City v Villa - post match

[MSP]

If I were a Villa fan last night would have concerned me more than any other performance of the season. Because they were at home to the champions and duly threw everything but the kitchen sink at us in a spirited show.

Yet that merely exposed their complete lack of imagination and quality. They were unable to break us down or open us up despite sustained pressure at times. This really doesn't bode well for the run-in when sides in the bottom three traditionally discover some fight and put in a string of such performances.

Yet what might save them from the drop is their ability to put in consistently excellent deliveries from out wide. God I wish we could do that. Set-pieces and a couple of slices of luck might just be enough but it's going to be close.

Why am I concentrating on Villa?

Because too many people on here have mentioned generally that we faced a relegation side last night as if that fact alone should have automatically garnered us a few goals.
The precise opposite is true. We're now in March and this is when struggling teams start throwing off the shackles and giving it 100%, particularly at home.

The fact that Villa didn't have a lot to offer is by the by. We had to withstand their frantic pressure - which we did. We had to show our superior quality at key times - which we did. And most importantly of all we had to come away with the three points - which we did.

Not a great showing but a very good day at the office.

That's good post and I'd accept all it's points if first half an hour didn't happen.

How the hell we thought to win the match in that formation is something I'd never understand. 3 times at least someone would push wide through their ranks and then finished looking like Suarez when he celebrated goal at Chelsea as absolutely nobody was closer than 30-40m to Villa goal to pass him the ball.

Only when Dzeko came in we were able to attack in numbers and have any kind of threatening presence in front of their goal.

I've seen some less inspired performances but first half an hour was strangest one I've seen from City recently.

 

[Anonymous]

Fucking disgraceful for the first half hour and that isn't a one off by any means. Mancini needs to send them out playing with more intensity and purpose from the start. We seem to rely on the fans to get our team going or players just to gradually get into the game, it isn't good enough. Yes it's only the points that matter at this stage but we've been like this all fucking season
Good job all our players are considerably better than all of theirs and we managed to hang on

The language and tone and attitude on this board is frequently appalling, and you are one of the regular offenders.
Bad language and bad taste and insulting behaviour in a public bar may be limited to a group of lads round a table, but here on the internet it is on computers in people’s homes, on computers shared by wives and children.
You are a disgrace to the education system, and should be ashamed of yourself, but you probably have no shame.<br /><br />-- 05 Mar 2013 12:03 --<br /><br />

This fuckin guy...

[bigimg]http://i.imgur.com/muWvzXa.png[/bigimg]

The language and tone and attitude on this board is frequently appalling, and you are one of the regular offenders.
Bad language and bad taste and insulting behaviour in a public bar may be limited to a group of lads round a table, but here on the internet it is on computers in people’s homes, on computers shared by wives and children.
You are a disgrace to the education system, and should be ashamed of yourself, but you probably have no shame.

 

[Anonymous]

Meh! You could leave the back 4 as it is and move Vinny back into midfield. We are getting overrun with Garcia there who is a disaster waiting to happen almost every game! We are back to where we were at the beginning of mancinis reign ( hard to beat but funereally slow ). The breathtaking football that we played at the beginning of last season is a distant memory now. Pace pace fucking pace.

The language and tone and attitude on this board is frequently appalling, and you are one of the regular offenders.
Bad language and bad taste and insulting behaviour in a public bar may be limited to a group of lads round a table, but here on the internet it is on computers in people’s homes, on computers shared by wives and children.

 

[MCFC BOB]

Meh! You could leave the back 4 as it is and move Vinny back into midfield. We are getting overrun with Garcia there who is a disaster waiting to happen almost every game! We are back to where we were at the beginning of mancinis reign ( hard to beat but funereally slow ). The breathtaking football that we played at the beginning of last season is a distant memory now. Pace pace fucking pace.

Whilst I agree with your point about us being back to where we were when Mancini first took over, I totally disgaree with you regarding Javi Garcia. The six consecutive clean sheets we kept at the start of 2013 were with him in the team over a run of games (arguably our six best performances of the season - minus the QPR game, but that was down to Nasri's re-installment to the wide role which meant Javi Garcia had to play makeshift centre-half), and it looks like he's slowly embedding himself in the team comfortably.

Yaya Toure, our most effective midfielder around this time of the season, took a few months to settle down and Javi Garcia looks like he's doing the same. He had a few poor games earlier on in the season, but even the man himself noticed it and put it down to his stop-start beginning to his life in Manchester because of injuries and adapting to the style of the league. Silva, Yaya, Javi Garcia, Dzeko and even Pablo Zabaleta all came from leagues where time on the ball is everything - in the Premier League this won't be the most prominent style until it is absolutely dominated by more technical players (this is something the FA are waking up to, at last) so until that day comes, players that enjoy patient football and time on the ball will have to learn to adapt.

He's certainly got more in his locker than De Jong did, we just haven't seen it yet. Javi Garcia has a reputation for being a tough tackler, and it's a little disappointing that he isn't yet the presence we all know he can be (if you've watched him for Benfica, where he's a cult hero in the way Sun Jihai, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Ali Benarbia are for us) but the passing side of his game has more depth and is far more expansive that De Jong's ever was. I loved Nige and I was gutted when he left, but Garcia will eventually become an improvement - these things just take time.

 

[shadygiz]

Meh! You could leave the back 4 as it is and move Vinny back into midfield. We are getting overrun with Garcia there who is a disaster waiting to happen almost every game! We are back to where we were at the beginning of mancinis reign ( hard to beat but funereally slow ). The breathtaking football that we played at the beginning of last season is a distant memory now. Pace pace fucking pace.

The language and tone and attitude on this board is frequently appalling, and you are one of the regular offenders.
Bad language and bad taste and insulting behaviour in a public bar may be limited to a group of lads round a table, but here on the internet it is on computers in people’s homes, on computers shared by wives and children.

whilst i agree with your sentiments in principal, it must be considered when entering this site that all persons signing up to use the board are over 13 years old.

I also draw your attention to point 18 of the CoC >>>

18. You visit Bluemoon at your own risk, and you will occasionally see things you find offensive, or insulting

may i also add that its the place of the moderation team to decide what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and ask you to report any threads you deem unacceptable and these will be dealt with by the moderation team

please dont start dictating to the board what is right and wrong

 

[Jany]

Missed Sergio big time. Neither had poor games but Tevez and Dzeko just aren't good enough.

!!!!

 

[Davs 19]

Missed Sergio big time. Neither had poor games but Tevez and Dzeko just aren't good enough.

!!!!

Afraid I agree with Rammy. Good, but not good enough.

 

[Marvin]

Missed Sergio big time. Neither had poor games but Tevez and Dzeko just aren't good enough.

!!!!

Afraid I agree with Rammy. Good, but not good enough.

I would qualify that.

Tevez is not good enough - although if he keeps up his scoring form, I'll change my mind.

Dzeko is one of the best strikers in Europe, but his game is not best suited to the mobile quick interchanges that Silva, Aguero, Tevez, Nasri and Yaya play

 

[Andouble]

Missed Sergio big time. Neither had poor games but Tevez and Dzeko just aren't good enough.

!!!!

Afraid I agree with Rammy. Good, but not good enough.

very few strikers in the world are as good as Aguero. It'd be silly to think we could easily replace him from our 2nd XI.

 

[B\connellblue]

Meh! You could leave the back 4 as it is and move Vinny back into midfield. We are getting overrun with Garcia there who is a disaster waiting to happen almost every game! We are back to where we were at the beginning of mancinis reign ( hard to beat but funereally slow ). The breathtaking football that we played at the beginning of last season is a distant memory now. Pace pace fucking pace.

The language and tone and attitude on this board is frequently appalling, and you are one of the regular offenders.
Bad language and bad taste and insulting behaviour in a public bar may be limited to a group of lads round a table, but here on the internet it is on computers in people’s homes, on computers shared by wives and children.

Obviously never been to a football match then! This is the language of the working class, the people who made football teams what the are and whom without the matchday experience would be a very mundane affair. Are you some kind of in internet policeman or something? Wives and children indeed! Get real.