A ‘new’ City?

[Dirty Harry]

It's funny because from under 8's in the park to the National Team all try to play Peps way, from the keeper playing out from the back. Not all teams do like dippers and rags but a very high percentage do try Peps way.

Absolutely.
Watched some of the Stockport County/ Bolton game and even they were doing it (trying anyway).

 

[give it to gordon]

Absolutely.
Watched some of the Stockport County/ Bolton game and even they were doing it (trying anyway).

Cracking game that just a shame I forgot about extra time !

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

Over the last month or so we have taken apart Chelski, dippers and raggies. Let’s face it we have had some excellent press about the way that we have played. Even ratface has been eulogising on how good we are, ‘clones of David Silva etc, great academy and so on’. Add to that the public slagging off of the ‘media darlings’. Are we seeing a changing of the guard and a more favourable attitude towards us? Have they seen how we are attracting support, at last, for the football we are playing and we have a rapidly growing supporter base in spite of some of the media doing us down. Are we attracting more viewers on Sly and BT and hence the softening of their attitude towards us. I just sense this is happening.

building is up for a fall i think

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

There is something in what you say but the press will just wait for an opportunity to try to do us down. Since the CAS case, the Grauniad has continued to peddle their shit:
"City were let off on a technicality by a corruptible body".
"City rely on 88% of their sponsorship from related bodies".
"Regular injections of cash from the sovereign wealth fund".
Every single statement is a lie.

All true but these days the Guardian is a fringe product with very little significance. It has a large website with a big overseas audience but it is only read by a small number of people in the UK. Some of their staff have been very hostile towards City but the Guardian is not really a credible source for content and is known to be unreliable. I am more worried by the BBC which is supposed to be impartial and still has a large UK audience for its content. Negative stories by the BBC are more damaging.

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

Absolutely.
Watched some of the Stockport County/ Bolton game and even they were doing it (trying anyway).

even southgate had us playing like that at the world cup

 

[casserole of nonsense]

Cracking game that just a shame I forgot about extra time !

No VAR was such a joy. Ball hits net = instant celebration.

 

[franksinatra]

The opening para of an article I read yesterday...

"Watching manchester city as a neutral can be a relatively joyless experience.
It’s sometimes quite mechanical, often comically one-sided; a style of football to be deeply admired but rarely loved"

I wrote three comments in relation to that article as I really wanted to challenge the author but typically he never responded.

 

[ysmsa]

We are unique in the Premier League as we are the best team at controlling games. I haven't seen any stats but I would think we are the best at restricting chances as we suffocate teams with our possession and recovery.

I was listening to Coady on MOTD2 and he said it is so difficult to play against but so easy for City to carry it out.

Every time a team finds a way to counteract us Pep finds a way to overcome it.

I think as fans we have learnt to accept that we will make endless passes from side to side to move teams around to create the overloads and space.

We are one of those teams that you can only appreciate fully when watching live.

I've completely changed my opinion of Connor Coady after that.

Previously I thought he was just another Dipper but he presented really well, spoke good of us and just came across as a decent likeable bloke.

"without a doubt" :-)

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

We are unique in the Premier League as we are the best team at controlling games. I haven't seen any stats but I would think we are the best at restricting chances as we suffocate teams with our possession and recovery.

I was listening to Coady on MOTD2 and he said it is so difficult to play against but so easy for City to carry it out.

Every time a team finds a way to counteract us Pep finds a way to overcome it.

I think as fans we have learnt to accept that we will make endless passes from side to side to move teams around to create the overloads and space.

We are one of those teams that you can only appreciate fully when watching live.

In the Pep years:
17/18 was the most ENTERTAINING for me as a City fan
18/19 and the 14 game winning run to win the title was the BEST City team from a performance perspective
21/22 has seen PEAK city to date imo in the manner we controlled Chelsea, Liverpool (for a half at least), PSG and United etc.

I've loved some of the recent performances against the big sides. It's impossible not to and Pep's switch from being just the best team at controlling games to an ultra-control syle will potentially elevate us to the best team ever if it concludes with more trophies.

My theory is he is on a mission to "beat" football and his personal fantasy is to restrict all opponents to zero shots on target with the new ultra-control! The insane thing he is getting there and the underlying defensive numbers PL season to date are the best ever seen in any Big 5 European league over the last 10 years (fortunately this is masked by Chelsea who've only let in 4 compared to our 6 but the overall defensive metrics are no where near as good and, in theory should revert to the mean).

A simple flavour of 3 PL defensive metrics season to date:

1. Averaging just 1.83 shots on target against per game (16% better than 18/19 which was itself a record)
2. Averaging less than 1 big chance against per game.
3. Averaging just 0.66 xGA (expected goals against per game)

I agree totally watching live is best to appreciate how good we are and particularly when you look down from above (front of CBL3 is perfect for me).

But there is a but to all this IMO.. being too good doesn't make for excitement and thrills for many neutrals when watching a team in game management mode for long stretches.

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

I wrote three comments in relation to that article as I really wanted to challenge the author but typically he never responded.

Shame.. I can't see the comments because no longer subscribe and they are not shown on archive.ph