LoveCity said:Well, I have just finished watching a highlights package of yesterday's CL. And seriously, I think we may be the slowest team in this competition. Everyone else seems to move with some pace, our problem is we attack so slowly that it's easy to organise against us. Silva is a genius, yet often ends up in such tight pockets of space that one of his through balls are impossible. One of the reasons Ozil stood out so much at Real Madrid is because they played such an expansive and quick style that the play would be stretched and he had room to play killer passes.
I'm also watching Zenit vs. Monaco right now and even these two seem to attack with more pace. Hulk just ran half the pitch on a break and set up a good chance, but the player put it over the bar.
CSKA had Musa causing chaos in Bayern's defence in patches yesterday, because he got behind their high line and if he didn't blow his lines, would have had a goal or two. CSKA being more dangerous in attack against Bayern than us is pretty unacceptable, IMO.
It's not just attacking either. Fernandinho plays with the sort of mobility we need. Yaya... doesn't and that's probably why he's been a lion in the Premier League and a kitten in the Champions League for us. Our style seems to work a lot better in the Premier League (although teams like Stoke seem to have us kind of sussed out).
We're slow... sooooo slowwww in this tournament.
LoveCity said:^ Roma had 8 injuries yesterday including De Sanctis (goalkeeper), Astori, De Rossi and Strootman (one of the best holding midfielders in Europe). Iturbe, who came on and cost them a fortune, was only just back from injury too.
We should be beating them, no excuses really.
sam-caddick said:Stoned Rose said:I was there last night and would say the following:
1. Roma are a very good side. Easily as good as anything we face in our domestic top 4. They are particularly good in the defensive phase.
2. The 2 man central midfield was it pains me to say a pathetic choice of strategy. MP usually learns from past mistakes but hasn't with this. At that level you can not allow the opposition to outnumber you in midfield. Doesn't matter who you are or whether you're at home. You just can't. This is exacerbated further when 1 of your 2 is yaya who clearly has zero defensive understanding.
3. The 'head' still isn't right. Going 1-0 up at home in this competition is something that any decent collective mindset should be holding on to.
4. Our set pieces, corners and throw ins are extremely pathetic. On occasion they are that bad that we actually hand the advantage to the opposition.
I still think we can get out if the group though. If we take 6 from cska we will be in a much better position because Roma and bayern will take points off each other.
The CSKA matches could end up being looked upon as a false position because I expect Bayern and Roma to take at least 4 points of them as well.
Drawing to Roma last night has forced us to beat CSKA home and away and to take 4 points of Bayern and Roma in my opinion.
IcriedwhenTueartleft said:In my view we are over estimating how good Roma are, some on here seem to think they will take home points off Bayern and win in Moscow against CSKA. If they do then they will probably go through and deserve to go through but I'll be surprised if they do.
The Press here as usual are fawning over them and how they apparently taught us a lesson last night...eh? They should look at the stats and consider this....we played the wrong tactics, didn't play particularly well and still managed to draw comfortably, in the last 25 minutes last night there was only 1 team going to win that match and it wasn't them.
They are not as good as Napoli were a few years back and carry less threat up front, we made them look good by giving them too much time in midfield in the 1st half. When we changed things around and took a striker off and shored up midfield they barely had a sniff after.
Get our act together at their place and play the right tactics and we can beat them.
IcriedwhenTueartleft said:In my view we are over estimating how good Roma are, some on here seem to think they will take home points off Bayern and win in Moscow against CSKA. If they do then they will probably go through and deserve to go through but I'll be surprised if they do.
The Press here as usual are fawning over them and how they apparently taught us a lesson last night...eh? They should look at the stats and consider this....we played the wrong tactics, didn't play particularly well and still managed to draw comfortably, in the last 25 minutes last night there was only 1 team going to win that match and it wasn't them.
They are not as good as Napoli were a few years back and carry less threat up front, we made them look good by giving them too much time in midfield in the 1st half. When we changed things around and took a striker off and shored up midfield they barely had a sniff after.
Get our act together at their place and play the right tactics and we can beat them.
sgerlat said:IcriedwhenTueartleft said:In my view we are over estimating how good Roma are, some on here seem to think they will take home points off Bayern and win in Moscow against CSKA. If they do then they will probably go through and deserve to go through but I'll be surprised if they do.
The Press here as usual are fawning over them and how they apparently taught us a lesson last night...eh? They should look at the stats and consider this....we played the wrong tactics, didn't play particularly well and still managed to draw comfortably, in the last 25 minutes last night there was only 1 team going to win that match and it wasn't them.
They are not as good as Napoli were a few years back and carry less threat up front, we made them look good by giving them too much time in midfield in the 1st half. When we changed things around and took a striker off and shored up midfield they barely had a sniff after.
Get our act together at their place and play the right tactics and we can beat them.
We've seen a different match mate.
Under/overstimating here is not the point at issue, the tactics were so wrong from the start you can't really tell how good Roma's side is, stil the personality, attitude, we've shown troughout the game was impressive. We were a Team, just think to the action at the end where both Keita and Cole tackled the ball and helped each other to stand up, that's cohesivness right there, those are small details which shows that this team have the right approach.
In regard to the match I wouldn't say "you drew comfortably", you can't be serious saying that when the first and probably only shot on goal City took was at minute 67, kind of embarassing considering the quality you have.
The first 65 minutes were seriuosly good, those tight passing lines were just sweet. Do you reckon it is in any way standard that a team like Roma, which haven't played CL's games in ages ( 4years) and never won in England in their history, take the pitch and dominate outclassing CIty, I mean CITY, the way they did for an hour or so?
Taking everything into account from the wrong taticts to the players not being in top form, I don't think it is standard, still freaking impressive if you ask me, I wasn't expecting that at all. You have to admit we could have deservedly scored 3, at least, we had many opportunities.
Then of course, a combination of MP boosting the midfield and Roma knackered by the lack of rest of many of their starters, and you've got remaining 20-25 minutes, where however City, despite being constantly on top of us, haven't created a single clear occasion, the most dangerous was probably Lampard's last shot, that hasn't hit the target too, anyway.
Napoli hasn't carried a more dangerous scoring threat than Roma, they just had a world class striker in Cavani and that's it. All the rest, such as tecnhique, quality of the passing, setting up, offensive movements and creativity, are all on in favour of Roma, by far. We've actually come to play some football and we did unlike Napoli which had fast break as his first, second and third option. We did use fast break, like any other team, but was secondary in our game plan. We defended at the edn because we were dead tired not beacuse we wanted to. Then again City scored after 3 minutes and, I repeat my self, the composure, plus the fact they didn't rush a single play although the situation was critical, was right there, spot on, which is a symptom of great things to come, other than a rock solid mentality.
You could say Garcia was proud, he was genuinely interested and "scared" in seeing the fruits of his labour. The situation before his arrival was critic, a huge protest was taking place, Pjanic was probably the most criticized of all to make an example, he always had the talent though. After a bit more than a year look at the player he is now, not just him but all the others as well. Tuesday's match was the recognition of Garcia's work, of what he achieved so far, after all the effort he put into this team and the skepticism and criticism surrounding it, that was a statement, not too much for the competion but for him mostly, it really was.
Chris in London said:sgerlat said:IcriedwhenTueartleft said:In my view we are over estimating how good Roma are, some on here seem to think they will take home points off Bayern and win in Moscow against CSKA. If they do then they will probably go through and deserve to go through but I'll be surprised if they do.
The Press here as usual are fawning over them and how they apparently taught us a lesson last night...eh? They should look at the stats and consider this....we played the wrong tactics, didn't play particularly well and still managed to draw comfortably, in the last 25 minutes last night there was only 1 team going to win that match and it wasn't them.
They are not as good as Napoli were a few years back and carry less threat up front, we made them look good by giving them too much time in midfield in the 1st half. When we changed things around and took a striker off and shored up midfield they barely had a sniff after.
Get our act together at their place and play the right tactics and we can beat them.
We've seen a different match mate.
Under/overstimating here is not the point at issue, the tactics were so wrong from the start you can't really tell how good Roma's side is, stil the personality, attitude, we've shown troughout the game was impressive. We were a Team, just think to the action at the end where both Keita and Cole tackled the ball and helped each other to stand up, that's cohesivness right there, those are small details which shows that this team have the right approach.
In regard to the match I wouldn't say "you drew comfortably", you can't be serious saying that when the first and probably only shot on goal City took was at minute 67, kind of embarassing considering the quality you have.
The first 65 minutes were seriuosly good, those tight passing lines were just sweet. Do you reckon it is in any way standard that a team like Roma, which haven't played CL's games in ages ( 4years) and never won in England in their history, take the pitch and dominate outclassing CIty, I mean CITY, the way they did for an hour or so?
Taking everything into account from the wrong taticts to the players not being in top form, I don't think it is standard, still freaking impressive if you ask me, I wasn't expecting that at all. You have to admit we could have deservedly scored 3, at least, we had many opportunities.
Then of course, a combination of MP boosting the midfield and Roma knackered by the lack of rest of many of their starters, and you've got remaining 20-25 minutes, where however City, despite being constantly on top of us, haven't created a single clear occasion, the most dangerous was probably Lampard's last shot, that hasn't hit the target too, anyway.
Napoli hasn't carried a more dangerous scoring threat than Roma, they just had a world class striker in Cavani and that's it. All the rest, such as tecnhique, quality of the passing, setting up, offensive movements and creativity, are all on in favour of Roma, by far. We've actually come to play some football and we did unlike Napoli which had fast break as his first, second and third option. We did use fast break, like any other team, but was secondary in our game plan. We defended at the edn because we were dead tired not beacuse we wanted to. Then again City scored after 3 minutes and, I repeat my self, the composure, plus the fact they didn't rush a single play although the situation was critical, was right there, spot on, which is a symptom of great things to come, other than a rock solid mentality.
You could say Garcia was proud, he was genuinely interested and "scared" in seeing the fruits of his labour. The situation before his arrival was critic, a huge protest was taking place, Pjanic was probably the most criticized of all to make an example, he always had the talent though. After a bit more than a year look at the player he is now, not just him but all the others as well. Tuesday's match was the recognition of Garcia's work, of what he achieved so far, after all the effort he put into this team and the skepticism and criticism surrounding it, that was a statement, not too much for the competion but for him mostly, it really was.
Maybe you did see a different game.
You should have been down to 10 after 3 minutes. Possibly because the penalty was awarded, the referee seemed to give Roma the benefit of the doubt whenever he could - Yanga Mbiwa fouled Dzeko three times in three minutes and didn't get a card. After his fifth foul or so the referee gave him a warning, but that was after about 70 minutes.
Same is true of Nairgolan. He too was allowed to commit niggly little foul after niggly little foul and got away with it. When he was eventually booked after his 4th or 5th foul, it was for kicking the ball away, not for the foul itself. That's why when the ref got his card out it got such a huge ironic cheer.
Three or four times the could was about 35 yards from City's own goal when Roma had lost possession and City were launching a counter attack. Every single one of those should have been a booking, none of them were.
The thing is, if you are packing the midfield and the defence, and the referee takes fouling away from you as an option, you are forced to defend properly. You say that City came more into the game after about 70 minutes or so because you were tired. You could just as easily explain it on the basis that when the referee eventually gave a warning about a booking, you scarcely committed a foul after that, and that coincided exactly with the period in which City dominated the game. Funny, that.
I don't criticise Roma for fouling for as long and as often as they did - they were away from home, playing the English champions, had come for a point, and if the referee lets you get away with it, why wouldn't you? Roma are a very good team, were tremendously well organised and disciplined, and if I were a Roma fan I would be well pleased with their night's work. But the referee made it a lot easier for Roma to disrupt City's play than it should have been.