BillyShears said:
bobmcfc said:
Very very surprised we aren't going after a top defender. Vinny is excellent but he has been picking up a few injuries and suspensions over the last 12 months. In many ways injuries cost us the league last year. I'm especially surprised that with our two best CBs out they have just been content to make do with Garcia and lescott when we all knew their shortcomings
Can either of you two explain how
the system was at fault for Zaba's individual errors from corners ?
People are mixing lots of things up in this and the Pellegrini thread. We lost yesterday because of individual errors from one player. Nothing more and nothing less. Yes Garcia and Lescott were put under pressure at times, and yes Hart had to make a smart save in the first half. But ultimately, we conceded very poor goals due to the aforementioned players' errors. And it's hardly a shock, Zaba as good as he is, is prone to the odd very poor performance due to poor positioning or decision making.
If you want to discuss why we looked so similar to last season, I'll try and put forward a theory. There's no question that due to the makeshift nature of our centre halves, our fullbacks weren't pushed anywhere near as far forward as they were against Newcastle. This coupled with Cardiff's overly defensive formation and the fantastic job that Medel and the Icelandic guy did in creating a shield in front of their back 4 and closing down the spaces we generally like to play in, meant that Navas, Silva, Dzeko, and Aguero, really needed to come up with something between the four of them. It wasn't an ideal situation, and it clearly went tits up because much like last season, the attacking players in particular made all the same decision making errors in terms of pass/dribble/shoot that they would do away from home last season. These things will be coached out of them.
We will be far better away from home as the players come to learn what is expected of them - just as we improved steadily over Mancini's first 8/9 months in charge. The next step we need to take is one from a formidable attacking behemoth at home, to a formidable attacking behemoth home and away. It will come.
I hope you're right and I'm wrong, but my own expectations are some way shy of this. I don't watch a lot of Spanish football, so I don't know how often the suffocating "9 men behind the ball inside the defensive third, and all within touching distance of each other" tactic, is employed out there, nor how often Pellegrini will have had to deal with it. What I do know is that the aggressive, high energy, English version is extraordinarily difficult to overcome without wingers, who can get beyond their full backs and whip in flat accurate crosses that take away the defending team's natural advantages of time and position, and without forwards quick enough to get across in front of those defenders (witness Barcelona's toils against Celtic and Chelsea.......and that was with Messi at their disposal). City were glaringly deficient in both those attributes last season, and the narrow parked bus was deployed repeatedly against us, with no little success, on our travels, as a consequence. We are barely better off this season. Navas looked great steaming into the wide open spaces against Newcastle, but when denied that space yesterday looked the same little boy lost as he did against Arsenal pre-season. Unfortunately, he is pretty much our only option.
What crosses that did come in yesterday were the usual floaty shit, and either sailed way out over the back or gave our static forward line no chance to generate any power with their headers. Only once did we get it right, and that was in the 92nd minute. The rags knock in 20 crosses of that quality per game, and as a consequence the parked bus never works against them.
Down the other flank, our options are right footed players cutting into congestion, Merlin, who's a fish out of water, or Clichy, who on the odd occasion that he does take his man on, usually crosses it into the legs of the nearest defender or puts it in the stand.
I have serious reservations about Pellegrini getting what he wants out of the players at his disposal. Not because he isn't a good coach and not because the squad isn't talented, but because in his own words he has too many violinists and not enough pianists. I would have loved to have seen us buy Willian, or indeed anyone with the pace and dribbling skill to take a man on out wide, and I think if we don't get someone to supplement Navas, then parked bus disappointment will be a recurrent theme on the road, and could even cost us a top 4 place never mind the title. Di Maria would do the trick and if that ain't a goer I'd happily take either Victor Moses or (dons tin hat) Nani, both of whom are out of favour at their current clubs. They may not be world beaters, but they would give us something we lack.
As to the centre half situation, if we're gonna play a high line, then a mobile, pacy purchase is a must, cos a Garcia/ Lescott combo is something I never want to see again in my life. Like you say, that combination yesterday ruined Zabaleta and Clichy as an attacking force, and what unfolded was entirely predictable
