Discuss Pellegrini (Pt 3)

[waspish]

Nice one Marv.

I mentioned this same pertinent point on the post match thread but no one picked up on it.

This time a couple if weeks back there was mass panic on here about those 4 games.

We've done very very well to get 3 wins out of 4.

The hoodoo can fuck right off.

Yep we have done pretty well it's just that late goal was a kick in the bollocks putting us further away from Chelsea who for me are favourites for the title. If Pelegrini can win this cup it'll be a big step for him regarding us fans believing in him as a winning manager..

I still can't accept Chelsea as faves for the title. Even if Jose seems to have reanimated the walking dead in Torres I still think they lack quality upfront. On a purely personal note I would like to see us lift the League Cup. Sort of gives us the full set domestically as it were.

There favourites for me because of Mourinho just can't see them going through a real bad patch..

 

[waspish]

Don't be sour mate. We all fuck up sometimes.

The fact that you saw fit to come running to this thread during the game just adds a certain comedy, that's all.

I understand you are still grieving. It will pass.

We all do it even you but it's all fun on this forum where point making is what's its about! It's like when your a kid wanting the last word...

Those who I have a pop at know exactly why I do it. But fair enough, I'm the first to moan at people taking threads off track.

Whilst picking Milner on the left was an odd decision, maybe Pellegrini had no alternative tonight. I wanted silva to replace navas and Milner to swap sides in the second half, but in the event the change made worked well.

Our makeshift backline defended well in the main too tonight. Whilst a reserve game can only tell you so much, it was a decent night for the manager.

Yeah can't argue with that in the main.. wasn't pretty to watch, we are through though that's the main objective

 

[Wretched Vengeance]

Our makeshift backline defended better once Ameobi was taken off and Silva and Milner started to exert some control in midfield. Prior to that they were getting woman slapped. Yet again the cunning punt forward and nod down caused mayhem in the first half. We do not defend well. We do not like pressure on us. It has been a common thread in every match we have played so far win. lose or draw. If you give us room and don't pressure us we are fine. Don't give us room and put pressure on us we are far from fine. We collapse into a soggy mess of ineptitude.

Discuss.

Agreed it was a relief when Ameobi went off. I also thought Lescott and Boyata improved from this point. So I was wondering; why did Pardew take him off when he was causing so many problems? Fitness maybe?

Possibly fitness but I think the introduction of Silva was the catalyst. It caused Pardew to rethink his gameplan and caused a loss of momentum which allowed us to start getting a grip of the game. Moving Milner to CM as part of this substitution also helped. Milner brought more energy and authority to the center and Silva more creativity to the game plus the psychological impact of him just been on the pitch cannot be underestimated.

That said we still had some dicey moments but at least the wretchedness of the first half was largely gone.

Well Bob, I am sorry but Jimmy Milner is nothing bit a "two bit championship player!" According to some on the match day thread that is :)

My personal interest in the game was Lescott and I thought he was exceptional. To fuck with distribution; the bloke just defends and defend well more often than not. Deserve's to start against Norwich

 

[BobKowalski]

Those who I have a pop at know exactly why I do it. But fair enough, I'm the first to moan at people taking threads off track.

Whilst picking Milner on the left was an odd decision, maybe Pellegrini had no alternative tonight. I wanted silva to replace navas and Milner to swap sides in the second half, but in the event the change made worked well.

Our makeshift backline defended well in the main too tonight. Whilst a reserve game can only tell you so much, it was a decent night for the manager.

Our makeshift backline defended better once Ameobi was taken off and Silva and Milner started to exert some control in midfield. Prior to that they were getting woman slapped. Yet again the cunning punt forward and nod down caused mayhem in the first half. We do not defend well. We do not like pressure on us. It has been a common thread in every match we have played so far win. lose or draw. If you give us room and don't pressure us we are fine. Don't give us room and put pressure on us we are far from fine. We collapse into a soggy mess of ineptitude.

Discuss.

Well for a start it was a reserve back four, and three of them have played almost no league football this year. And I am struggling to remember a chance Newcastle had, apart from that one in extra time. Where the back four did struggle was their distribution, mainly because all four of them are very poor passers. That's what kept the ball coming back at us in the first 30 minutes, and was compounded because the reserve midfield kept giving it away.

After half time Newcastle barely threatened and we defended their setpieces fine. And the silva sub changed the game

I hate to sound a bit trite, but we have just gone up to Newcastle with a reserve back seven, kept a clean sheet and not come under much pressure at all. That will do me.

We are making defensive errors in the league but that's not something that was relevant in tonight's game.

As an aside, What I did like was that we looked a lot fitter than Newcastle.

Sounds less like a discussion than a list of excuses. Its a reserve back 4 yes but making similar errors to any other combination of back 4 we have had this season. That you are struggling to remember a chance Newcastle had other than the one in ET is bit of an eyebrow raiser. I assume you are forgetting (and I am just plucking one at random) the disallowed goal where if Cisse could hit straight or Ameobi held his run a fraction longer we would have been 1-0 down.

In the first half we are were under pressure and our defending like the rest of our play was borderline wretched. We are continually undone by the long ball and do not cope with pressure. This has been a common theme all season so is relevant to our league performances.

Second half we improved and the introduction of Silva was key - see previous post for an explanation.

As I also said in another post there is no need to big up the manager or defend the performance as we are not strangers to playing dourly and winning. Sometimes you just get the job done. So I will take the win, chuckle over a plum QF draw and pop open the champers.

But we do need to address the defensive issues. Cardiff was the warning klaxon and it is still loud as ever.

 

[BobKowalski]

Agreed it was a relief when Ameobi went off. I also thought Lescott and Boyata improved from this point. So I was wondering; why did Pardew take him off when he was causing so many problems? Fitness maybe?

Possibly fitness but I think the introduction of Silva was the catalyst. It caused Pardew to rethink his gameplan and caused a loss of momentum which allowed us to start getting a grip of the game. Moving Milner to CM as part of this substitution also helped. Milner brought more energy and authority to the center and Silva more creativity to the game plus the psychological impact of him just been on the pitch cannot be underestimated.

That said we still had some dicey moments but at least the wretchedness of the first half was largely gone.

Well Bob, I am sorry but Jimmy Milner is nothing bit a "two bit championship player!" According to some on the match day thread that is :)

My personal interest in the game was Lescott and I thought he was exceptional. To fuck with distribution; the bloke just defends and defend well more often than not. Deserve's to start against Norwich

Yeah I noticed the Milner bashing. Its a nonsense and best ignored.

Lescott was a bit tentative at first and then grew into the match. One occasion in the first half the ball came over and he just put his head through it with some venom. Nice one. No mucking about. I like Lescott and think he is getting a raw deal. It started last season and if anything is worse this season. Can see him leaving in January and I'll be sorry to see him go.

 

[Wretched Vengeance]

Possibly fitness but I think the introduction of Silva was the catalyst. It caused Pardew to rethink his gameplan and caused a loss of momentum which allowed us to start getting a grip of the game. Moving Milner to CM as part of this substitution also helped. Milner brought more energy and authority to the center and Silva more creativity to the game plus the psychological impact of him just been on the pitch cannot be underestimated.

That said we still had some dicey moments but at least the wretchedness of the first half was largely gone.

Well Bob, I am sorry but Jimmy Milner is nothing bit a "two bit championship player!" According to some on the match day thread that is :)

My personal interest in the game was Lescott and I thought he was exceptional. To fuck with distribution; the bloke just defends and defend well more often than not. Deserve's to start against Norwich

Yeah I noticed the Milner bashing. Its a nonsense and best ignored.

Lescott was a bit tentative at first and then grew into the match. One occasion in the first half the ball came over and he just put his head through it with some venom. Nice one. No mucking about. I like Lescott and think he is getting a raw deal. It started last season and if anything is worse this season. Can see him leaving in January and I'll be sorry to see him go.[/quote

Not surprising he was tentative mind, probably thinks he's 3-4th choice and a bit low on footballing morale. But grew into the game like you say. He appears to be thinking about England and the world cup.

 

[NQCitizen]

Yep we have done pretty well it's just that late goal was a kick in the bollocks putting us further away from Chelsea who for me are favourites for the title. If Pelegrini can win this cup it'll be a big step for him regarding us fans believing in him as a winning manager..

I still can't accept Chelsea as faves for the title. Even if Jose seems to have reanimated the walking dead in Torres I still think they lack quality upfront. On a purely personal note I would like to see us lift the League Cup. Sort of gives us the full set domestically as it were.

There favourites for me because of Mourinho just can't see them going through a real bad patch..

Yeah if you win pretty much every match at home and draw against your rivals its tricky not to win the title. That's what Jose almost guarantees.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Our makeshift backline defended better once Ameobi was taken off and Silva and Milner started to exert some control in midfield. Prior to that they were getting woman slapped. Yet again the cunning punt forward and nod down caused mayhem in the first half. We do not defend well. We do not like pressure on us. It has been a common thread in every match we have played so far win. lose or draw. If you give us room and don't pressure us we are fine. Don't give us room and put pressure on us we are far from fine. We collapse into a soggy mess of ineptitude.

Discuss.

Well for a start it was a reserve back four, and three of them have played almost no league football this year. And I am struggling to remember a chance Newcastle had, apart from that one in extra time. Where the back four did struggle was their distribution, mainly because all four of them are very poor passers. That's what kept the ball coming back at us in the first 30 minutes, and was compounded because the reserve midfield kept giving it away.

After half time Newcastle barely threatened and we defended their setpieces fine. And the silva sub changed the game

I hate to sound a bit trite, but we have just gone up to Newcastle with a reserve back seven, kept a clean sheet and not come under much pressure at all. That will do me.

We are making defensive errors in the league but that's not something that was relevant in tonight's game.

As an aside, What I did like was that we looked a lot fitter than Newcastle.

Sounds less like a discussion than a list of excuses. Its a reserve back 4 yes but making similar errors to any other combination of back 4 we have had this season. That you are struggling to remember a chance Newcastle had other than the one in ET is bit of an eyebrow raiser. I assume you are forgetting (and I am just plucking one at random) the disallowed goal where if Cisse could hit straight or Ameobi held his run a fraction longer we would have been 1-0 down.

In the first half we are were under pressure and our defending like the rest of our play was borderline wretched. We are continually undone by the long ball and do not cope with pressure. This has been a common theme all season so is relevant to our league performances.

Second half we improved and the introduction of Silva was key - see previous post for an explanation.

As I also said in another post there is no need to big up the manager or defend the performance as we are not strangers to playing dourly and winning. Sometimes you just get the job done. So I will take the win, chuckle over a plum QF draw and pop open the champers.

But we do need to address the defensive issues. Cardiff was the warning klaxon and it is still loud as ever.

Let me make one thing absolutely and abundantly clear. I am not here to 'big up' or 'make excuses' for Pellegrini. He's our manager and I will do exactly the same as I have done with every other manager over the last 35 years: I will watch him and evaluate him on an ongoing basis. I have no emotional investment in him, I didn't recruit or clamour for him. If I don't rate him or he fucks up I will damn well say, just like I did with all the others. I don't wear a city shirt or put posters on my wall and I certainly don't go in for hero worship. Don't patronise me with binary emotions like that because you've got the wrong bloke.

He, like all the others, is an employee of the club and I want, and expect, him to get the best from the players he is charged with managing. I'm giving my opinion on this thread like I have always done on all the others: from the bottom of my heart like I do at the game and in the pub after the game.

We are making defensive errors in the league. There are small cane toads on the south coast of Australia who can see that. I've seen enough to believe we will put them right, but that's a discussion that's ongoing. But tonight I thought we defended well after we settled down and got a clean sheet with a reserve back four away from home. That's nothing to do with being precious about or defending anyone.

That's how I saw it.

 

[BobKowalski]

Well for a start it was a reserve back four, and three of them have played almost no league football this year. And I am struggling to remember a chance Newcastle had, apart from that one in extra time. Where the back four did struggle was their distribution, mainly because all four of them are very poor passers. That's what kept the ball coming back at us in the first 30 minutes, and was compounded because the reserve midfield kept giving it away.

After half time Newcastle barely threatened and we defended their setpieces fine. And the silva sub changed the game

I hate to sound a bit trite, but we have just gone up to Newcastle with a reserve back seven, kept a clean sheet and not come under much pressure at all. That will do me.

We are making defensive errors in the league but that's not something that was relevant in tonight's game.

As an aside, What I did like was that we looked a lot fitter than Newcastle.

Sounds less like a discussion than a list of excuses. Its a reserve back 4 yes but making similar errors to any other combination of back 4 we have had this season. That you are struggling to remember a chance Newcastle had other than the one in ET is bit of an eyebrow raiser. I assume you are forgetting (and I am just plucking one at random) the disallowed goal where if Cisse could hit straight or Ameobi held his run a fraction longer we would have been 1-0 down.

In the first half we are were under pressure and our defending like the rest of our play was borderline wretched. We are continually undone by the long ball and do not cope with pressure. This has been a common theme all season so is relevant to our league performances.

Second half we improved and the introduction of Silva was key - see previous post for an explanation.

As I also said in another post there is no need to big up the manager or defend the performance as we are not strangers to playing dourly and winning. Sometimes you just get the job done. So I will take the win, chuckle over a plum QF draw and pop open the champers.

But we do need to address the defensive issues. Cardiff was the warning klaxon and it is still loud as ever.

Let me make one thing absolutely and abundantly clear. I am not here to 'big up' or 'make excuses' for Pellegrini. He's our manager and I will do exactly the same as I have done with every other manager over the last 35 years: I will watch him and evaluate him on an ongoing basis. I have no emotional investment in him, I didn't recruit or clamour for him. If I don't rate him or he fucks up I will damn well say, just like I did with all the others. I don't wear a city shirt or put posters on my wall and I certainly don't go in for hero worship. Don't patronise me with binary emotions like that because you've got the wrong bloke.

He, like all the others, is an employee of the club and I want, and expect, him to get the best from the players he is charged with managing. I'm giving my opinion on this thread like I have always done on all the others: from the bottom of my heart like I do at the game and in the pub after the game.

We are making defensive errors in the league. There are small cane toads on the south coast of Australia who can see that. I've seen enough to believe we will put them right, but that's a discussion that's ongoing. But tonight I thought we defended well after we settled down and got a clean sheet with a reserve back four away from home. That's nothing to do with defending anyone.

That's how I saw it.

What have you seen that makes you believe we will put them (the defensive errors) right?

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Sounds less like a discussion than a list of excuses. Its a reserve back 4 yes but making similar errors to any other combination of back 4 we have had this season. That you are struggling to remember a chance Newcastle had other than the one in ET is bit of an eyebrow raiser. I assume you are forgetting (and I am just plucking one at random) the disallowed goal where if Cisse could hit straight or Ameobi held his run a fraction longer we would have been 1-0 down.

In the first half we are were under pressure and our defending like the rest of our play was borderline wretched. We are continually undone by the long ball and do not cope with pressure. This has been a common theme all season so is relevant to our league performances.

Second half we improved and the introduction of Silva was key - see previous post for an explanation.

As I also said in another post there is no need to big up the manager or defend the performance as we are not strangers to playing dourly and winning. Sometimes you just get the job done. So I will take the win, chuckle over a plum QF draw and pop open the champers.

But we do need to address the defensive issues. Cardiff was the warning klaxon and it is still loud as ever.

Let me make one thing absolutely and abundantly clear. I am not here to 'big up' or 'make excuses' for Pellegrini. He's our manager and I will do exactly the same as I have done with every other manager over the last 35 years: I will watch him and evaluate him on an ongoing basis. I have no emotional investment in him, I didn't recruit or clamour for him. If I don't rate him or he fucks up I will damn well say, just like I did with all the others. I don't wear a city shirt or put posters on my wall and I certainly don't go in for hero worship. Don't patronise me with binary emotions like that because you've got the wrong bloke.

He, like all the others, is an employee of the club and I want, and expect, him to get the best from the players he is charged with managing. I'm giving my opinion on this thread like I have always done on all the others: from the bottom of my heart like I do at the game and in the pub after the game.

We are making defensive errors in the league. There are small cane toads on the south coast of Australia who can see that. I've seen enough to believe we will put them right, but that's a discussion that's ongoing. But tonight I thought we defended well after we settled down and got a clean sheet with a reserve back four away from home. That's nothing to do with defending anyone.

That's how I saw it.

What have you seen that makes you believe we will put them (the defensive errors) right?

Here we go again. It's late and I'm off to bed so I will be brief.

For what it's worth I played as a centre half for 20 years, but that's not hugely relevant.

What I've seen is a series of injuries to Vincent kompany. And to demichelis. And to nastasic. And to clichy. I've also seen a failed bid for pepe and a Sheikh with a bulging wallet. But more than that I've seen a defence implementing a new system in front of a goalkeeper who is nervy and hesitant and not calling like he used to. And I've seen this before, many times, in teams. It gets in your head as a defender, its like a forward who forgets how to score: when you're under pressure the ghost of the previous error comes into your mind and you hesitate for that split second, you lose your conviction. Mistakes become self-perpetuating.

But if you have the right players, and we do, things turn round. As a defensive unit if you get things right a few times your confidence grows. You start to play with conviction. You don't hesitate in tight situations. The mistakes are suddenly behind you and you go out on the park believing that you are invincible. And that happens quicker and more effectively if you feel confident in the players alongside you, amd you know they are composed and playing well.

Kompany will be back soon. Clichy will come back to form. The goalkeeping problems will be banished. The defence will have played and been coached more and more in the new system. And I believe that we will get more and more solid as a unit as the season goes by. We won't be like the old '1-0 to the arsenal 'George graham side, but we will score a shedload of goals if we keep aguero and silva fit, and that will do me nicely.

Night night. And Bob...stop worrying, theres a good lad. It's going to be a great season ;-)