Arsenal - Post match thread

[CitizenTID]

So the "snub" to the manager is now also a snub to the players like KDB and Kun who may leave on account of it.
I think the players are sophisticated enough to understand. Joe certainly seems to get it.
Hopefully they're the type of players to put it right rather than get so offended.

I have a huge amount of respect for Silva and Aguero for not leaving already. They could easily have got a move to a Real, Barca or Bayern if they'd wanted to make it happen and could each have a CL medal by now but they give the impression they've never even thought about wanting a move.

A stark contrast to Yaya who had built himself a legend status and then totally ruined it by taking the piss out the club (and in turn, the fans) every summer before doing it on the pitch with his pathetic efforts. A man who a few years ago was saying how he wanted to end his career at City and take us to new heights before the first summer his nob agent started spouting off properly.

 

[Bellamy's Caddy]

You are right on some aspects but its not always been claps all around and well done players whatever league we were in. There have been plenty of toxic atmospheres in the past involving our games where the fans haven't liked what they have been seeing.

Blackburn away in the cup in 07 was one such match when I have never heard so much abuse towards players at the end. Barton, who actually was one of the only ones putting a shift in that day almost got lynched when he came over and there are plenty of other examples.

Yesterday was a culmination of a season and a half of watching the same mistakes happen over and over again and the manager not doing anything to rectify it over and over again.

He gambled at Southampton which was not universally accepted and his gamble backfired on him yesterday.

Yeah, I get what you're saying RE repeats of the same mistakes. I've read a few people say yesterday kind of summed up Pellegrini's time in charge and it is hard to disagree.

I guess I was a bit surprised that given some of the lows we've seen as a club that so many people looked back on three years and a few trophies with such disdain. I know we're relying on a favour from West Ham and even then we would need to beat Swansea, but we could still finish in the top 4 yet. If we do, has the season really been that bad?

I do agree with a point someone else made on here that the club handled yesterday badly. An announcement for Pellegrini before kick off a round of applause. Job done.

 

[cleavers]

It concerns me that yesterday might not be a one off. What happens if Guardiola doesn't get to grips with the league straight away, or it takes a while for a few new signings to gel? We are getting the most sought after manager in world football. The man who could get any job has chosen to work for Manchester City - that is how highly our club is now rated! Who knows what Guardiola will have made of the post-match scenes yesterday, but he can’t have been impressed. We bemoan the media coverage that the club and even our fans receive, yet yesterday we gave them the opportunity to justify everything they have ever said about us.

Good post all round, but this bit in particular.

I'm sure Guardiola won't have given it much thought though. He'll know that football supporters are fickle, and he'll understand the frustration at what has in league terms been a poor season for this squad.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Blackburn finished 7th the year after winning it best Chavs can do is 9th where they are now
Could drop further

Yeah your right - I was getting confused with Leeds in 92-93 who finished 17th on 51 pts having played 42 games.
Which is the worst TITLE defence in the Premier League era, just not a defence of the Premier League title (they were defending the last Div One title prior to the Premier League).

Incidentally, using 3 points for a win, Birmingham City (who finished 18th) would have gone down instead of us in 1938 on 48 points as opposed to our (and west Brom's) 50. Ours would still be the worst tile defence though by 1 point (Leeds 51 points to our 50).

 

[CitizenTID]

With time to reflect on the 'appreciation debacle' where I left at FT with my dad who was unwell from before the game - I've felt really quite bad for Manuel after seeing how gutted he looked at the lack of fans left in the stadium - on the flip side, I've thought, you can't let Pellegrini's 'nice guy' image paper over the large cracks that have been allowed to widen over the last 18 months. Some of the blame has to fall at Txiki's feet for poor management of the situation and lack of action - alright, if he didn't want to sack the manager, he had to put more pressure on him to do something about the downward slope the fans have seen a mile off, or even work something out to motivate the players (even if that meant talking to them himself). You cannot fault the effort the players gave in that game, we we're left open to Arsenal's clinical finishing like earlier in the season and it wouldn't be unfair to say on the balance of both games they didn't deserve more than a single point from us this season - though with a win, as has been pointed out 50k might have stayed, it wasn't down to that game why the majority of fans left unappreciative.

Whilst it's also harsh on the players who always give their all for the shirt but are frustrated by the others' not stepping up to the plate, the walk-out reflected the appreciation some of the players have shown us this season in their lack of fight and desire to win for us, besides the lack of passion, anger or any emotion whatsoever Pellegrini displays in public (on the touchline) with the players who are clearly not putting in the normal amount of effort expected. Even from the top down, there seems to be a lack of any fear factor, anyone displaying the passion needed to get some motivation into the players - this is why personally, Guardiola will be such a welcome sight on the touchline from next year. It's quite clear that whether we finish top or bottom, all our fans expect of our players is effort - Sunday was the result of a lot of bad feeling that has quietly simmered amongst a lot of our fans for some time (going back to being battered by a very poor United side last season, and the numerous other battering since then - which NEVER happened under Mancini) and come up at once in an en-masse knee jerk reaction; a result of CL qualification being out of our hands because this has been allowed to happen despite being SO preventable and foreseeable for so long - this is just unacceptable from the position we're in nowadays, with pressure from the footballing world to perform as a top club on the world stage. The pathetic display in Madrid becomes embarrassing because of this and we take the flak as fans from other fans, which I guess is why our fans appear to others to have 'changed'. Yes, we all regularly remind ourselves of where we came from and the debt of loyalty we owe to the Sheikh but us City fans can see through all this matey 'yes man' (holistic bollocks) routine with Pellegrini that has been allowed continuous excuses for exceedingly poor performances regarding the playing side of things, but not just from the players themselves.

Pellegrini's first season: there were a lot of Mancini vs. Pellegrini posts on here and after Pellegrini's time, it's quite clear who has won that debate. Mancini might have been more of a dictator (like Fergie AND like Guardiola despite Pep's experience working in a 'holistic' system) but that is definitely not a bad thing - he had a vision and the winning mentality to achieve it but was let down in THAT transfer window and didn't fit Txiki's vision which ultimately trumped his due to his seniority in the organisation.

We're very much a working class club and we connect with passion and effort, that's all we expect. Kompany seems to be very in tune with the views of the average City fan, no doubt from his manc wife and her family - however it gets there, I hope the club and the people making the decisions (Khaldoon, Txiki, Soriano) gets the accurate message from this incident and don't misinterpret it.

 

[East Level 2]

Having read this entire thread, have to say I'm embarrassed to be considered "a fan" with half of you. Spoiled fucking brats who seem to think they are owed something the team was unable to bring them. Manchester City is not a player, a manager, a stadium or even a rich oil sheikh owner, it is something that is INSIDE YOU...unless you are a recently minted plastic, who has only known the up and up, and who thinks we are somehow entitled to win silverware every year. There are three pots to go around, four/five if you include the CL/EL trophies, and in the last few years we have won them all. What have our closest rivals done? United? One Prem. Chelsea? Top 10 finish this year as defending champions, which is the worst EVER defence of the title. Arsenal? Party when they get 4th and finally won a pot. Liverpool? Gaga over Klopp, because he might win the EL, which is the only way they are getting back to the CL for the past umpteen years.

Sadly, Mancunians seem to always revert to type when they don't get their own way. Winning? Life is good, the Sheikh's millions are giving us what we want, and the team are world beaters. Losing? Fuck the world, what is the Khaldoon-Txiki-Ferran triumvirate doing, and the players are "a bunch of lazy mercenaries who make more in a week than I do in a couple of years!"

Fucking joke! Either you are a REAL supporter, who does their best to go to games, supports the team to the hilt, accepts that not every game is going to light up your world, and even accepts that occasionally someone is going to beat you OR you are a whiny woman plastic fan (who may have only latched on to City for the recent glory) who cannot put up with an off season, where we only won one trophy, went further in the top European competition than ever before, but MIGHT have come up short for the CL, even though we are ALREADY ASSURED OF EUROPEAN FOOTBALL NEXT SEASON! Cry me a river, you fucking plastics! You don't deserve the world class players who have been wearing sky blue recently!

Been watching City for the best part of 50 years and, apart from a period in the late 60's and early 70's, this is the golden age of Manchester City's footballing history. In fact, it is multiple times better, but I suppose I'm just a bit nostalgic for the local lads who made up that team, as that was when we became the club I adore.

If you are a City fan, you sing and support the team through thick and thin, and, at a minimum, you stay until the end on the last game of the season and clap off the players for doing the best they could for you...which has been pretty damn good for quite a few years now!

This thread is a joke, but it perfectly illustrates everything wrong with the City fan base, and why the Etihad rarely feels like the fortress it should. I'm not just some happy clapper who blindly supports dross, and I've done my share of moaning at a player or two depending upon the game and perceived effort, but I have NEVER booed a player in sky blue, I rise to clap them off the field regardless of the quality of their performance, and I only wish I had been watching this quality of football for the previous five decades.

Roll on next season...

Utter shite.
I cheered them all the way to the bloody third division. I accepted they were crap because the players and most managers were crap.
And I cheered them yesterday and I'll cheer them for 90 minutes next Sunday. But I'll cheer them how and when I want.
We've had a shit season given the talent at our disposal. Point to whatever you will, but failing to beat any of the top eight teams (Saints weren't that high when we beat them), failing to get maximum points from the current bottom three and failing to get back to back PL wins from October to April suggests either the players or the manager is a bit shit. And as most of the players are still being called up for internationals I'm suggesting it could be the fault of the manager. We have 14 fewer points than last season, 22 fewer than when we won the title in 2014, 13 fewer than 2013 and 24 fewer than in 2012.
Pellegrini has taken us backwards. Whether you believe the Catalan Clowns share the blame is not the point. Pellers is the guy than won't make changes until it's too late. Yesterday it was clear Arsenal were taking control in the minutes leading up to their second goal, at Wembley he didn't change anything even though Liverpool were creating more and more. Don't tell me I'm not allowed to complain when I see the vast majority of home and away games and ticket prices have risen around six times the rate of inflation over the past few decades.

 

[East Level 2]

Chelsea? Top 10 finish this year as defending champions, which is the worst EVER defence of the title.

Don't know much about our history do you?

 

[Dribble]

Like you I have never wanted City to lose a game. But the truth is that the team has been in decline for 18 months. Why MP was not replaced last summer I will never know. When the decision was made to get rid of Mancini we should have expected an upgrade. The truth is despite significant money being spent we went down hill.

Yesterday epitomised the Pellegrini reign perfectly:

- a good first half from the team before we died on our arse as we have done many other times this season. A number of players are clearly not fit enough.
- 2 comical goals conceded. The first one was poor enough from Clichy before the lack of defending from the corner. How many times have we seen that! And then the second goal when a flagging Fernandinho couldn't keep up with Sanchez and our defence parted like the Red Sea.
- as soon as we scored the second goal every single fan in that ground would have replaced a struggling Iheanacho with Delph. Instead MP waits and waits and makes a change too late.
- and don't even get me started on the introductions of Bony and Yaya. Our most dangerous attacking player KDB was stuck on the wing for most of the game rather than being given the chance to play off aguero.

I could go on but we have been cheated by a manager well and truly out of his depth. This will be evidenced by his next job. In no way will he get a chance at a top club again.

I doubt very much Pellegrini will try to emulate what he's attempted at Manchester City anywhere else. I reckon you'll see a set up more akin to how we play in Europe under him now when he gets another club. It's taken 3 years but the ashen look on his face yesterday spoke volumes, I honestly don't think he had a clue about the strong feelings the fans had against the way he's managed us during his tenure.

I felt sorry for him because the deluded look on his face would suggest he honestly saw no wrong with what he was doing and he probably thought the fans were all on board with him too. Just because we haven't hired planes to fly Pellegrini out banners over the Etihad on matchdays and the fans haven't protested against him didn't mean we weren't mostly deeply dissatisfied with him.

I think we'll all watch with interest to see which Pellegrini turns up at his next managerial appointment.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Yeah, I get what you're saying RE repeats of the same mistakes. I've read a few people say yesterday kind of summed up Pellegrini's time in charge and it is hard to disagree.

I guess I was a bit surprised that given some of the lows we've seen as a club that so many people looked back on three years and a few trophies with such disdain. I know we're relying on a favour from West Ham and even then we would need to beat Swansea, but we could still finish in the top 4 yet. If we do, has the season really been that bad?

I do agree with a point someone else made on here that the club handled yesterday badly. An announcement for Pellegrini before kick off a round of applause. Job done.

It's no surprise that is really. Our PR is a shambles at times. I agree though.

 

[levets]

But it's not the worst defence if the Premier League. That honour belongs to Blackburn.

Wrong! Was Blackburn... Now Chelsea