Everton (H) | Post Match Thread

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Jesus H Christ, could people please stop saying that the league's done?
Yes, it's a serious situation. Yes, I don't necessarily see Arsenal dropping seven points anywhere on current form. Yes, given the way they're playing, they could easily beat us both at the Emirates and at the Etihad, frankly.
Can we play better than we've done since the start of the season? Well, we've done it before, so it's at least a possibility. Could Arsenal have a drop in form? No sign of it yet.
But we've played sixteen games out of thirty-eight. Think about that a bit. There are months to go.

But Pep's got to fix this and fix this fast. That's why he gets paid the big bucks. He could start by using his bench properly, when things aren't going well.

 

[nellyonthewing]

We have no right to expect win every game.
There was no lack of effort on our part.
We were done by a worldie finish which Gray couldn’t repeat if he tried 100 times.
It happens.
The league is far from done.
Move on.

Fine but consider our last 3 home League games Fulham (last gasp win) ,Brentford and Everton are a dangerous pattern of low to mid table teams having figured out how to frustrate us and then profit from our crappy defence.

 

[Len Rum]

We're failing to get Haaland into the game IMO.
I noticed yesterday that when we building up attacks from our own half he was making runs to get beyond the Everton defence but the ball over the top never materialised. Even worse nobody was even looking to make such a delivery. I know Pep hates making this kind of pass which is often speculative preferring to keep possession instead but the problem then becomes the slow pedestrian build up against a packed defence.
Also Edie seems to have stopped the long over the top goal kick to Erling.
Perhaps we néed to work more on this in training.
And why are we not finding Erling with crosses/corners?

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

"We played a great game and they scored on their only shot etc". The problem is not us conceding 1 goal from 1 shot, that happens.

Actually I do think that's a problem. Many, many teams have known how to score one goal and then see the game out. May be boring, but you should know how to do it. Clean sheets have become a rare thing with us. We had several in October, and they've been diminishing since. Look at our results in November and December. Especially in the league.
It's a problem, and the team and manager should be worried about it.

 

[City_Sean]

Jesus H Christ, could people please stop staying that the league's done?
Yes, it's a serious situation. Yes, I don't necessarily see Arsenal dropping seven points anywhere on current form. Yes, given the way they're playing, they could easily beat us both at the Emirates and at the Etihad, frankly.
Can we play better than we've done since the start of the season? Well, we've done it before, so it's at least a possibility. Could Arsenal have a drop in form? No sign of it yet.
But we've played sixteen games out of thirty-eight. Think about that a bit. There are months to go.

But Pep's got to fix this and fix this fast. That's why he gets paid the big bucks. He could start by using his bench properly, when things aren't going well.

The issue is we've had a very easy start given the fixtures we've played.

I don't buy that we will go on one of those mad fifteen plus winning runs that we need because ultimately the squad is not at that level this season.

The club this summer decided to adopt a strategy of letting anyone who wanted to go leave, and it's left us with a totally inept forward line which has hardly any dynamism.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Fine but consider our last 3 home League games Fulham (last gasp win) ,Brentford and Everton are a dangerous pattern of low to mid table teams having figured out how to frustrate us and then profit from our crappy defence.

That's pretty much the same kind of form that EFC show at home! And look where they are!

 

[Fordyboy46]

I don't get why Walker, Cancelo, Foden suddenly have found themselves out of favour, they've had enough time since the World Cup now to get up to speed, Cancelo barely played for Portugal. Hopefully it's a Pep masterplan, but we need to start putting our best eleven on that pitch now

 

[flb]

Well that made for a crap New year's eve for me. Just watched it back on MOtD. A load of teams try to sit back and hit us on the break, it's been going on for years. It makes us look slow because there's no space to run into and we pass, pass, pass along the back, side to side. Not a great watch. We need a little bit of class to open them up, Mahrez did that for the first goal. But Kev had an off day, Stones and Rodri maybe should have scored from headers, Grealish is not a goal threat and they defended well. If we'd got a second it would have been game over. One up and we're always susceptible to the one chance one goal thing. Ref was shit too. Stoppages, diving, fouls, it was like Everton became Atletico Madrid.No other team will have to face the same set up. Arsenal, the Rags, scousers their games will be mostly end to end. Oh well, Arsenal have a tough run of games and so do we. Let's see what we're made of. Happy New year.

Take KDB’s assists out of this team and we are donald ducked

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

I can't be definitive because how much I watch of other sides varies considerably but in all my long years of watching City / football, the parade of bus parkers that City face feels unprecedented. I know in recent times I've bemoaned how teams play against the Scousers compared to us. Of course, Liverpool don't play exactly the same way as us but I felt teams could have made it harder for them.

I don't think pace is really the answer when teams sit deep in large numbers. Running into a brick wall at speed just hurts more ;-) A player with world class trickery and serious pace might open up some more chances but we've seen Sane struggle against teams defending low in numbers.

Playing the ball over the top only really works if your opponent defends high. That said, I do think we need to look for opportunities to knock things over the top for Haaland to chase; teams don't want to let us do that though....

Forwards with pace come into their own when you can counter attack and we really aren't bad at that as we stand: only the Rags have scored more goals on the counter than we have so far this season. We aren't going to sit back though and try to draw teams out.

Dealing with opponents counter-attacking his teams has been a perenial conundrum for Pep and he keeps trying to tune things to reduce it happening but within his way of playing. Yesterday, we had the players there to control the counter Everton scored from but they contrived (and may have been fooled by imcompetence or brilliance on Gray's part) to give him too much space to pick out the top corner.

We've added the big, fast goal machine and he scored (again) yesterday and gave us the lead; notwithstanding we were less than the width of the post from a 2-0 lead, we have to make sure we can win games by 1-0. and that means not errors in the wrong places.

I would like some pace in the team but it has to come with top class technical ability and high football intelligence.

It’s not an easy one but we do have to learn to win games 1-0, I agree with that. Their goal was an absolute gift. I am still struggling to understand what Stones was doing. Someone else alluded to us being too passive as defenders and not aggressive enough and I agree with that, particularly when Dias isn’t playing.

 

[sir baconface]

OK, it’s New Year’s Day so I’m retrieving my Appy-Clappa Mark 1 from behind the sofa where I threw it In disgust.

First, I’m remembering that we lose a couple of the most unlikely games EVERY fkn season. It’s not killed us in previous years though.

Second, Arsenal are inexperienced in title-challenging marathons. Fair play if they do it but they‘ve yet to hit the customary rough patch. (And the dippers have already dropped a number of points.)

Third, we still have to play the Gooners twice. That offers the (albeit tricky) possibility of a six point swing irrespective of other fixtures.

Fourth, we have one of the world’s best, most in-form strikers. This SHOULD make us more potent than last year. Plus two of the world’s most coveted young attacking stars to play alongside him. Let’s get Alvarez and Foden in and persist with them. Put the unproductive slowsters on the sub’s bench in favour of dynamism.

It‘s an uphill battle from where the tables stand but we’ve shown ourselves capable on many occasions. Come on Blues, we’re not fcuked yet!!!