Summerbuzz said:It was closer to b than a. I only really got excited by one chance, Aguero's header. The rest didn't amount to much. 24 shots when there are 7,8,9 men between you and the goal means nothing. 1 shot when you are behind the defence must be worth 12 pot shots at a opponent who is set.Danielmanc said:BobKowalski said:Can we at least have a consensus about the Sunderland match?
a) We either battered them and were unlucky. Shit happens.
Or
b) we had lots of possession without creating any meaningful chances or testing the GK.
So which is it? We all saw the bloody game so its either one or the other.
I think it was 'b' yesterday. If there was a league for possession stats or camping in the opposition half then we would be winners. The truth is that you win the league by scoring more goals than the opposition in each match and we didn't really come close to doing that.
There was a good article about corners in the times last week - apparently you are far more likely to score following a throw in 18 yards or less from the goal line, than from a corner.
teddykgb said:I had to stay away yesterday because I knew how much of a shit show this thread would be. There's a clear desire by many who didn't want to have the last manager ousted to take out their anger on this manager, which is silly and counter productive, but this is how it is.
In my opinion, BOTH managers have been undone by the players, like has been said above. This season has been absurdly impacted by injury, but the players who were signed as expensive depth are either injured or not good enough. You can speak a lot about systems, and I speak quite a bit about them because I think they are important, but there's nothing you can do to force players to take their chances when they come, or to not cock up the one time they're asked to make a defensive play or stop a shot.
IMO, when the manager gets it wrong, you can tell because the team is dominated. Bayern being the classic example, this manager got that one wrong and the team was unable to even get a foothold in the match as a result. A match like yesterday's was always going to be tough. Pointing to all of the changes is illusory, many of them were forced. Counting Richards for Zabs and Kolarov for Clichy is also daft, they've been chopping between those fullbacks for seasons now.
We had plenty of the ball yesterday and absolutely battered them in the 2nd half. They took pretty much their only real chance, off a foul, and converted it. We had Kolarov sending rockets into row ZZ. Aguero, who has been phenomenal, had an off day. The only thing that angered me and hopefully angered the manager as well was the noticeable increase in effort and intensity around 75-80 minutes. If they had played that hard from the start they would have found joy in the match eventually. Yaya, in particular, started suddenly playing late on.
The thing that I hope the manager can address is the way to approach the packed defenses. This is something Mancini didn't unlock, and the early results for MP haven't been much improved. This is very hard, and it probably relies more on the talents of players than a tactical nous by the manager. The thing that was disappointing about this yesterday was that players weren't putting themselves into positions to help, so we were often attacking 6 or 7 versus 10. MIcah/Zabs were running all over the space Navas was trying to occupy. Yaya and Milner were staying deep, while DeMichelis was coming forward like an experienced CB should to try to add to the attack, with him just a few feet away from the CMs. Meanwhile, we know at this point what Navas is going to do, yet we had nobody in the box ready to get onto the ends of those crosses.
The one player I'll give a pass to is Nasri. He worked hard yesterday and tried to be a creative engine, but couldn't really create what we needed. Nonetheless, I don't think he did anything wrong, aside from he and Yaya preferring to pass to each other over other options too often.
Summerbuzz said:It was closer to b than a. I only really got excited by one chance, Aguero's header. The rest didn't amount to much. 24 shots when there are 7,8,9 men between you and the goal means nothing. 1 shot when you are behind the defence must be worth 12 pot shots at a opponent who is set.Danielmanc said:BobKowalski said:Can we at least have a consensus about the Sunderland match?
a) We either battered them and were unlucky. Shit happens.
Or
b) we had lots of possession without creating any meaningful chances or testing the GK.
So which is it? We all saw the bloody game so its either one or the other.
I think it was 'b' yesterday. If there was a league for possession stats or camping in the opposition half then we would be winners. The truth is that you win the league by scoring more goals than the opposition in each match and we didn't really come close to doing that.
There was a good article about corners in the times last week - apparently you are far more likely to score following a throw in 18 yards or less from the goal line, than from a corner.
Thats your opinion and so be it - that we will never knowconormcfc said:Nasri/Yaya/Aguero are all players capable of unlocking defences and all 3 played yesterday. Absolute bollocks to say Silva is the only one capable as we've seen all 3 do it on countless occasions.onceabluealways said:conormcfc said:This is one of those threads that will get bumped a few months down the line and all the fairweathers will look like twats.
Plays the same front 6 (apart from 2 forced changes) that scored 12 goals in the last 2 games and yet he gets the blame when they can't score goals against the team joint bottom of the league. Hilarious.
Baffles me how so many people on here come across exactly like those parody fickle fan accounts on twitter.
You obviously don't watch City much. When silva s not in the team we are missing the one player that can open up packed defenses. Mancini had the same problem when Silva lost a bit of form.
Therefore you need plan B which is now Navas on the right. He should have started with him. He also needs to tell Navas to stop running into the middle of the park for no reason and stay out wide to pull the defense open a bit.
He also started with garcia and yaya two of the slowest midfielders in the league at closing down - Yaya is OK when he has someone like Ferdi alongside him who can do the work. This is tactical it was like Moyes playing carrick and Giggs in the same midfield ( it;s to slow). To me it was a no brainer either Rodwell or my prefered option Milner in the middle. Also away from home arguably our best performance ( 2nd half against Chelsea ) we played one up front - this is also another option he could have tried with say milner and Rodwell holding with yaya in a free roll. But he sticks with a 442 type formation which jsut doesn't work.
Yes they are capable but we play at a totally different level when silva is on form he is the one running the show on the edge of the opponents box. Yaya unlocks defenses as much as Zidane Cleverley, Nasri has been playing well but just doesn't take the responsibility that he should when Silva is out of the team . I agree on his day aguero canunlock any defense but with the squad we have relying on individual brilliance isn't enough
Navas did absolutely fuck all aside from missing a sitter and never looking up to see that there's no one in the box before constantly losing possession with an aimless cross. When navas came on virtually all our threat was from the right hand side - yes his final ball wasn't great but it was in the box and kept Sunderland under pressure. This may have told if he had started - my opinion nothing more
What do the midfield even have to do with anything? We dominated the midfield battle, they barely had a kick in those areas and we had 65% possession. 65% possesion yes but a lot of it was on our half way line, playing against one of the poorest defenses we had garcia sat with our CBs and Yaya just in front , if these are more mobile they can close teams down further up the pitch instead of waiting for the ball to hit our defenders then starting again. I thought this was one of peller's key tactics close down like Barca do
We lost because our free scoring attack couldn't break them down and playing Navas (who actually played for half the game) from the start wouldn't have changed a thing.
Really good comments. I too have been impressed by Demichelis. He showed leadership at Sunderland, and you can see already why Pellegrini was so keen to bring him to the club. I wonder whether we can pair him and Kompany, but for the moment it's a question of getting through November and December and stabilising the position. Something which our squad should be able to accomplishteddykgb said:I had to stay away yesterday because I knew how much of a shit show this thread would be. There's a clear desire by many who didn't want to have the last manager ousted to take out their anger on this manager, which is silly and counter productive, but this is how it is.
In my opinion, BOTH managers have been undone by the players, like has been said above. This season has been absurdly impacted by injury, but the players who were signed as expensive depth are either injured or not good enough. You can speak a lot about systems, and I speak quite a bit about them because I think they are important, but there's nothing you can do to force players to take their chances when they come, or to not cock up the one time they're asked to make a defensive play or stop a shot.
IMO, when the manager gets it wrong, you can tell because the team is dominated. Bayern being the classic example, this manager got that one wrong and the team was unable to even get a foothold in the match as a result. A match like yesterday's was always going to be tough. Pointing to all of the changes is illusory, many of them were forced. Counting Richards for Zabs and Kolarov for Clichy is also daft, they've been chopping between those fullbacks for seasons now.
We had plenty of the ball yesterday and absolutely battered them in the 2nd half. They took pretty much their only real chance, off a foul, and converted it. We had Kolarov sending rockets into row ZZ. Aguero, who has been phenomenal, had an off day. The only thing that angered me and hopefully angered the manager as well was the noticeable increase in effort and intensity around 75-80 minutes. If they had played that hard from the start they would have found joy in the match eventually. Yaya, in particular, started suddenly playing late on.
The thing that I hope the manager can address is the way to approach the packed defenses. This is something Mancini didn't unlock, and the early results for MP haven't been much improved. This is very hard, and it probably relies more on the talents of players than a tactical nous by the manager. The thing that was disappointing about this yesterday was that players weren't putting themselves into positions to help, so we were often attacking 6 or 7 versus 10. MIcah/Zabs were running all over the space Navas was trying to occupy. Yaya and Milner were staying deep, while DeMichelis was coming forward like an experienced CB should to try to add to the attack, with him just a few feet away from the CMs. Meanwhile, we know at this point what Navas is going to do, yet we had nobody in the box ready to get onto the ends of those crosses.
The one player I'll give a pass to is Nasri. He worked hard yesterday and tried to be a creative engine, but couldn't really create what we needed. Nonetheless, I don't think he did anything wrong, aside from he and Yaya preferring to pass to each other over other options too often.
Listen mate a couple of tongue in cheek remarks RE Lambert but Negredo is ok at best for me, so why kneejerk ? I think 20 pages mainly agreeing will tell you otherwise.kenzie115 said:Before taking the OP too seriously it may be worth considering these previous posts (about Negredo):
15-Aug
Colins Bellend said:Spains answer to Ricky Lambert
16-Sep
Colins Bellend said:Spanish Grant Holt and Jovetich is like Berbatov on sleeping tablets
03-Oct
Colins Bellend said:I don't get this Negredo being quality and all his movement is class ( I know he plays for Spain) He's an impact player at most much too static for me
A knee jerker of epic proportions.
As for the clueless manager, his changes actually made a difference, bringing Navas on, and later Zab, made us much more threatening down the right hand side and had we had more players in the box we might have had a chance of scoring. Richards was shocking yesterday and it was the right decision to replace him.
As for the initial selections, many would argue Kolarov has been our best left back this season so you can't really argue with that. Richards annd Zabaleta have rotated in the last few games with decent results and Sunderland's aerial threat means Richards wasn't a stupid selection. Lescott was the only choice at centre half. Navas hasn't been in great form recently and so Milner's industry and fight was probably selected as a better option, plus he could cover for Richards who tends to take a while to track back. Fernandinho was injured and with Rodwell's fitness a doubt playing Garcia becomes the only option once you'd picked Milner out wide.
Originals said: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.
Kolarov brings nothing to our team? He gets balls into the box and aleast attempts to beat the full back. Our other left back Clichy doesnt even whip a cross in yet Kolarov and his one trick gets slated!
Aren't you forgetting Sergio's great turn and shot in the send half, created out of nothing and one that produced the only meaningful save of the whole match?dennishasdoneit said:Originals said: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.
Kolarov brings nothing to our team? He gets balls into the box and aleast attempts to beat the full back. Our other left back Clichy doesnt even whip a cross in yet Kolarov and his one trick gets slated!
he also came the nearest to scoring for us yesterday, and put a chance on a plate for sergio who headed over when unmarked.a bit harsh to say he offers nothing to the team.