City v Arsenal Post Match

[waspish]

One of our biggest problems, imo, is that we don't have any players that can beat men at pace. You could see Arsenal today with a good few who could do that, at times Sanchez, Ox and Cazorla just waltzed past our lads.

Well getting past 1 player is easy our players were trying to get past 2/3 players

 

[FanchesterCity]

One of our biggest problems, imo, is that we don't have any players that can beat men at pace. You could see Arsenal today with a good few who could do that, at times Sanchez, Ox and Cazorla just waltzed past our lads.

I think we do, but they flipping' stop on the edge of the box!

There appears to be an invisible forcefield 3 yards outside the penalty box at the South Stand. Any player running with the ball hits this force field and grinds to an immediate halt.

I understand that often, you want to wait for reinforcements to arrive, but sometimes, you just have to accept 'you're the man' and keep running. Once you get into that box, defenders make mistakes. Penalties are given. Or, sometimes, you actually find you've gotten through them with just the keeper to beat.

Or you can just wait for the opposition defenders to stand and watch you politely as you await the welcome arrival of your strike force.

 

[Chippy_boy]

City must be one of the worst teams in the league for turning possession into goals.

Although we are geniuses at turn possession into yellow cards.

Not today obviously, but the amount of yellows we get, considering we have the ball most of the time is ridiculous.

 

[Chippy_boy]

One of our biggest problems, imo, is that we don't have any players that can beat men at pace. You could see Arsenal today with a good few who could do that, at times Sanchez, Ox and Cazorla just waltzed past our lads.

I think we do, but they flipping' stop on the edge of the box!

There appears to be an invisible forcefield 3 yards outside the penalty box at the South Stand. Any player running with the ball hits this force field and grinds to an immediate halt.

I understand that often, you want to wait for reinforcements to arrive, but sometimes, you just have to accept 'you're the man' and keep running. Once you get into that box, defenders make mistakes. Penalties are given. Or, sometimes, you actually find you've gotten through them with just the keeper to beat.

Or you can just wait for the opposition defenders to stand and watch you politely as you await the welcome arrival of your strike force.

Gotten? Gotten???

 

[onceabluealways]

Let's not get too carried away. Arsenal did a job on us today, defended really well and played us on the counter quite effectively. Two goals from set pieces rather than open play.

Despite this It's fairly clear we need to strengthen in the summer and maybe move on 3 or 4 players who are not consistent performers.

Its no good unless we start to replace the average players and we have a few of them - with actual real quality. Something we haven't really done in the last three years.

Our real quality players are either injury prone, away playing in some tournament every two years when every other major tournament of similar nature is every four years. Silva is trying to carry this team at times and it's a tough burden that he shouldn't need to be carrying.

If we win the league this season after our signings compared with Chavs the it will be an immense achievement.

 

[Bluemanc100]

The best away performance for a decade by Arsenal according to Savage.... PMSL

 

[FanchesterCity]

One of our biggest problems, imo, is that we don't have any players that can beat men at pace. You could see Arsenal today with a good few who could do that, at times Sanchez, Ox and Cazorla just waltzed past our lads.

I think we do, but they flipping' stop on the edge of the box!

There appears to be an invisible forcefield 3 yards outside the penalty box at the South Stand. Any player running with the ball hits this force field and grinds to an immediate halt.

I understand that often, you want to wait for reinforcements to arrive, but sometimes, you just have to accept 'you're the man' and keep running. Once you get into that box, defenders make mistakes. Penalties are given. Or, sometimes, you actually find you've gotten through them with just the keeper to beat.

Or you can just wait for the opposition defenders to stand and watch you politely as you await the welcome arrival of your strike force.

Gotten? Gotten???

'tis a past participle innit

 

[Juan King]

Soft penalty changed the game today. We were chasing after that & got picked off for their second. We miss Yaya badly IMO, people saying he needs to go are on crack!

There is a way to go yet, but I fear that we have blown our chance at the PL this season.

 

[dom]

One of our biggest problems, imo, is that we don't have any players that can beat men at pace. You could see Arsenal today with a good few who could do that, at times Sanchez, Ox and Cazorla just waltzed past our lads.

I think we do, but they flipping' stop on the edge of the box!

There appears to be an invisible forcefield 3 yards outside the penalty box at the South Stand. Any player running with the ball hits this force field and grinds to an immediate halt.

I understand that often, you want to wait for reinforcements to arrive, but sometimes, you just have to accept 'you're the man' and keep running. Once you get into that box, defenders make mistakes. Penalties are given. Or, sometimes, you actually find you've gotten through them with just the keeper to beat.

Or you can just wait for the opposition defenders to stand and watch you politely as you await the welcome arrival of your strike force.

Gotten? Gotten???

As above

Agree with the tactical analysis ... but 'gotten' ,,, FFS is this an episode of 'The Waltons' ??

 

[cleavers]

A result that's been coming in all honesty. We've got one way of playing going forward, and there are aspects of our game that hinder us from adjusting effectively when the opposition parks the bus to thwart that preferred way of attacking. Add in the same old flaws defensively and a decent side was always gonna have us over on the counterattack eventually. Burnley, Chelsea and Sunderland nearly managed it, and Stoke and Arsenal have. Park the bus, crowd Silva out and take your chances on the break.

What frustrates is seeing the same flaws again and again. I've lost count of the number of times a whipped inswinging cross or free kick has caused mayhem in our box, our defenders standing still as forwards run in behind them unchallenged. Three Everton players could have scored their equaliser last week, three Arsenal players could have scored their second goal today. It happens again and again and again.
And going forward, if you can't get behind a team through the middle, cos they're packing numbers narrow and deep, then you have to try and go wide, but whereas Chelsea, United, Arsenal and virtually everyone else have got players who can whip dangerous crosses in, we've got Navas. Cross after cross after cross belted straight into the ankles of defenders standing barely more than 12 inches away.
As for corners, we might as well just say "no thanks, we don't want one". 144 since we last scored from one, and of that 144 we've probably got a head to no more than about 6. Another 18 today, and only on the 18th did we finally pick out a City player. One gormless outswinger after another, headed clear at the near post, and when we do try the odd inswinger we put no-one in front of the keeper to stop them coming out and claiming it.

I'm sure there will be plenty of people writing us off for the title, and whilst I think we will fare better on the counter at Chelsea, it's hard to see them fucking up. We now need them to lose twice in the last 16 games, whilst winning all of our own, and with away trips to Chavski, Spurs, the rags, Swansea and Liverpool still to come, that looks a tall order. Bony and Toure's return will help, but if we lose at Chelsea I think that return will be academic. It's not the losing that hurts, it's our predictability and lack of options as soon as a couple of our better players are out injured. We saw it in the cup games against Newcastle and Wednesday, we saw it when Toure was left out against Burnley, and we saw it in spades today

Can't argue with much of that but I wouldn't write us off yet. However, we do have to stop making the same mistakes. Another that fucks me off, and was very relevant today, is committing avoidable fouls. Arsenal did not create much but really exploited our mistakes today. Very frustrating.

Can't add much if anything to these posts.

Disappointed, we didn't play badly, but arsenal were the better side in nearly every position, and they defended superbly, and got every ounce of luck going.

We need to sort our home form out though, its not good enough to win the league at the moment, and even if we win every other home game, it might prove still not good enough.