City in the Champs League

[jollylescott]

Having watched some of the other European matches this week the thing that stands out for me is the pace that the better teams play at. Its controlled pace though not headless chicken stuff. They move fast in in numbers and that's where our midfield gets overrun then its straight onto the back 4.

When we go forward with any intent we are in disarray if we lose the ball upfield and yes we give it away cheaply.

We get away with it in the EPL because most sides cannot sustain a high intensity game for 90 mins and eventually we break through.

Compared to the chasing down of defenders by Real ,our front 2 are nowhere near as active.

We seriously need an injection of box to box pace...

I agree Nelly. Watching Madrid play was like watching a team on fast forward. The tempo and speed of play was unlike anything in the premier league. I think Pellers needs to address the tempo of our game. Two or three casual passes around the back and the middle allows other teams to regroup. In addition to this our work off the ball is too static. There is not enough movement on and off the ball. This is one of the reasons as to why we are getting found out against European opposition.

Perhaps it's in my imagination but we seemed to play faster last season when we scored our record goal tally. This season it feels like we are drifting back to the Mancini era, featuring slow buildup play.

 

[tiggsywiggsywoo]

Our Champions League performances, compared with the amount we've spent and also the ambitions of the club for world domination, are making us a laughing stock. We are miles behind.

 

[nellyonthewing]

In Europe our deficiencies get exposed and punished more than EPL.
Tuesday was crying out for us to kill the game . Garcia last Season could have done that job coming on at 2-0 or even 2-1. So a mistake to sell a utility player??
Fernandhino was exposed horribly in the World Cup mauling by Germany .It revealed that strong pacy players can brush him aside. He looks like he's scarred by that experience and may not recover????
We rarely play to Dzeko's true strength (in the box) because our crossing,dead balls and set pieces are woeful in quality of accurate ball into him . It was bad in recent games and no solution seems to have been worked on....

These are just a few of the question marks about our strategy,planning and delivery..... They need to be sorted asap or we'll repeat 2012/13.

 

[BobKowalski]

I didn't see the Real game but I was thinking about them and Chelsea and how the search for CL success became an obsession for both clubs and whether this obsession is more of a hindrance than a help and will City fall into the same pattern or have we already done so?

For both clubs a managers tenure was measured primarily against CL progress. Roman appointed coaches like Ancelotti based mainly on their European success. AVB had just come off the back of a Europa League victory. Yet they finally won the competition under Di Matteo (and got to a final under Grant) at precisely the point no one gave them a prayer. Or to be more accurate at the point there was probably less pressure to do well in the competition. Additionally it was also their worst PL season in a decade (6th) and for Real they too had a very disappointing league campaign finishing 3rd.

So two factors. The internal pressure to do well in the CL and a successful league campaign. I have referenced Tevez's comment before about the unbelievable pressure to do well in the CL, and it is instructive to note that the one time Pellers lost the plot was in the CL, so is that pressure proving to be counter productive? Also can we mount successful PL and CL campaigns in the same season? I know we say we have the squad and our aim is to do well in both yada, yada but is it practical and should we gear our entire efforts to a sustained CL run and a goal of a top 3 finish?

When we won our first title and the wheels seem to have come off Mancini stated that it was all over and conceded the title. He kept to that line right to the end. Khaldoon said it lifted the pressure and we all know what happened. I always felt that this gambit by Mancini was a bit overblown but did it really lift the pressure? Should what we be doing now is dialling back on the pressure with our set targets of QF, SF and then final in the next 5 years?

Its a conundrum to be honest.

 

[LoveCity]

This was Pellegrini's Malaga formation that was within a bad decision of reaching the CL semis. A '4-2-4'. But just look at the quality of player besides Isco and Demichelis - most of these would struggle to make our bench, yet through hard work, determination and concentration they got much further than we have managed.

Atletico had two up front last year and played the final with Costa and Villa in the team. The difference? I am no tactical expert but they were narrow and compact, defended deeper giving them a counter attacking threat, and worked very hard as a team. Very, very hard. We rarely seem to put in the effort we would in a Manchester derby and leave a staggering amount of space for opponents to attack into. Part of that problem is often Yaya, who you can just skip around with very little effort.

[bigimg]http://www.licencetoroam.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/RM-V-AM.png[/bigimg]

Basically, I find it hard to believe that Pellegrini is 'naive' having played a similar way before and gotten quite far into the Champions League. My theory remains: the players are the main problem, not the tactics. They lack the hunger and collective workrate of the other top teams of Europe. Maybe Pellegrini can take some blame for humouring one or two who continue to disappoint in this competition, and also for not being able to fire some of these players up just like Mancini couldn't, for 'club football's greatest competition'.

 

[BobKowalski]

...but they were narrow and compact, defended deeper giving them a counter attacking threat, and worked very hard as a team. Very, very hard. We rarely seem to put in the effort we would in a Manchester derby and leave a staggering amount of space for opponents to attack into. Part of that problem is often Yaya, who you can just skip around with very little effort...

But we don't defend deep. We defend high creating space for the opposition to run into/attack. Zabs said that we defend high and won't change whilst in the same breath is talking about our inability to control games when we don't have the ball. So on one hand we cannot control the game without the ball and we give the opposition something to attack and given the quality of the opposition attack they do (even in the PL this causes problems) and on the other we aren't going to change? Is repeating the same errors and expecting different results the sum total of our European gameplan?

As for working hard. Well yes. But its also about believing in the system and you place within it. If you don't believe in something you do not commit as much and we simply do not believe. So what comes first? A system that works and allows belief to grows or do we (somehow) grow the belief and make what we do now work?

 

[TueartsOHK]

3 clean sheets out of 23 is shocking. The primary aim of a European away tie, especially in the group, should be to not concede.

Not just a problem in the Champions League. Aside from the League cup 7-0 I think we've only kept one clean sheet this season in all competitions (Villa). Some might say that's expected with the way we play but it also means we never control games and we give the opposition hope.

we also cleanly shat versus newcastle

Cheers blue - forgot about Newcastle. So in 12 matches (all comps) we've kept a clean sheet in 3 matches - one of them against a team that's had 12 shots on target all season (Villa), one is a home tie against a championship side and the other...well the other is Newcastle. I know were only in October but this is something that needs sorting out - I'm not sure if the problem is new players bedding in or tactics?

 

[BillyShears]

As for working hard. Well yes. But its also about believing in the system and you place within it. If you don't believe in something you do not commit as much and we simply do not believe.

I find it hard to believe the players don't believe in the system.

With regards Zaba's comments, he said we struggle to control games when we give the ball away cheaply. I reckon that's a problem that any team in the CL faces because of the quality of the opposition. We actually gave the ball away just as cheaply against Spurs as we did against Moscow, with normally reliable players up to and including Silva misplacing passes that would otherwise be routine for them. The difference between the two matches was that whilst against Spurs we got stronger in the second half, against Moscow we got weaker. Which IMO was as much down to fatigue as anything else. Especially for Milner and Silva.

 

[shemnel]

Not just a problem in the Champions League. Aside from the League cup 7-0 I think we've only kept one clean sheet this season in all competitions (Villa). Some might say that's expected with the way we play but it also means we never control games and we give the opposition hope.

we also cleanly shat versus newcastle

Cheers blue - forgot about Newcastle. So in 12 matches (all comps) we've kept a clean sheet in 3 matches - one of them against a team that's had 12 shots on target all season (Villa), one is a home tie against a championship side and the other...well the other is Newcastle. I know were only in October but this is something that needs sorting out - I'm not sure if the problem is new players bedding in or tactics?

im not overly concerned about clean sheets in the Prem, we only kept them in bursts last season, but we played a lot more attacking football and scored more. But lack of cleanies in Europe is concerning, you have to keep the ball out, because you aint going to score many when you travel and they potentially count for extra when you concede them at home.

 

[BobKowalski]

As for working hard. Well yes. But its also about believing in the system and you place within it. If you don't believe in something you do not commit as much and we simply do not believe.

I find it hard to believe the players don't believe in the system.

With regards Zaba's comments, he said we struggle to control games when we give the ball away cheaply. I reckon that's a problem that any team in the CL faces because of the quality of the opposition. We actually gave the ball away just as cheaply against Spurs as we did against Moscow, with normally reliable players up to and including Silva misplacing passes that would otherwise be routine for them. The difference between the two matches was that whilst against Spurs we got stronger in the second half, against Moscow we got weaker. Which IMO was as much down to fatigue as anything else. Especially for Milner and Silva.

If its fatigue and you are 2-0 up then close it down. Job done. Put on fresh legs in the midfield and see the game out. Game management 101. Agreed?

The lack of belief (as you may have gathered) is my take on our CL failings. Just as for LC its all down to the players. I do not thinks its all down to the players, which is just as well given the core isn't going anywhere soon (Yaya possibly excepted due to age). I do not think its all down to the manager either any more than I thought it was all down to the previous manager. Its a collective failing that has spanned two regimes. Just because Pellers did well with Malaga has no bearing on how well or otherwise he will do with City. Ancelotti has an unparalleled European CV and in two seasons with Chelsea was largely pants thereby proving absolutely nothing except that there are too many variables to ensure success and all any top club can do is minimise those variables. Currently in the CL I do not think as a club we minimise those variables. The internal pressures, our mind set, the way we approach the games, formation, our in game management is not conducive to a positive outcome in terms of sustained success.

For what its worth I have endeavoured to move the argument away from individuals be they players or coaches because I think the failings and problems run deeper than either of them.