Barca v City Post Match Thread

[bearcityblu]

Bit worrying if we try to go toe to toe with Barca at the Etihad and give away possession and easy chances like that to the 3 front players they have running at you. I know it is the way Pep wants to play and you can say we were holding our own till the red card but we need to have more structure and dicipline as a team in big matches like this. Anyway roll on the weekend and lets get a confidence boosting win against Southampton. We desperately need it.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

Admittedly a strange game, but too many silly slips and mistakes to consider ourselves unlucky. Also the ref was lenient with a couple of early Zabaleta challenges.

Plenty of straws to clutch, particularly the way Sterling turned their defence, but once again Silva was ineffective against one of the top teams.
I actually thought we shaped well without Aguero, but somebody needs to bust a gut for the near post.

 

[mat]

There is no defence in the world at this moment that would be able to stop Messi, Neymar and Suarez without parking the bus. They are unstoppable. Even with Kompany we were battered, Boateng was embarrassed as well. The only way is to park the bus as Mourinho does and it would make Smalling look world-class.

*sniff*

 

[BlueMedic]

If barca over water the pitch as they do. Then surely pep knows this and the players should wear the correct boots. Not slip all over the place as they were doing. I did see 1 barca player slip tonight.

Have to say I noticed this too, every couple of minutes one of our players seemed to end up on their ass sliding all over the place, yet they seemed to have no issues. Good job Aguero didn't play, he's usually slipping when no one else in our team is anyway, can't imagine he'd have had much of the match on two legs today.

 

[ballinio]

He's messed up on the keeper situation and should recall Hart.

Agreed...but he wont

 

[Dave S]

Better side until the red card.

tactics spot on and players failed to take the chances again which is a worry and the individual mistakes for their goals are so criminal its almost laughable.

Pep will have learnt so much again about certain players and he is a few months into a 3 year job and this is not his finished side by any means.

Im certainly looking up and not going to get to down about a game against Barca.

Spot on.

 

[Atypical]

Annoying that. City were doing fine until the boo boo.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Game after game? We've lost twice all season, away to Spurs & Barca. Not many teams will travel to those places & pick up points, so no I'd say these "constant errors" are significantly exaggerated. Barca made plenty of errors too today, we just didn't punish. We made 3-4 & conceded 3 goals to it.

Under Pep we're going to play risky football, he has said it many, many times that he won't change that. Think we need to just accept the mistakes & see the positives. We're a work in progress, it was always going to be a transitional season for us & some games yes we'll make costly mistakes that cost us, other games (Gladbach for example) it'll all click & we'll look fantastic.

Here's what I'll ask you, do you think today was worse than our performances against Barca in the past? In past matches it's felt like we've been hammered & Hart has saved us from 6-7 goal one sided beatings. Today it felt like we matched them; was 50:50 possession & we were out-shooting them 2 to one until the sending off.

We made errors for goals in 3 of the last 4 games and against united. Lots of other goals scored against us this season have been easy just like Everton's on saturday. There are way too many for me. It's all very well being pleasing on the eye but these players cannot carry out what Pep wants so it will be yet more changes in personnel needed. It is going to be a transistional season based on this. You can't concede as many stupid goals as we do and keep getting away with it.

Yes we played well until the 2nd goal but frankly after that we were an absolute shambles with 3 of our 4 goals conceded down to errors.

 

[City Raider]

Whats the gaffer had to say then?

 

[Armaan]

Sterling was excellent.

Gives it away way too much and hides quite a lot. Then again our best chances always seem to come from his side!