Everton (H) | Post Match Thread

[Vic]

What did you make of var yesterday?

Normally you see " checking penalty" or whatever for decisions but I can't recall seeing a single var thing on the screen.

It was like being at the Swamp or Klanfield with no screens!

Webb has already said the bar has been raised for overturning onfield decisions (which means when the referee is told to look at the screen, it's even more likely to be a "clear and obvious" mistake).

 

[paulchapo]

We are very flat and predictable at times this season. Although both players had their critics we miss the pace and energy of Jesus and Sterling, not to mention the goals they chipped in with. Mahrez and Grealish are too similar in style and a deep defence are finding them easier to cope with. Alvarez fetches some of that but at the .moment he loses the ball a lot which is why he's being used as an impact sub.

As soon as Rodri gave that ball away I feared the worst. The lack of reaction and desire to close him down was lamentable and a better team on the counter yesterday would have s ored more.

Given our changes to the squad this season I feared it could be a transitional one and it's looking that way. If Haaland gets injured where are the goals coming from? We could of course turn it around but if we lose three more points and Arsenal.win I fear it's over. It would take some collapse for them to lose it from there.

 

[samuelyeboah]

Are we still blaming pep/haaland/kdb/akanji/grealish/mahrez/khaldoon/the weather for the result or is it now okay to recognize we played largely fine, had enough chances to score at least 3 goals in a normal game and conceded basically no chances but got extremely unlucky, and that happens?

The neverending need to overanalyze and find reasons behind random occurrences that are sometimes just the way football is is something I really hate about football fans

 

[OB1]

Fair point. Conbination of guile and pace. One of my lasting memories of David Silva is him popping up on the corner of the box and slide ruling it through for an express train like Sane to square it. Just don't see that type of move now. Play it back instead..

Opponents have changed how they defend since the season where Sane, Aguero and Sterling were ripping it up.

City may need to rethink things a bit for next season. Maybe the answer lies in what we do about full backs.

Perhaps we have to look to have an FB on either side who can overlap and cross the ball and use Rodri to split the centre backs to provide the back three, and get a box-to-box midfielder alongside him.

 

[OB1]

You’ve touched on one of my biggest frustrations here …the sideways passing from Mahrez and Grealish

What’s worse is Grealish continued to do this when their RB (Patterson?) got booked …..surely you’d then want to run at him and invite the challenge knowing they’d be scared shitless to get it wrong and risk a sending off?

Pisses me off that we never seem to take advantage of these situations. Can only guess Grealish under strict instructions to retain the ball. Criminal really

At times yesterday, Jack received the ball and was promptly confronted by 2 or 3 opponents, the chances of dribbling past them is very low, so he passes the ball to retain possession. Should we take more risks? Maybe, but will it provide great success overall, I'm not convinced it will.

 

[ono]

Opponents have changed how they defend since the season where Sane, Aguero and Sterling were ripping it up.

City may need to rethink things a bit for next season. Maybe the answer lies in what we do about full backs.

Perhaps we have to look to have an FB on either side who can overlap and cross the ball and use Rodri to split the centre backs to provide the back three, and get a box-to-box midfielder alongside him.

Issue with overlapping full backs is what happens on the counter when one of them crosses and the ball gets cleared? We don’t have any recovery pace in midfield with Rodri, KDB, Silva and Gundogan. Playing with overlapping full backs would be a risk with our current squad profile.

 

[ono]

At times yesterday, Jack received the ball and was promptly confronted by 2 or 3 opponents, the chances of dribbling past them is very low, so he passes the ball to retain possession. Should we take more risks? Maybe, but will it provide great success overall, I'm not convinced it will.

Yeah I agree, I don’t know what more Grealish can do in these situations.

 

[Rammy Blue]

Opponents have changed how they defend since the season where Sane, Aguero and Sterling were ripping it up.

City may need to rethink things a bit for next season. Maybe the answer lies in what we do about full backs.

Perhaps we have to look to have an FB on either side who can overlap and cross the ball and use Rodri to split the centre backs to provide the back three, and get a box-to-box midfielder alongside him.

God forbid we actually sign a decent left footed left back.

 

[Feed the Elk]

I'm not sure what happened. The only video I've watched is the short highlights on the City website, I couldn't be doing with MotD etc yesterday. I suspect they got caught out by Gray stopping, which I'm not sure was clever or just a case of him not being sure what to do, but after his slip he found he had time and space to shoot.

Maybe Stones though the ball would go wide and was looking to position himself to deal with that.

Bottom line is someone should have closed Gray down. Annoying thing is that, even so, 9 out of 10 times, he would not have hit a shot that good.

I've not seen the error that gave them the ball in the first place on video but IIRC it was Rodri, who doesn't often lose the ball in bad positions.

All in all, despite not being at our best, City were very unfortunate to drop points yesterday. I've tried to wipe Brentford from memory but that's still for me the only game where an opponent took points off us that were all merited and that is despite us not finding our best form this season.

City do need to raise their game somewhat but we also need the breaks to even out: we do not have a single point on the board that has not been merited. Newcastle gave us a tough game at their place but were hanging on with their fans begging for the whistle at the end.

Every game is a big game for us, because it always seems like we cannot afford to drop points and are going to need near record breaking totals to win the damn league, but the next few games really are BIG and will tell us a lot about where our team really is at this season. Arsenal have only dropped points in two games so far this season and if they can keep that up, we'll just have to make sure Arteta can be persuaded to come back to City when Pep leaves.

Nah. Their goal came about because Rodri was forced into a pass he didn’t want to make which allowed Everton to intercept and break on us.
Can’t blame the defence for conceding one chance when the attacking game produced so many opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of

 

[i went to rotherham]

It’s laughable mate that people are underestimating Arsenal , they are the real deal this season, if Arteta does it then he’s manager of the season without question, with a young team aswell to boot , can we really say we are better than them so far ? 7 clear , 10 if they dick us ?

4 if we dick them !
1 if we dick 'em twice !
Keep the faith.