Re: Fitness
shawgorbie said:
danburge82 said:
United were A LOT fitter than us. Sharpness, movement (lots of movement), crisp first touches, harrying when they didn't have the ball. In comparison we looked lathargic, leggy, we weren't on our toes, lazy lunges at the ball instead of quick studder-steps, our movement was poor and at times non-existent. I'm sure we've had a good pre-season but United looked a game or two further on in fitness terms than us.
Yes I'm disappointed we lost but I'll be over it by the morning and be looking forward to the start of the new season!
absolutely spot on
Rags also had a much longer preseason, with plenty more matches. They were fitter.
People are saying Mancini is bad tactically! FFS that's one of the things he's known for being good at. Tactics that are supposed to work on paper don't always come off you know, especially when the opposing team looked as hungry Untied did today.
The Barry change to me made sense. They were passing all over us and Barry (on paper) was supposed to help cut up their play. It made sense, but it didn't work.
Get rid of that mentality that defense doesn't win games, because had we defended well today and looked composed on the ball, it would have been our game.
Silva today, my favorite player, I wasn't impressed with. He wasn't looking for the ball as he always does. Well I might add in the first place, we couldn't hold the ball long enough for him to.
Yes, Mancini might deserve some stick but not /nearly/ as much as he's getting. He's the one that talks to the players but he did! It's the players heads' that needed sorting.
United came in very strong, blasting at us in the beginning and I think that really messed with our players' heads.
You could clearly see our players didn't look match fit today. Well actually, let me reiterate that, the rags were MUCH fitter than us today and it showed. De Jong although decent though, like bite and tenacity. Lescott although not a world beater with pace, often really looked sluggish. Yaya didn't look half as fit as near the end of last season, just to name a few.
All in all it was nervousness, lack of tenacity, fitness, composure, and bite that did us in. We can go on and on about tactics, but the changes made SENSE. It's our players today that bottled it. Almost as if they fear the 'other' team. You could almost sense from the players that they felt a lot of pressure to produce after beating United in the Semis.
What we lack is a winning mentality that the rags have. How do we get this mentality? KEEP winning and playing together.
This loss is a positive one for City and Untied.
For City: It shows us to not be complacent. Every match needs to be won. It shows us not to get our heads too big and fight like we did in the Semis and the streak of form towards the end of last season. This loss will drive us to produce together as a team and I fully expect a battering of Swansea which will give us an exciting kick start towards the next season. Wins and losses are part of life, and part of supporting and football team. The better team doesn't win every game, as much as we want to believe. Yes, its our rivals, but at the end of the day. The rags will sit on their high horse and next time we face them, we will be out not to be embarrassed again. Embarrassment eh? Yup that's the look you can tell from our players faces at the end added with disappointment. Only good things can come from this loss because our players are going to realize that they did not play like themselves and when this happens, they lose.
For Rags: Probably it will give them a kick start as well for the new season. Their young players will feel confident and their whole team as a whole will benefit from thinking they're world beaters.
Sorry for my long winded post with scattered thoughts. But yessir, that's my opinion.
P.S. If you don't want to read this shite, that's cool. To sum it up, it really wasn't Bobby's fault. Nor was it our individual players. It was a bad performance from our team, like all teams have. Just a shame it was against the rags.
Edit #2: Forgot to mention, if you've ever played football at any level, you KNOW that all those yellows further sunk our mentality. Whether its those looming thoughts that you need fouls to stop United to being complacent so as to not getting sent off.
