Barca v City Post Match Thread

We look jumpy as hell fannying around with the ball at the back. There is no point kicking it long as we are a team of midgets but what's the point of a keeper with 'good feet' if those around him look like he's thrown a hand grenade on the floor.

You've answered your own question...
 
I have to say that a couple of United fans I met today were saying that we were doing well and looking good until the sending off. They were right, of course, and it was good to have a sensible discussion with them.
Spoke to one today who said it was never a 4-0 game , but when you make mistakes against a team of that quality then you will pay for it .
 
Disappointed about last nights game, But I don't think I've see a game were City have had no luck at all, Even with 10 men Barca didn't really " battered us" .The keeper get's a red card, but we also lose Zaba at the same time, so a reshuffled defence didn't help, and I think if you start losing the ball in dangerous areas or giving the ball away with bad back passes you're going to lose, any teams are going to beat you never mind one of the top teams in Europe. Last night Barca took their chances and we didn't . Also a possible penalty right on half time could of changed the game ? Like I said we had no luck at all.
ps What I do find funny is, we beat Stoke away 4:1 and the result "flattered" us, yet last night we got beat away 4:0 and we got "battered" with us matching or if not better then Barca in the some parts of the game.
 
Much of the argument about who deserved more yellow cards, who the real simulators are, how good a lad who couldn't play last night because he's playing in Brazil until December is, is fairly sterile and doesn't take us very far. Nor does the continuing debate about Joe Hart: Claudio Bravo is our 'keeper and will be for the foreseeable future because Pep trusts him to play the game the way Pep wants it played. That's good enough for me even though there will be mistakes in key areas of the pitch along the way. My own view is actually that this oft repeated idea that Pep wants a 'keeper who is "good with his feet" is only such a small part of Pep's belief that it is almost nonsense: I suspect Pep wants a 'keeper who is "good in his head" ie has the vision and understanding of the game to play passes to players in space who can get City moving forward quickly, as well as being an excellent "shot stopper". Last night,tragically, Claudio was, on one occasion, a long way short of this and played a ball which got Barca having a pot shot at our undefended goal. One hell of an error, but only one of several errors which led directly to goals: KdB tried a far too clever little pass 35 yards out in the centre, gave the ball away and they scored, as did Gundogan when he passed to the right of a John Stones already committed to moving to his left and Messi got his hat trick. Now I think both KdB and Gundogan are exceptional players and they are not bottlers. What I do think is that we are actually realising the limits of what Pep has managed to achieve in little more than 3 months: we cannot yet move the ball at the speed Pep wants and top class European football demands. We get away with a degree of inaccuracy on wet and windy Wednesdays at Stoke or against Bournemouth at the Etihad and even against the mighty reds at the theatre of dreams: but when inaccurate passes give the ball to Suarez and Neymar with their little Argentinian mate strutting about in the middle there's no chance you get away with it.

It isn't that last night's result doesn't rankle and it's not that we're not smarting at it. I was looking forward to the game all day yesterday, now I'm thoroughly irritable. I certainly don't feel like being generous to Barcelona players, but I have to admit that, thank God, there aren't any like those front three anywhere else and we'll have to get on with developing the "Pep way" this season. And along with the spectacular short fall last night also showed the very real progress that's been made. It's hard to see good in a 4-0 but good there was.
Great post Mate.
 
Having had some time to reflect on my feelings, I think this is the most gutting defeat we've had from Barcelona because it's the best we've played against them performance wise yet it's turned out to be our heaviest competitive defeat from them too and nobody will remember the first 60mins where we more than matched them tactically and created more chances than them... just doesn't seem fair but that's football.

Time to dust ourselves off and go again, our luck has to change and we need to remember despite the results we're not playing badly... if it does start to affect our performances then we can worry(I don't think Pep will let that happen though thankfully) until then it's keep your heads up and keep pushing and the tide will turn.

In other words stay positive and help the team through it in any way we can no matter how small it may seem... it's better than a negative meltdown creating a toxic atmosphere. We're top of the league, playing well, not perfect but still playing well enough to win most games bar Spurs and Barca which by coincidence both defeats started by goals from unlucky mistakes Kolarovs miskick could have gone anywhere and Fernandinhos slip could not have come at a worse time. Both quality teams you don't want to be giving a lead away to, it makes you wonder what if we scored first from a slice of a good luck would we still have lost those games? I don't think we would have because we weren't poor in either game and conceding goals in that way can affect the best of teams.
 
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Scary thing is barca were poor last night and still won 4-0 still don't think we are far behind them and fancy us to beat them at ours
 
Scary thing is barca were poor last night and still won 4-0 still don't think we are far behind them and fancy us to beat them at ours
They might not have been at their best but we deserve more credit than that, they looked poor because we forced those mistakes by limiting their options... how many times did Ter Stegan have to kick it into touch? That was our doing and that was just one of the more obvious examples, it was happening across the whole pitch imo.
 
Never felt so confident we will do them at home as after last night. I thought we were the better team until clown head in net did what half the fans knew was coming sooner or later. However I really believe we more than matched them and most of our chances were created by us where as most of theirs were also created by us.
 

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