sh249 said:
Of course, technically they're on a different planet to us. Tactically too at the moment. But they also showed masses of desire, not only to press and to (want to) work their bollocks off, but also to get on the ball and play, even under pressure. The lack of bravery on the part of our players - excluding the three subs - was mindblowing.
It had little to do with desire. Navas showed a lot of desire. He chased every ball. and when he got cornered on every pass he got in the first half, he tried to run with it to the middle looking for someone to pass too. Dihno showed desired. Slide tackled chased, try to harrass and all. So did Nasri and Aguero. Clichy too and Micah too. There were City players all over the pitch working their arses off. But the talent, tecchnique, and tactics were so superior, they were often left gasping.
This is a syndrome common to Very good teams that play Guardiola teams for the first time. The difference in class shocks you to your bones. Gi watch every Madrid/Barca battle under Guardiola, it was always the new big money Madrid buys that looked the most lost. Coz they'd have never witnessed anything like that before. Check out the 5-0 smashing of Madrid under Guardiola, Ozil, Khadera and Benzema all looked confused. Our guys looked proper confused and mind fucked. Aguero got the ball for the first time in 30 minutes and literally was too mentally drained to attack Boateng. The same Boateng that got eaten for lunch by alsorans in the prem. Nasri had the same problem, he had chased for 25 minutes and when he finally had his first possession of the ball, his mind was all fucked. He had turned into a defender. He simply turned around and passed to Clichy.
These consciensious possession and early pressure system, fuks with you on so many levels. It sapped the confidence right out of our players.
I still reckon playing with 2 strikers in any game is ancient and silly. Just like having 2 DMs is silly, or playing with a hardman DM who mostly tackles is silly. These are all static ideas. And we (like most teams in the Prem) adhere to one or more of these follies. Lahm was a DM for Bayern today, and I barely remember him making any tackles. Coz most often he was busy passing the shaite out of us. Same with Busquet at Barca. They really don't make tackles. They force turnovers by shrinking the field in areas. And it starts from the top.
I get sad, when all these clearly tactical decisions are designated as some unquantifiable quality like "desire" or "passion" or "effort." Rather this are tactical roles that players need to play or they wouldn't make the 11. Muller must always cut off one side of the field once the ball is played back to the keeper, forceing the keeper to either give it to the player Muller wants him to give it to, or punt it up field for a 50/50. He did this all game. This wasn't effort, it was tactical.
Alaba, Kroos, Ribery and Lahm, once Muller had forced eithr Kompany or Hart to give Navas the ball, immediately converge on him. The CDs Immediately step up and shorten the field, suddenly Navas is in a pickle and has to dribble his way backwards to find any daylight. This wasn't effort or desire or passion> It was simply tactics. A thing that was repeated time and time again.
Effort is when Milner chases the ball from Dante to Neuer to Rafinhna back to Neuer who then releases it to Lahm. Rooney did the same in the CL final against Barca a few years back, and tired out in 20 minutes and stopped doing it. Effort doesn't work against this kind of clinical football. Beating "effort" or "desire" is built into the system. Nasri Did the exact runnaround around minute 29, and had the exact same result as Milner. Nothing. Dzeko did the same (albeit he gave up After going from one defender to the goalie) but had he continue to run at all four, he would have achieved the exact same result.
It is their Tactical and technical superiority that is debilitating, not our lack of effort. On lucky days (with superior teams having an off day) "effort" might get you something. But on a day when they are up for it, you'd better be as tactically proficient and lucky!
We were neither today. So we got schooled.
