class level you need to operate at. the rest is mixed with youth and 4 or 5 very good squad players that can cover for 3 or 4 games or play in different roles

so no moaning from me tonight and city win the group and that's all you can ask for at this stage of the season and regroup in feb 2020 for the knockouts. good crowd tonight and city must have done a lot of promotion and freebies with the schools kids. and i loved the kids in the back of the south stand singing the blues on

was very nice of the club to group them together and some work on the songs was do in school made me feel blessed to be a city fan
 
Metalartin said:
Lets get some perspective here, flat performance it may have been but this was a game we knew we didn't have to win before kickoff. Some may argue that's two poor performances back to back, but we got the outcomes we wanted from both games.

We needed 3 points and deserved to get them in the end on chances created at the weekend, we probably only deserved a draw at best tonight(you're not telling me they played expansive football as BT tried to make out) but we have guaranteed top spot with that result tonight. Under Pep, CL performances anywhere near that flat are few and far between, some of our very best performances come in that competition in fact.

Pep did say the players were tired after Saturdays game and needed an extra days rest. I can't remember a team in the PL that has entertained, played with such high intensity and won so many games without any compromise for 2 seasons straight(it's usually win at all costs "the sign of champions tm"). I think Pep is having to put out fires in too many places at the moment, injuries, unable to play a consistent back 4, fatigue(possibly linked to the past two seasons), players out of form, the teams press deteriorating as a result of the former issues raised.

It stands to reason there's only so much Pep can do to stop injuries, other than try an make sure fatigue isn't a big factor. The answer for fatigue is to rest more train less, but that comes with it's side effects I would have thought. I think if they are fatigued, we should rest them as much as we can before the fixtures really start to pile up. The way some go on in the match threads, they think the players have infinite reserves, they'd burn them out by September.
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I get your points and agree. But you have to ask why play Kev or sterling tonight. I’d be happy to rest them both. Play foden & give Mahrez some game time. Pep seems to be making it harder for himself this season. As you say we didn’t need to win it so why risk 2 key attacking players ? Makes no sense
 
Some truly shocking performances and if anyone can support Gundogan then can I ask that you seek serious medical help.
I accept that he was not alone and I have to say that I can`t remember slagging off Pep before,but by fuck he dropped a few bollocks tonight.
Thankfully we make progress as Group Winners but by fuck tonight we got lucky.
 
tommo74 said:
I think you might underestimate the influence Vinny had off the field as much as on the field
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It is very difficult to replace people like Vinny. He put his all into the run in but he had to go some time. He wanted the anderlecht challenge and fair play to him.

You can’t buy in a leader (or rarely). You hope that one emerges through the ranks that has learned by example. No one (for me) has stepped forward yet.
 
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