Bournemouth (A) | PL | Post Match Thread

[BlueMonkey79]

I can stomach a loss. No problem. We've been there when we've been 10 times the better team over the course of 90 minutes. It happens. It's football.

What's concerning is our general standard of play. It's been disjointed at best. We have seen glimpses of our old self in periods of games this season. But nothing sustained.

Our defensive awareness has been chaotic. And we can't nail it down to certain players. When Walker plays he gets roasted. Then the week after he doesn't play and it's Ruben's fault. Ruben steps out and next it's Rico to blame. Collectively as a team we are so weak defensively. We are conceding the same goals week in week out. Quick break down the side, ball in to the box and it results in the opposition scoring. That needs to stop!!

We usually get away with our defensive frailties because our attack is usually deadly. Now that looks like it has hit a bump in the road. We are used to seeing us create chance after chance after chance. Now we don't really create much. And we have totally abandoned the press. That is non existent. Wether we can't be arsed or have been instructed not to engage high up is another question.

Some serious questions need to be asked now of individuals. Including Pep.

For me now If a player isn't fully fit he doesn't play. Let Mcatee, O Reilly and others cover. They can't do any worse than some of the senior players strolling around the pitch constantly putting in poor performances.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

We were due. Running on fumes, poor performances by too many players, too often.

This early season has exposed the frailty of the squad, and key injuries have only exacerbated that.

If you’d told me we would be 2nd in the Prem, top 8 in the CL, and out of the League Cup, I’d have taken your hand off, especially given the quality of some of the performances we have had this season.

Crazily, they should have won 5-0, yet we could have nicked it 3-2 in the end!!!

City’s problem isn’t losing to Bournemouth, it is the structural deficiencies in the team/squad, and the lack of options of both players and style.

Pep has, to some extent, been left behind by the switch to almost every team setting up as a 4-5-1/5-4-1 and using the fast break against a team he has set up to play 0-2-8 when going forward.

Sadly, we have not refreshed the squad in the areas that have needed it, while not blooding the youngsters that could have helped fill those holes. We have players like the ones brought in at Spurs (O’Reilly, Wright, Simpson-Pusey) who should have been getting more experience, but with every game being a skin-of-the-teeth 1 goal victory, Pep hasn’t had the trust needed to blood them.

Looking at the squad, we need a RB, LB, and CB, 3 MF, and a CF…at a minimum! And, if they were under 25 and could slot right into the team, that’d be great, too!

If Pep leaves with this squad about to shatter, he’ll be doing a Fergie on the next manager, so I hope Hugo Viana has big balls and a big cheque book to take care of the business over the next 2 windows.

The best I think we can hope for is a RB, 2 MFs (1 star, 1 prospect) and a CF, with the current EDS players playing with the team stepping up.

City, eh, never a dull moment! Long may it continue!!!

 

[eyalluvitt]

the reaction of some is laughable, the post Pep years when we do. a spurs, chelsea or arse and fanny about in 4th place for a few years is gonna be the death of some who have become too comfortable with us winning a lot.

I am grateful for the last 10 years, but we cannot be great all of the time, and if we ain't we can still enjoy being blues and our club.

The problem is the more we win the harder it is to lose, used to take them in my stride no problem

 

[cupsforcockups]

Total lack of pace and results in the passive way we are playing, no Rodri with no proper replacement.We must keep faith with the youngsters and bin off Walker and nunes(played ok today but a million miles off the quality we require) but keep the faith.In pep we trust

 

[cleavers]

Well played Bournemouth, deserved their win.

 

[ProofMCFC]

We started the season quite strongly and then came up against a not too bad Brentford side who gave us a game. Since then it's been a bit laborious with a lack of quality. Injuries have obviously not helped but we clearly don't look right. I think it may be a case of trying to hang on in there until some players and form return.

Who’s coming back though? Some wingers who very rarely get us a goal. KDB will be back out again at some point.

 

[meeesh]

If ever there was a game to put kdb on this was it in the last 10 minutes. Up against it, pull one back, bring on the genius.

Why fuckin cart him all the way to Bourmouth if u have no intention of playing him ???

Coz Pep is barmy, he said yesterday he wasn't fit but they chuck him on a plane to go there and sit on bench, fucking bizarre

 

[hilts]

Got to ask why it took 80 minutes for us to show up.

Doku got MOTM for a 15 mins cameo. The rest awful.

Probably because Bournemouth started to tire after running rings round us for the whole match up.to that point.

 

[franksinatra]

We’ve lost matches before but it does feel different this season.

From 2017 - 2023 we lost matches but, bar one or two, we were far and away the better side, but slices of bad luck, poor finishing, mistakes cost us the match.

This season we’ve probably deserved to lose more matches than just the one we lost today. We’re no longer dominating games in the same manner, teams are finding ways to expose our weaknesses and our play has become often ponderous and predictable with little goal threat bar Haaland.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

The biggest worry from today is not even the result, it’s that the inevitable Haaland injury is getting ever closer. We started the season with him saying he feels no pain, and that coincided with him producing scintillating form for about 4 or 5 games. But now, he is visibly limping around the pitch. The injury is coming. And we’re absolutely fucked when it does.