Discuss Pellegrini (Pt 4)

[Anonymous]

Interesting discussions this morning. I agree with DD and JMW. I thought it was a very strange game. Especially the first half. We couldn't keep the ball for toffee for a good 15/20 minute spell. You could see Pellegrini during that period constantly telling his players to relax, calm down, keep the ball. For me the change came during the break when Sandro was puking up. Nasri went over to Pellegrini and took some instructions, and from then on imposed himself on the match and began to pass and move the way he should.


Cleavers, your question from a page or two back about whether or not it's going to click away from home. It will. I'm certain of that.

 

[adrianr]

I'm not getting sucked into this daft thread again but I just have to comment on all these "have to admit MP got it bang on today" comments. He did nothing different today than he's been doing all season. The team picked itself. The formation and gameplan was exactly what it always is. If I'm really honest I didn't think we played as well as we have in some games, we were just clinical and no one made any silly errors.

Everything is going fine and dandy. Silverware beckons this season.

Bang on. It's getting bloody tiring being a tactical mastermind when we win and tactical neanderthal when we lose. We've set up in pretty much the same way in nearly all of our matches this season, or as same as the players at our disposal allows at least. The worst thing you can accuse Pellegrini of is trying to do too much too quickly.

FWIW I still don't think we'll win the league. It's still really grating me, that one number in the entire league table of hundreds of numbers. The one that sits in our L column, and reads 4. At the death at Sunderland we should have salvaged a point. At Villa we shouldn't have lost. At Chelsea we shouldn't have lost. I'm actually beginning to believe in the idea that there are plenty of good managers, but it's the lucky ones who win. Maybe Pellegrini is just a very unlucky bloke. Easiest way to explain our stats so far this season anyway. Conceded 2 more than Arsenal, scored loads more, yet 6 points behind them. Best GD in the league by a stretch and sat 4th. I think we'd have to win pretty much every game until the new year to put us back in, and that would also have to involve Arsenal and Chelsea picking up another couple of losses each.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I'm not getting sucked into this daft thread again but I just have to comment on all these "have to admit MP got it bang on today" comments. He did nothing different today than he's been doing all season. The team picked itself. The formation and gameplan was exactly what it always is. If I'm really honest I didn't think we played as well as we have in some games, we were just clinical and no one made any silly errors.

Everything is going fine and dandy. Silverware beckons this season.

Bang on. It's getting bloody tiring being a tactical mastermind when we win and tactical neanderthal when we lose. We've set up in pretty much the same way in nearly all of our matches this season, or as same as the players at our disposal allows at least. The worst thing you can accuse Pellegrini of is trying to do too much too quickly.

FWIW I still don't think we'll win the league. It's still really grating me, that one number in the entire league table of hundreds of numbers. The one that sits in our L column, and reads 4. At the death at Sunderland we should have salvaged a point. At Villa we shouldn't have lost. At Chelsea we shouldn't have lost. I'm actually beginning to believe in the idea that there are plenty of good managers, but it's the lucky ones who win. Maybe Pellegrini is just a very unlucky bloke. Easiest way to explain our stats so far this season anyway. Conceded 2 more than Arsenal, scored loads more, yet 6 points behind them. Best GD in the league by a stretch and sat 4th. I think we'd have to win pretty much every game until the new year to put us back in, and that would also have to involve Arsenal and Chelsea picking up another couple of losses each.

I think we will win the league.

I certainly don't believe that there is such a thing as a "lucky" manager, but I certainly do believe that Pellegrini and City have been very unlucky away from home this season. And losing Vinny and Silva twice each is terrible luck. I'm not blaming the poor results entirely on luck, but it has been a factor. WE have not deserved to lose 4 games. And like Billy, I don't believe this will continue. This manager isn't an idiot, I think he's extremely bright. Like any manager, he's learning about his players as time progresses.

As long as we are still in touch by christmas, and I believe we will be, I expect a flying end to the campaign. On several fronts.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

Every City fan, anywhere in the world, will have been thrilled and delighted by today's performance and by the result. It shows clearly that we have the best team in the PL and the best group of players this club has ever had. We should stroll to the PL title based on our home form. But at home we have been irresistible and brushed aside (Hull excepted) all the teams we have met as though they were annoying insects. And our home matches have had us play teams from the top half of the table in the main, apart from Norwich (7-0 though) and Hull. We murdered United with the display of the season so far, and today we never really needed to get out of second gear to hand Spurs a lesson they'll never forget.

I cannot see any real challenger to that City team, and I look forward to a long series of wins. But that has been the case since we demolished Newcastle. I sat back and waited for the performance and win at Cardiff, but it never came, and each home win has been followed by a massive disappointment away. We haven't even looked a pale shadow of ourselves as we are when we play at home. We've been unrecognisable. We've played worse teams away than at home, but our title romping form at home has been replaced by results away which are no better than those of a team fighting relegation. It's no use saying City have played well away, we haven't: we've been as wretched away as we have been magnificent at home. This was our problem this morning and it's still our problem tonight. We have to start winning on our travels.

I'm sorry but it is pretty harsh to say that about our away form. I think we all agree that City completely dominated Villa and that was the biggest fluke of all of them so far. Cardiff we were below par but still we weren't that bad. At Chelsea we both had chances in the first half and completely dominated the second half. Even at Sunderland, where people seem to think we were horrible, they had two shots the whole game, one was the goal (which resulted from a push) and the other was a long range potshot from Johnson. We had so many crosses into the box and plenty of shots with a few golden chances (Aguero header, Navas shot blocked on the line, and the rebound from Dzeko's shot).

Noah, unfortunately what the table shows is that our away record is identical to that of Stoke (14th) and better only than that of Hull, Norwich, Crystal Palace and Sunderland. Sunderland and Palace are the bottom two, Norwich 16th and Hull 13th. How "well" did they play? Are we so satisfied with that that we can be sure that anyone who expresses concern is vermin (not your words, I know). What City fans mean when they argue that we've actually played pretty well away is that we've "dominated possession" but not come away with anything from the match. We saw, yesterday, a team which "dominated possession", had more corners, more touches in our half and our area and more attempts on goal than we did, go home with a 6-0 hammering. We thoroughly deserved the win and the scoreline because we used the ball so much better than Spurs that they were actually lucky to get away with 6! United had 60% of the possession and as many "attempts" as we did.... But away from home we're not the same team. We weren't that bad at Cardiff? Well, we had 70% possession but they had more shots on target than we did, as well as scoring 3 goals to our two. We had more shots off target than they did, but many of these were the rather desperate, hopeful efforts because nothing else was on. The three goals we conceded were rank bad defending and this has been a feature of our play away from home. Why? Is it that Pellegrini has improved the forwards but ruined the defenders? Is the result of the formation we play? Is it the "things will just improve" ? I'd like to think it's the latter, our squad seems far too good not to win the title to me, but I haven't seen any progress so far in our matches away. I'll sit down at the start of the matches at Southampton and WBA and I'll think "this is where we come good", but I'll know no side has passed through us and scored "good" goals, but that away we gift them a couple or three gilt edged chances every game and we don't use the ball one tenth as well as we do at home....yet. We would laugh if Spurs if they said that yesterday's result wasn't a fair reflection of the game: but for two poor clearances by Lloris, poor fullback play and central defenders out of position
for the third, feeble tackling for the fourth, Vertonghen fast asleep for the fifth and sixth...no trouble should have been 0-0, and if Dimichaelis hadn't cleared off the line.... It is possible to lose one match and be unlucky:when you lose four to sides who are so much worse man for man you have to look at how you're playing, especially when you're unrecognisably better at home!

 

[OB1]

I'm not getting sucked into this daft thread again but I just have to comment on all these "have to admit MP got it bang on today" comments. He did nothing different today than he's been doing all season. The team picked itself. The formation and gameplan was exactly what it always is. If I'm really honest I didn't think we played as well as we have in some games, we were just clinical and no one made any silly errors.

Everything is going fine and dandy. Silverware beckons this season.

Bang on. It's getting bloody tiring being a tactical mastermind when we win and tactical neanderthal when we lose. We've set up in pretty much the same way in nearly all of our matches this season, or as same as the players at our disposal allows at least. The worst thing you can accuse Pellegrini of is trying to do too much too quickly.

FWIW I still don't think we'll win the league. It's still really grating me, that one number in the entire league table of hundreds of numbers. The one that sits in our L column, and reads 4. At the death at Sunderland we should have salvaged a point. At Villa we shouldn't have lost. At Chelsea we shouldn't have lost. I'm actually beginning to believe in the idea that there are plenty of good managers, but it's the lucky ones who win. Maybe Pellegrini is just a very unlucky bloke. Easiest way to explain our stats so far this season anyway. Conceded 2 more than Arsenal, scored loads more, yet 6 points behind them. Best GD in the league by a stretch and sat 4th. I think we'd have to win pretty much every game until the new year to put us back in, and that would also have to involve Arsenal and Chelsea picking up another couple of losses each.

I think we will win the league.

I certainly don't believe that there is such a thing as a "lucky" manager, but I certainly do believe that Pellegrini and City have been very unlucky away from home this season. And losing Vinny and Silva twice each is terrible luck. I'm not blaming the poor results entirely on luck, but it has been a factor. WE have not deserved to lose 4 games. And like Billy, I don't believe this will continue. This manager isn't an idiot, I think he's extremely bright. Like any manager, he's learning about his players as time progresses.

As long as we are still in touch by christmas, and I believe we will be, I expect a flying end to the campaign. On several fronts.

I don't really do predictions about City (part mug's game, IMO, and don't believe in tempting fate) but I still think it is right to make us favourites for the league; although we have made the job harder than it should be. Agree with the rest though. We need to control what we can and genuine luck good or bad will be what it will be.

 

[supercity88]

It is well summarised by the table that accompanies Robbie Savages' BBC Sport write up of the 6-0 win. Compares our stats home and away and you can see we are as good, if not better in many areas. We have clearly just been punished through bad luck and mistakes but performances and statistics are suggesting that we are not playing badly. Most would agree that Villa, Cardiff, Chelsea and Sunderland were worthy of more than we got. So things will change, we have just got to keep playing the way we are and stop making mistakes. I actually think the only away game we deserved to lose and were the poorer side was the game at Stoke.

A brilliant win that shows how good we can be. Still some poor spells and mistakes at the back that on a different day could have caused us problems. In attack we were fantastic and Spurs were shocking. Now to try and improve away results and keep the pressure on Arsenal. The good thing is, Champions League games will add presure to Chelsea, Arsenal and the rags and whilst Arsenal have easier fixtures they will have to keep going in the Champions League to make sure they qualify. Confident others will slip up where we have and that we can put a decent run together.

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

Why we can be so devastating at home, yet so vulnerable away, is a puzzle for everyone. But I have a theory. There's nothing unusual in teams having better home records than away, and this is a pattern that repeats itself through all levels of the game with just a few freak exceptions. But in our case, could it be that our pitch is the largest playing area in the league and this encourages our talented team to use every inch of it, which in turn isolates defenders who are more adept at keeping together as a tight unit on their own smaller pitches? This could explain why our quick players can run riot at home, but find it so difficult to have the room to work in away.

Question: Is there a website anywhere [non-subscription] that has statistical analysis of scoring breakdown? What I'm thinking of is a table of facts which covers percentages of the type of goals that a team scores such as headers, 6 yard tap-ins, shots outside of the box, free-kicks etc. Something like this along with the basic statistics that are freely available such as possession, shots on and off target etc would give me the ammo to test out this theory.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't really do predictions about City (part mug's game, IMO, and don't believe in tempting fate) but I still think it is right to make us favourites for the league; although we have made the job harder than it should be. Agree with the rest though. We need to control what we can and genuine luck good or bad will be what it will be.

We've been favourites since Chelsea failed to sign Rooney IMO. I think the away form as it currently stands is an aberration rather than an indication of a lack of quality or a poor tactics from the manager. That's not to say that there haven't been mistakes along the way, but even allowing for those, it is down to luck rather than anything else that we're not minimum four points better off than we currently are.

I'm curious .... does anyone else believe we'll end up putting 10 past someone this season. I think we might just. Spurs had the best defensive record in the league prior to yesterday. Their back line wasn't riddled with injuries (i don't know if that was their strongest back 4 but it wasn't far off it).

 

[adrianr]

I don't really do predictions about City (part mug's game, IMO, and don't believe in tempting fate) but I still think it is right to make us favourites for the league; although we have made the job harder than it should be. Agree with the rest though. We need to control what we can and genuine luck good or bad will be what it will be.

We've been favourites since Chelsea failed to sign Rooney IMO. I think the away form as it currently stands is an aberration rather than an indication of a lack of quality or a poor tactics from the manager. That's not to say that there haven't been mistakes along the way, but even allowing for those, it is down to luck rather than anything else that we're not minimum four points better off than we currently are.

I'm curious .... does anyone else believe we'll end up putting 10 past someone this season. I think we might just. Spurs had the best defensive record in the league prior to yesterday. Their back line wasn't riddled with injuries (i don't know if that was their strongest back 4 but it wasn't far off it).

Any team holding the best defensive record with Kyle Walker in it is doing it through more luck than judgement IMO! ;)

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I don't really do predictions about City (part mug's game, IMO, and don't believe in tempting fate) but I still think it is right to make us favourites for the league; although we have made the job harder than it should be. Agree with the rest though. We need to control what we can and genuine luck good or bad will be what it will be.

We've been favourites since Chelsea failed to sign Rooney IMO. I think the away form as it currently stands is an aberration rather than an indication of a lack of quality or a poor tactics from the manager. That's not to say that there haven't been mistakes along the way, but even allowing for those, it is down to luck rather than anything else that we're not minimum four points better off than we currently are.

I'm curious .... does anyone else believe we'll end up putting 10 past someone this season. I think we might just. Spurs had the best defensive record in the league prior to yesterday. Their back line wasn't riddled with injuries (i don't know if that was their strongest back 4 but it wasn't far off it).

Here's a prediction: we will break the premier league record for number of goals scored in a season. That's as long as Sergio stays fit.