Get a grip, guys.

[Akira]

I'm just confused... what the hell happened to city's defence? since when is it the norm to concede so many goals?

If my memory serves me right, we had a leaky defence at the start of last season. It's weird though, like shit happened overnight.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Okay, so I've been supporting the club for only 4 years, thus I said it's not in my place to judge "new" fans.

What I'm just annoyed by is just the fact that there have a handful of people jumping on the notion that Mancini is "shite" manager. And I just want to voice my opinion that we should get behind the manager.

And I'm pretty surprised that the title CAN annoy people that much. I'm just quoting what others are saying, people.

Never mind, it's not in my place, I'll just keep my mouth shut then.

How do you "get behind" the manager on a football forum? Limit your comments to "Forza Mancini" and "Mancini WOOOOOAAHH"?

He runs the team and gets flack when he gets it wrong. I haven't heard a single City fan ask for his head this season. I don't trust him an inch but even I don't believe his position is under any threat until at the very least next May.

Come on DD, he must have earned at least an inch in your affections ;-)

He won us the league, GDM, and deserved a new contract based on that alone. But JEsus Christ, he frustrates the hell out of me. More than that, he scares me.

I watched the TV build up to the Arsenal game when I got back on Sunday. He was in some cafe with his sidekick and they were talking about how he has all these daft pre-match superstitions. Drinking from the same glass, touching spilt wine, pratically chanting incantations. It was fucking feeble-minded idiocy. Superstition is for clowns, not rational leaders.

I just want him to keep knocking back my fears with results - like he has for the majority of the last two years. But I can't deny he frightens me .

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I'm just confused... what the hell happened to city's defence? since when is it the norm to concede so many goals?

If my memory serves me right, we had a leaky defence at the start of last season. It's weird though, like shit happened overnight.

Your memory doesn't serve you right. We conceded 6 goals in the equivalent 7 games at the start of last season. It's 14 this season.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Sometimes staying on the mountain top is harder or less relevant than the journey there.

Realistically we cannot pass serious judgement of this until Christmas and if we are 4 points from top then I for one will be fairly content.

Whilst I don't agree with your first point above, I partly agree with your second.

We have too many good players for this to not right itself. It isn't time to panic yet. The coaching staff can see what we can and they have to respond.

I still think we will win the league because we are the best squad. The problems are easily rectifiable for that reason.

 

[Goo]

Sometimes staying on the mountain top is harder or less relevant than the journey there.

Realistically we cannot pass serious judgement of this until Christmas and if we are 4 points from top then I for one will be fairly content.

Whilst I don't agree with your first point above, I partly agree with your second.

We have too many good players for this to not right itself. It isn't time to panic yet. The coaching staff can see what we can and they have to respond.

I still think we will win the league because we are the best squad. The problems are easily rectifiable for that reason.

I know you aren't the biggest fan of Mancini but if there is one thing he (and most Italians for that matter) know, it's how to organise a team to defend.

After he came in for the first time it was the first most obvious change he made to the club... We didn't win as much as we liked, but we also didn't concede much. Far less than we did under Hughes. It was a "build from the back" strategy.

I for one can't see any logical reason for our current under-performing. Perhaps a combination of slow transfer window movement, next to no pre-season, new players key to defense signing i.e. Garcia, arrogance of being champions and feeling invincible after Charity Shield match. It may be all of those, and it may also be none. Seeing as we don't have exclusive access to the back rooms and inner workings of City none of us will ever know for sure. However, I feel very confident the problem will be sorted, and we will finish this season with reason to be happy with what we've achieved.

Mancini has signed a new 5 year contract, VInny's is 6 years, and Silva's is 5 years. The club and the players have faith in the way things are going, so I see no reason for myself to feel otherwise.


EDIT: Also, with regards to your comments about Bobby's superstitions, I suspect that was put through the media mincer a bit and jazzed up for the show, however even if it wasn't, you should consider the fact that there are doctors and nurses in the world who believe Jesus literally can cure the sick, and that God literally controls everything, but they're still qualified doctors, and still do their jobs successfully. I don't think that is legitimate cause to be scared of our managers credentials, or ability to manage our team successfully.

 

[levets]

I say its better to have our rough patch now than in April. Can't expect to destroy everyone year-round.

No offence to you mate but I'm getting a bit fed up of this piece of claptrap, too.

It's like getting your house robbed and saying "Well it's better it happens now than at Christmas, eh?"

How's about we don't have a rough patch at all? You know, like champions?

Thing is, if we aren't careful, this sentiment will morph into "Well we can't win something every year". I've heard the first whispers of that already on the forum.

We don't need to panic, of course, but the manager needs to sort things out straight away by getting back to basics and stop trying to be clever.

Correct.... but may I just remind everybody... we are still unbeaten, having played the scousers and Stoke away.. Plus Arsenal. Now before the game on sunday, Arsenal were described as being in scintillating form... But City in stuttering form! How come if AFC in scintillating form (despite not scoring in 2 games) then we are stuttering... considering we have the same record. Won 2, Drawn 3... we have scored 10 goals... AFC have scored 9 (6 in one game)

perspective!!

last night was terrible though

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I don't think anyone could deny we're not firing on all cylinders at the moment. But we are only 2 points down on last season so far, so even if we don't do any better or worse in the remaining 33 games, we would get 87 points.

But we have the chance to do so much better, particularly as we only got 3 points from our next three opponents in the equivalent games last season. If we get 2 wins and a draw, we'll actually be 4 points up on the same games last season.

 

[mancity1]

Sometimes staying on the mountain top is harder or less relevant than the journey there.

Realistically we cannot pass serious judgement of this until Christmas and if we are 4 points from top then I for one will be fairly content.

Whilst I don't agree with your first point above, I partly agree with your second.

We have too many good players for this to not right itself. It isn't time to panic yet. The coaching staff can see what we can and they have to respond.

I still think we will win the league because we are the best squad. The problems are easily rectifiable for that reason.

I did say sometimes DD and I agree with your sentiment totally.

Some players who either thought they had little future at the club moved on to new pastures rather than fighting for a spot and for some a title is enough DD and they mentally even though they will not acknowledge it even to their closest are not prepared to put in the work required to keep ahead and adapt to change quickly enough.

They say the first is the hardest but often the second is harder still.

The use of the word panic and its meaning is irrelevant in the scheme of things for what will panic do anyway even if the club feels the pressure to produce to this degree.

The best squad or the best set of players or the best team by whatever terms you define will not necessarily win you a title or be guaranteed a particular finishing position unless of course you define best as meaning securing more points than the other 19 clubs over 38 games.

We certainly have the capability of doing that this season as we showed last season but whether management and the players can achieve it depends on how well they come out of those 38 games vis a vis the opposition.

I tend not to look for the excuses and I call them excuses as opposed to reasons regarding training availability pre season , match fitness , tinkering with formations players and tactics on the day.

It gets down to whether we want it more than the opposition on the day and play with enough skill , flair along with a bit of lady luck for enough of those days to do the job.

Agreed making changes and many of them from game to game in my opinion is no recipe for success and sometimes they are forced on you but all teams challenging for their stake in the title or where ever they feel they are able to get to in a particular season are faced with the same challenges.

If RM is such a beast that he does things that actually , repetitively , knowingly and measurably that inhibit us from finishing in the best possible place then the players should be professional enough to do what is required in spite of him and the rest will take care of itself and we both know what that means for RM at City at least.

 

[dancity19]

How do you "get behind" the manager on a football forum? Limit your comments to "Forza Mancini" and "Mancini WOOOOOAAHH"?

He runs the team and gets flack when he gets it wrong. I haven't heard a single City fan ask for his head this season. I don't trust him an inch but even I don't believe his position is under any threat until at the very least next May.

Come on DD, he must have earned at least an inch in your affections ;-)

He won us the league, GDM, and deserved a new contract based on that alone. But JEsus Christ, he frustrates the hell out of me. More than that, he scares me.

I watched the TV build up to the Arsenal game when I got back on Sunday. He was in some cafe with his sidekick and they were talking about how he has all these daft pre-match superstitions. Drinking from the same glass, touching spilt wine, pratically chanting incantations. It was fucking feeble-minded idiocy. Superstition is for clowns, not rational leaders.

I just want him to keep knocking back my fears with results - like he has for the majority of the last two years. But I can't deny he frightens me .

He does have certain downsides. He is very emotional- sometimes far too emotional for a rational leader as you said. He also has his vision clouded too much by players he does and doesn't particularly like, I think.

That being said, he won us the league last season, so as long as he can pull everything back together that is fine. We are looking v poor at the mo, and don't want to start playing catch up, but we can't suddenly have turned so poor. Fulham is a big game for us in terms of regaining some confidence and getting a good performance under our belts.

 

[Akira]

I'm just confused... what the hell happened to city's defence? since when is it the norm to concede so many goals?

If my memory serves me right, we had a leaky defence at the start of last season. It's weird though, like shit happened overnight.

Your memory doesn't serve you right. We conceded 6 goals in the equivalent 7 games at the start of last season. It's 14 this season.

Crap... getting bad memory for my age...