City v Boro post match

[kaz7]

Or 3 unbeaten

That is stretching it a bit

 

[Ed2607]

We are not playing sublime football all the time. Very much in patches.
Second half was disjointed. First half against Southampton was poor. We got 8 corners in the first half today and none in the second and had 18 attempts in the first half conceding none where it was 8-5 in the second half. I thought we were really sloppy after Fernandinho made a really poor pass. For some reason the way the game went seemed to change from then on.

It's still a work in progress but the good thing is we can only get better whereas I think some of the others are already at their peak.

It's going to be an exciting premier league this year.

December is an absolutely crucial month for us and I think we will know what we are looking at by 1 Jan.

I guess we'll have to disagree on the football part. I think it's sublime. No one can keep that high energy, pressing up for 90 minutes and of course there's been noticeable down periods usually in the 2nd half but on the whole it's been sensational to watch. Its so so noticeable after midweek games but as I keep rabbiting on about, if we'd convert the chances we would win by cricket scores. It's easy for some to forget that Peps new to City, with a new style that players aren't familiar with, in a new league and has inherited players who are simply not his choice. I wholeheartedly agree with you on the rest, the future is bright and it will be one hell of a title fight. I am sick of hearing the media saying Maureen needs time but yet Pep is supposed to get it right immediately even though Maureen has managed in the PL before and Pep hasn't.

 

[grim up north]

That is stretching it a bit

As factual as your post

 

[Ed2607]

This thread has nearly the same amount of pages in 5 hours than the Barcelona one.

Says it all really. I'm doing my best to fly the positivity flag lol

 

[kaz7]

As factual as your post

The stat from city watch was about wins not draws

 

[Ed2607]

Should have been out of sight at half time really.

I work with a Barca season ticket holder and we were talking yesterday about us this season, he thought that we'd have more than a few results like today's and the recent run, it takes time to implement Guardiolas style and some players won't make the cut.

It is setting us up for the long term though and whatever results we have this year, and whoever he decides doesn't fit as a consequence, we have to accept for the long term benefits. I can visibly see every game what he is trying to do and his own frustration with some of the actions, but we are in a position now where our manager is going to be more beneficial to us long term than any player. He could change the system for short term benefits and get instantaneous results. I personally prefer the longer view though and we've actually got more points than I thought we would at this point in our evolution anyway.

I do think we are a few players short still to do exactly what he wants to do.

Great post Blue. Kudos

 

[grim up north]

The stat from city watch was about wins not draws

You can spin a stat any way you want a fact is a fact

 

[kaz7]

You can spin a stat any way you want a fact is a fact

The fact i was quoting was about wins,that is the fact in question

 

[grim up north]

The fact i was quoting was about wins,that is the fact in question

Your fact is also correct but I'm not flapping

 

[FanchesterCity]

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.

Not all teams press us, although it's becoming more and more common now that teams have worked out we don't like it!
Some teams have literally just sat back and defended for their lives with very little pressing.

The stats don't count for all that much - if another team is happy to let us have possession, or just accept that we're going to have most of it, and deliberate adopt a 'snatch and grab' approach then if that works out for them, is that not deserved?

We can't keep thinking that because we have most of the possession and the better skills, and even miss a load of chances that somehow a 'lesser' team doesn't deserve anything.
I think 'Boro know their limitations, played to them, and their game plan won them a point. In my book, they deserved that point because the game plan worked. Ours didn't.

If we went to Barca, Bayern or Real Madrid and played very defensively, rode our luck at times, tried to catch them on the break and took one of our chances to snatch a draw, then I'd say that was deserved too. I don't see why we can't credit 'Boro with the same.
They did it to Arsenal too, it's not pure luck - at least not in my opinion.