City v Boro post match

[jaiguruKun]

With hindsight perhaps Kompany would have made more sense as a last minute sub.

Not with hindsight, it was fucking obvious.

 

[bobom]

Pep needs to decide pretty soon whether the League is a 'priority' . If it is then he needs to get on with it.

Very true. We shouldn't be propping up the table at this point in the season...

 

[cookster]

Actually, he mostly did.

I'm ok with looking at negatives, but let's examine the one's being floated on this thread;
1. Pep out/not the Messiah/same as or worse than Pellegrini/I'm fucking blind and am unable to notice a difference in our performances.
2. Aguero isn't even the best striker at City!
3. It's the start of November and we've already lost the title race.
4. Bring back player X, or hell, just bring back all of Mancini's squad.
5. Chelsea, the dippers and Arsenal are all better than us and why are my underwear so wet?

Not a single legitimate, match-related negative.

You want negatives? Here you go:
1. We didn't take our chances.
2. We conceded a 92 minute equaliser.
3. We have more trolls, WUMs and stealth rags on this forum than genuine Blues after every poor result.

In the isolation of one game this is a well balanced post. However, same faults have appeared in the previous 2 PL home games, I would expect us to learn from said mistakes.

 

[Krieng_Thai OSC]

Most of team have many players who can score but we have only Kun, let hope he is in top form every week.

 

[Metalartin]

The scoreline is the only measure that counts.
They troubled us because they got more than they expected and we got less. You can claim we troubled ourselves, but they still had to score, and managed it.
They pressed us very well indeed all second half, and worked hard for it. 'Boro did actually take part in the game, and contributed to the end result.

All teams are going to press us, that's the only way to get the ball back, they did put a lot of effort in that second sure enough(against team with a lot of players that faced Barcelona 3 days previous who were always going to tire in the second half) but as I said you can't give too much credit for that because how do you measure success? We seem to have different opinions on that but I can't see how you can say they "deserved" it no matter which way I look at it.

Some more stats for you of our 71% possession 83% of that was in the final third up in their end of the field, if the main objective of pressing is to get us to turn over the ball and they come away with only 29% possession they were only successful at keeping us from scoring which is just the bare minimum, I wouldn't even say they were successful at keeping us at bay or controlling much of the game since we spent most of our time in their half(even better it was the final 3rd around their penalty area).

I'm pretty certain if Clichy makes a decent effort to win that ball in injury time and sees the danger out you wouldn't be saying they deserved more and there's no way they get another chance after that, we weren't "under the cosh" in any way shape or form I'm not having that.

 

[jaiguruKun]

And what would Kompany have done?

Kompany would have made us more solid at the back and much less likely to succeed. We looked shakey at the back throughout the whole second half. We're far better with him in the side even when he's half-fit. No doubt he will go away with Belgium and get injured now.

 

[blueinsa]

You only have yourself to blame mate, you've copped a bit on this thread tonight, but its your own fault. The quote "Never argue with idiots, they lower you to their level and beat you with experience." is very apt in this thread.

I'm off to write David Silva with a sparkler

Enjoy mate.

Defensively today i thought he was fantastic and but for a worldy of a save would have bagged one.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

I thought this was the post-Barcelona performance par excellence. The lads huffed and puffed but couldn't raise tired limbs and exhausted minds high enought to clinch the three points. The first half was as one sided as anyone can imagine and in the second half we kept firm control of the match, so that 'boro created one decent chance early in the half before stoppage time and that really frustrating goal. We could and should have been sitting on a comfortable lead by that time but we weren't, and if Pep is concerned about anything it must be our conversion rate. Ironically, but understandably, it was Sergio and KdB, two of our real heroes from Tuesday, who missed gilt-edged chances late on. The consolation is that at this stage in the 2013-4 season we were in a far worse position than this in the table and we won the title by 2 points. Pep will sort it.

 

[blueish swede]

Last minute goals are a killer. We had lots of chances for 2 and 3 nil. After barca there was always gonna be a dip in performance. Not fussed in the slightest. A point off top and sitting pretty in the champions league. Anybody who wants to be a mary ellen and have a meltdown aren't the real deal. Nice little 2 week break coming up, recharge the batteries and away we go. I fuckin love this club like life.

Although science tells us that that would be much less likely if we had started with the same starting eleven

but that's probably for the "So playing the weakened team against Utd worked out" thread :)

 

[Gabriel]

Was surprised we didn't have Fernando on the bench today. Thought we needed him mid way through the second half, when the legs were starting to go and we were losing more of the second balls. It was also evident that the central defenders were not moving into position quickly enough to receive from Fernandinho and that he was being pack hunted by the Boro midfield, which meant we became increasingly ragged. Can only assume Fernando was injured.