BillyShears said:wireblue said:It is semantics. So i think you’ve got to look at the hard facts.
Yes we’ve had injuries – but the credentials of a title winning team always include your ability to deal with injuries to key players. So that simply doesn’t wash with me. I would say that being so reliant on fernandinho and kompany for two positions was a massive mistake in the summer – who is ultimately to blame for that I don’t know.
Yes, qualifying for the last 16 is a big tick next to pellegrini. Fair play.
But certainly in the premier league you simply can’t look past the fact that after 11 games we’re 8th and six points off the lead having been beaten by villa, sunderland, Cardiff and Chelsea and only managed a draw at stoke
That is just not good enough and can’t be excused. You also can’t mitigate those defeats with the fact we battered united, as lovely as it was.
We're 8th - i really hope we improve but that's the reality of the situation and it's poor.
Again you speak in such definitive terms that I simply can't agree with a lot of the points you make, even though I can see where you're coming from. Working backwards - the league position itself is utterly irrelevant when there's 6 points between top and where we are. It's also important IMO to acknowledge the difference in quality in the league this season in comparison to the last two. There's a reason that everything is so tight for everyone, and it's due to everyone dropping points they ordinarily wouldn't because the general level of competition in games is so high.
I agree that teams must cope with injuries, and it's not an excuse come the end of the season. However within the context of the first 11 games when silly points have been dropped, I think it's ok to point out that we have had multiple injuries at the same time in the same position. You take Luiz and Terry or Cahill out of Chelsea's back line through injury they'll have a big problem. Same if you take Ramires and Lampard out of their midfield at the same time.
and this scares the SHIT out of me, because he is the worst left back second only to Wayne bridge! he offers nothing to the team and his one trick is becoming boring, maybe if city moved him to left mid he would be marginally better as his defending is just shocking.kenzie115 said:many would argue Kolarov has been our best left back this season so you can't really argue with that.
lust overlord said:The difference though,between Mourinho and our manager is,for me anyway,that Mourinho would find a way to win or get a result despite the handicaps.Our fella seems unable to do this at the moment.
lust overlord said:BillyShears said:wireblue said:It is semantics. So i think you’ve got to look at the hard facts.
Yes we’ve had injuries – but the credentials of a title winning team always include your ability to deal with injuries to key players. So that simply doesn’t wash with me. I would say that being so reliant on fernandinho and kompany for two positions was a massive mistake in the summer – who is ultimately to blame for that I don’t know.
Yes, qualifying for the last 16 is a big tick next to pellegrini. Fair play.
But certainly in the premier league you simply can’t look past the fact that after 11 games we’re 8th and six points off the lead having been beaten by villa, sunderland, Cardiff and Chelsea and only managed a draw at stoke
That is just not good enough and can’t be excused. You also can’t mitigate those defeats with the fact we battered united, as lovely as it was.
We're 8th - i really hope we improve but that's the reality of the situation and it's poor.
Again you speak in such definitive terms that I simply can't agree with a lot of the points you make, even though I can see where you're coming from. Working backwards - the league position itself is utterly irrelevant when there's 6 points between top and where we are. It's also important IMO to acknowledge the difference in quality in the league this season in comparison to the last two. There's a reason that everything is so tight for everyone, and it's due to everyone dropping points they ordinarily wouldn't because the general level of competition in games is so high.
I agree that teams must cope with injuries, and it's not an excuse come the end of the season. However within the context of the first 11 games when silly points have been dropped, I think it's ok to point out that we have had multiple injuries at the same time in the same position. You take Luiz and Terry or Cahill out of Chelsea's back line through injury they'll have a big problem. Same if you take Ramires and Lampard out of their midfield at the same time.
I agree that we have been unlucky with key injuries and Pellegrini deserves to prove he can turn things round.
The difference though,between Mourinho and our manager is,for me anyway,that Mourinho would find a way to win or get a result despite the handicaps.Our fella seems unable to do this at the moment.
BillyShears said:wireblue said:We’re like lawyers really making the facts tell the story we want them to. I could easily say the fact that other clubs are dropping points and we’re still 8th makes things all the more worrying.
But if i just concentrate on the city matches i’ve seen glaring weaknesses that haven’t been addressed. For example we were brilliant against Moscow but even so there were signs that our defence was having major issues. Again a lot of that is down to kompany but c’est la vie.
For the record i’m usually a very optimistic city fan (if there’s such a thing). And slightly off topic it’s really frustrating me because after every home match i’m walking down that spiral saying to my dad “as good as that was the real test is the next match away at xyz” and each time other than west ham they’ve let us down. Bizarrely it’ s making the experience of watching city at home just as frustrating as watching us away.
Haha that's a really good analogy. I think whether it's a manager or a player we all make arguments rooted in our personal belief of their quality.
On the defensive side, I posted earlier something in reply to Cheesy which I think is hugely relevant but has been largely ignored. To put it simply, after Mancini went we could've appointed anyone and the owners chose a manager who's known for his attacking approach allied with executives who also believe in this approach. This approach does mean you're more open at the back. I can understand why it feels unpalatable after three years of Mancini, but it's the course they've chosen. It's one I wanted too so I won't complain about it but I do understand those who prefer coaches like Mancini/Benitez/Mourinho etc.
I'd be more concerned overall if I felt we weren't getting any better - I really think we are, away from home as well. Certainly in terms of performances. But we are becoming reliant on certain players because the change in system is one which some of our squad either can't deal with or are struggling to deal with.
JoeMercer'sWay said:Our away form this season puts us 16th in the away form table. Only Norwich, Hull, Sunderland and Palace are worse than us on the road. Our record this season is P6 W1 D1 L4 GS: 8 GC: 10 GD: -2 Pts: 4, or to put it another way we've dropped 14 points already away from home. Last season we were only 5th in the away form table, behind the other Top 5 clubs, with a record of P19 W9 D6 L4, which means our last 25 league away games record is P25 W10 D7 L8 =37 pts, which means we'd only get 56 points over a 38 game season if that form was translated to 38 games. We've dropped points in 60% of our away games since the start of last season, and only won 40% of them, it's wretched form. In the top 5 table for this period we rank like this:
Utd P24 W15 D5 L4 GS: 51 GC: 32 GD: +19 Pts: 50.
Arse P25 W14 D6 L5 GS: 36 GC: 19 GD: +17 Pts: 48.
Spurs P24 W13 D5 L6 GS: 41 GC: 29 GD: +12 44.
Chelski P24 W11 D6 L7 GS: 38 GC: 28 GD: +10 Pts: 39.
City P25 W10 D7 L8 GS: 33 GC: 29 GD: +4 Pts: 37.
it's worrying.
Colins Bellend said:Just back and still angry. Got to say that is the most inept display of management I have seen in a long time , this guy is fucking clueless. Need to score swap a right back ,jimmy out wide right with navas on bench and Garcia in the team. To completely change the back four for a game away from home with great results going into it is beyond belief. 3 hours on a coach and still not calmed down he is fucking useless
geek said:and this scares the SHIT out of me, because he is the worst left back second only to Wayne bridge! he offers nothing to the team and his one trick is becoming boring, maybe if city moved him to left mid he would be marginally better as his defending is just shocking.kenzie115 said:many would argue Kolarov has been our best left back this season so you can't really argue with that.