At the moment, the defenders aren't playing with any confidence, and the chopping and changing of formation just makes things worse. If we hadn't conceded a flukey 3rd goal last night,we may have turned it round, but, we conceded it, so the rest is history.
The worst thing for me was to change the formation at all when Mancini didn't need to. It was a knee jerk reaction to a bad second goal, which resulted from the zonal marking system - again - and players not attacking the ball as it came in. The ball wasn't quite in their area so they didn't move towards it and take responsibility - that for me was a sign of a lack of confidence. I'm not sure who all the 3 were, but the 3 players at the near post area could have reacted quicker, 2 of them were Lescott and Toure. They were ball watching instead of being aware of where their runners were. The guy who scored was unmarked on his run, and on his header - which was only just powerful enough to get over the line - an easy clearance for Clichy - as was identitfied on TV, if Clichy had been a yard nearer the goal - he was in no man's land, and again, could have taken the initiative and moved back a little once he had seen that the corner was going in to the near post.
At the time, I thought that maybe he took off Lescott because he was blaming him for the goal - to me, he hasn't got confidence in Lescott anymore. Personally, I've had more confidence in Lescott defensively than Kompany so far this season.
Anyway, my point is, we were in the ascendancy at the beginning of the second half. We conceded that poor goal NOT through any defect in our formation, and therefore a change of formation wasn't required imho.
The change which followed undermined us because it appeared to be unpopular with the players. Kompany wasn't having a good match - again - and Lescott's removal put more pressure on him. I thought Yaya got into a worsening strop as the game went on after his injury and wasn't having a good game - neither was Barry - so the middle was going to get exposed more by the change, and Ajax are clever enough to expose weaknesses. True enough, they did so - but the 3rd goal itself was very flukey. Sadly, that kind of thing happens when you're under pressure. Players slip - as Kompany is prone to do when he's under pressure. The centre opened up for the Ajax guy; he shot; Clichy as last man in the middle (where he shouldn't ever have to be, ideally), sticks out his bad foot and deflects it past Hart.
I'd love to say 'You couldn't make it up' but obviously as it's City, shit happens. Their first was a great goal, and bang on half time. We came out all guns blazing, but didn't really look like scoring. Then we conceded 2 very bad - soft - goals.
I have more issues about the formation than the 3 at the back, but everyone sees these things differently, and Mancini knows a lot more than I ever will. Despite the fact that I like Mancini, he is looking increasingly like Mr Hapless in Europe to the outside world. City lost from a winning position - again - and now they won't be confident should they get in a winning position again in this group. If he turns it round this season in the Champs League, I'm a Dutchman!
Hopefully, he'll live and learn, win us the Premier League again, and we can do better next year - 3rd time lucky.
