CityFan94 said:
Disappointing result.
Bayern had Ribery, Robben, Schweinsteiger, Martinez and Thiego all missing from their midfield, yet still dominated large parts of the game.
I think we're best when we control the tempo of the game and have a lot of the ball. I don't see us being a counter attacking team, it simply doesn't suit our players. When you start a team with Silva and Nasri, you should be looking to dominate possession, not counter attack - which seemed to be our gameplan last night.
We almost look a little confused at times in the CL to what our tactics are. In the Premiership it's always the same; high defensive line, dominate possession, small quick passes between the likes of Silva, Nasri and Yaya with 2 attacking full backs supplying the width. I don't think we followed that blueprint much last night. For example, our full backs did absolutely nothing going forward IMO. Compare that to when Kolarov and Zabaleta start - they're a huge part of our team.
The subs didn't help last night. I thought we should have taken Yaya and Nasri off and put on Milner and Kolarov. We'd then go to a 4-4-1-1 with a midfield of Navas-Milner-Fernandinho-Kolarov with Silva behind Dzeko. Aguero on for Dzeko in a straight swap, no change to the system. Confident we would have got a draw with that changes.
Keeping Yaya on was a bit ridiculous. We all know how good Yaya was last season, but he was really poor last night. He could barely run in the second half! Not subbing Yaya also forced Silva out to the left where he's known to be weak defensively. Silva should have been kept in the number 10 role and Yaya should have been subbed.
0-0 would have been a decent result if we had held on. Bayern had a lot of players out, but Zabaleta, Fernando and Jovetic would have been big players for us last night - Fernando especially. With those 3 out, I would have been pretty happy for a draw.
What a great post.
I agree that if we are going to play on the counter attack, Nasri is not really suited to it. While Milner is clearly an inferior player technically to Nasri, he's far more suited to playing on the break. Better defensively, and more pacy and direct when we have the ball.
Before the game I predicted we'd bring Milner on as a D Mid, move Yaya to number 10 and bring Aguero on at about 70 minutes. We did both of those things, and I think they were the right call as we were likely to be able to catch Bayern on the break as the game became stretch towards the end. We'd kept it pretty tight up until that point, so it seemed the game plan was working out perfectly.
However, after 75 - 80 minutes it became clear that Yaya was absolutely out on his feet. Whether that was a lack of fitness or lack of motivation, or both, I am not sure. When it became clear that Yaya was strolling, I thought the obvious choice was to bring him off for Kolarov and put Silva back in the middle. When he brought Navas off, I was screaming at the TV, I couldn't believe it. Navas looked far more fresh, was defending well, and his pace gave us a real threat on the break, while Yaya was a passenger.
After Kolarov came on we had dropped so deep that we just invited all of the pressure on us. We didn't have Navas' or Yaya's threat on the break, so Bayern just ploughed forward knowing they could risk throwing everything at us, and that they would not be vulnerable to the counter.
The goal came because no one was picking up Boateng, in an area that Navas would have been defending. It is anyone's guess who was supposed to be occupying that man / space, but Silva was picking up someone else, Kolarov and Yaya were nowhere to be seen. As it was on our right hand side, I'm not sure Kolarov should have been in that area, so it may well have been Yaya's job.
Whoever's job it was, someone fucked up because he was in 5 yards of space from when the corner was taken. Personally I think that final substitution cost us the game. I think all of the substitutions were pretty much pre-determined before the game. I predicted two of them to my pals before the game, and the third one seemed to make no sense whatsoever in the context of how the game was going, how fresh Navas looked, and how tired Yaya looked.
Perhaps Cousillas bottled bringing Yaya off, perhaps the substitutions were pre determined before the game. Whatever the truth I am certain that bringing Navas off and leaving Yaya on was the wrong call.
