City v Watford Post Match Thread

[Didsbury Dave]

Pelly vs Keegan hahaha, that's piss funny.

Sorry if I'm not adding to the reasoned intelligent football debating with that comment.

It isn't even the first time the comparison has been made. We all know where it comes from and why.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Unless they are totally stupid or being deliberately awkward, it should be obvious to anyone that we need to 'rest' players.

Forget the Spurs game & look at all the other shit we have coming up.

He has no choice but to take players out & he may have to do it v Chelsea in the FA Cup & we may lose because of it if they don't do the same, or if they do & their 2nd string plays better than ours. Shit happens. That's why teams don't win the treble very often.

Anybody who thinks resting players for a game v Watford is a mistake, is a fucking clown.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Unless they are totally stupid or being deliberately awkward, it should be obvious to anyone that we need to 'rest' players.

Forget the Spurs game & look at all the other shit we have coming up.

He has no choice but to take players out & he may have to do it v Chelsea in the FA Cup & we may lose because of it if they don't do the same, or if they do & their 2nd string plays better than ours. Shit happens. That's why teams don't win the treble very often.

Anybody who thinks resting players for a game v Watford is a mistake, is a fucking clown.

Correct on all points, mate. Good post. I make you right about Chelsea, too. More important to beat Sunderland and Barca than Chelsea in those three games in six days.

 

[George Hannah]

Harsh as it may seem, if players fail to match Manuel's expectations and he has to sub them, he also shares the blame. Would be different if they got injured maybe.

Blame for what? We won the match.

You can complain to your heart's content about the things he got wrong. But if we're winning football matches the complaints will always come off as churlish and unnecessary. Particularly when you're not even talking about a tactical blunder - but the team selection (against a lower division side).

I think Manuel himself admitted the problems in his post match interview and took his share of the responsibility for the misfire in the first half.
Refreshing and it doesn't detract from the credit he gets for putting thing right. Rascal's theory that everything was pre-planned and Vinny & Zab were due to replace Rodwell and Richards whatever happened just strains credibility.

 

[Anonymous]

Harsh as it may seem, if players fail to match Manuel's expectations and he has to sub them, he also shares the blame. Would be different if they got injured maybe.

Blame for what? We won the match.

You can complain to your heart's content about the things he got wrong. But if we're winning football matches the complaints will always come off as churlish and unnecessary. Particularly when you're not even talking about a tactical blunder - but the team selection (against a lower division side).

I think Manuel himself admitted the problems in his post match interview and took his share of the responsibility for the misfire in the first half.
Refreshing and it doesn't detract from the credit he gets for putting thing right. Rascal's theory that everything was pre-planned and Vinny & Zab were due to replace Rodwell and Richards whatever happened just strains credibility.

I think people are taking from Pellegrini's post match comments whatever inferences they want. He said if he could he'd have changed "11 players at half time". That's not admitting he made a mistake, that's saying none of them were good enough. Big difference.

 

[Shaelumstash]

Go on then, tell me why I didn't see the game?

I love when someone like you desperately tries to find something to moan about.

Previous games results are more than relevant given you claim every week what a fuck up he has made despite us continually winning games of football.

Again, only mistakes being made are you logging on and failing to engage your brain before fingers!

So did you see the game?

I'm not moaning, I'm being realistic. People are absolutely raving about this season like Pellegrini has completely turned around the fortunes of a struggling side! He spent 100m and we're 2 points better off than last season! 4 points WORSE off than the season before!

If you'd bothered to read my posts, I've said I'm enjoying all the goals as much as anyone this season, but let's not start sucking each others dicks just yet. Pellegrini could still end up being the new Kevin Keegan.

You cannot compare points per season with any meaningful effect. This season the league is far more competitive.

The other thing I will say is that it took time for the players to adapt to a new system (high line, forward press, change to man marking on corners which led Zaba - being unfamiliar with it after 3 years of zonal - to lose his man twice resulting in goals conceded against Cardiff etc etc) and it led to individual mistakes. Pellers can also not be blamed for Hart having a couple of stinkers, though he did manage him well when he did.

What one can say with a certainty is that since we adapted, we have won 17 and drawn 2 out of our last 19 games and caught the 8 or 9 points up on the leaders whilst remaining in ALL the cups.

If he had taken over last Christmas and had 6 months to get the team to adapt, who knows how many points we'd have had this season (well, I am guessing we shall see next season). Either way, it's not been a bad transition.

You make some excellent points, and it's refreshing that people can disagree with my points with reasoned arguments as opposed to lazy, silly jibes.

I agree that the recent run of results has been fantastic, and the majority of the squad have now adapted to the new style of play.

I appreciate your point about 2 of the goals at Cardiff being Zabba's individual error. The problems defensively in that game ran a little deeper IMO though. We had Lescott and Garcia playing centre half, perhaps the 2 slowest defenders in Europe. To rigidly stick to pushing the line right up, we left ourselves looking extremely vulnerable to long balls over the top.

That system did not suit the players available that day, and that is my major criticism of Pellegrini, and why I think he can be naive. He has his way of playing, and he shoehorns players in to playing it, whether it suits them or not.

He did it again with Lescott and Demichelis on Saturday. I understand the need to rotate, I actually agree with it, to keep players fresh for Spurs. But you cannot simply replace Kompany with Lescott and expect him to do exactly the same job! Lescott and Demichelis cannot play a high line when playing together, they're too slow, and just like the Cardiff game, it left us vulnerable to the ball over the top.

If those two must play together, we should drop a few yards deeper to a line they are more comfortable with. Similarly, I don't think Garcia should ever play in a 442, and I don't think Dzeko and Negredo should play together, but that's a different conversation.

 

[OB1]

Blame for what? We won the match.

You can complain to your heart's content about the things he got wrong. But if we're winning football matches the complaints will always come off as churlish and unnecessary. Particularly when you're not even talking about a tactical blunder - but the team selection (against a lower division side).

I think Manuel himself admitted the problems in his post match interview and took his share of the responsibility for the misfire in the first half.
Refreshing and it doesn't detract from the credit he gets for putting thing right. Rascal's theory that everything was pre-planned and Vinny & Zab were due to replace Rodwell and Richards whatever happened just strains credibility.

I think people are taking from Pellegrini's post match comments whatever inferences they want. He said if he could he'd have changed "11 players at half time". That's not admitting he made a mistake, that's saying none of them were good enough. Big difference.

Correct.

Honestly, I rarely think that I have seen so much nonsense talked about a team selection. If we had played Aguero at centre back, Boyata at centre forward etc, that would have been picking the wrong team against a bottom half of the table Championship side.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Correct.

Honestly, I rarely think that I have seen so much nonsense talked about a team selection. If we had played Aguero at centre back, Boyata at centre forward etc, that would have been picking the wrong team against a bottom half of the table Championship side.

It's one of two nonsense arguments going on at the same time, both with the same point at heart.

One is that we should have gone full strength against Watford, the other that it is somehow good that we have drawn Chelsea three days before the Barca game.

There must be someone out there who is an expert in fitness/conditioning who can just explain to people the effect of too many games on an athlete.

 

[Yaya_Tony]

Pelly vs Keegan hahaha, that's piss funny.

Sorry if I'm not adding to the reasoned intelligent football debating with that comment.

It isn't even the first time the comparison has been made. We all know where it comes from and why.

Yep we do. I still think it's very funny, simply because Keegan isn't even in the same league. If he was he'd be employed as such! I've personally begun to refer to City under Pelly as playing vindaloo football. We're gonna score one more than you. Simplistic I know. Not admitted that publicly till now and doubtful if I will again ;-)

 

[Ducado]

Pelly vs Keegan hahaha, that's piss funny.

Sorry if I'm not adding to the reasoned intelligent football debating with that comment.

It isn't even the first time the comparison has been made. We all know where it comes from and why.

Yep we do. I still think it's very funny, simply because Keegan isn't even in the same league. If he was he'd be employed as such! I've personally begun to refer to City under Pelly as playing vindaloo football. We're gonna score one more than you. Simplistic I know. Not admitted that publicly till now and doubtful if I will again ;-)

It's meant to be a sly dig, and it is sly and it is used by some people who just can't let go, it's not even close to what is happening with this team