It hasn't upset me as much as I thought I would

Its a different kind of dissapoitment. Im dissapointed for the players and the managment team. Not so much for myself. I didnt grow up following the european cup, for me it will always be the league and the two domestic cups. But ultimately we will need to make the european cup final a regular thing, not just a once in 10 years thing. And Im sure european titles will follow.
 
Ultimately it was a first step to get to the CL final, it can only start to get better from here. For years we could not get past quarters, so we have come far and this will be good experience.
 
coolcity said:
OK my take for what it's worth. I'm not totally devasted, I'm upset yes, just like after losing any big match but we've been through far, far worse so devastated? No.

Am I unhappy with the team selection or the way we played? No. Why? Team Selection: As I've just mentioned in one reply. Most seem to be berating starting without Fernandinho or Rodri, but both players started the FAC Cup defeat so it wouldn't necessarily have solved anything.

Sterling? Nobody said it was a mistake for Chelsea to play Werner. He's got 6 goals from 35 (or so) matches in the Prem, Sterling has 10 from 31 starts. A top striker doesn't become a crap striker overnight and he was probably our biggest threat in the first half. Who's to say before the match he isn't going to score? (For the same reason I thought that knowing our luck, Werner will score).

Tactics: For me, the reason behind the tactics were as follows: Chelsea have beaten us twice and know exactly how we play. Tuchel is a VERY good tactician, and Pep knew that starting the XI we all purportedly wanted was effectively telling them exactly what they were up against, and that may have given them a mental edge having already won twice recently. I think to get around that he HAD to change it.

I think the idea was to try to get an early lead, with Mahrez, Stirling, Foden forming an attacking lineup and then possibly bring on the holding midfielder later to shore things up. I didn't think we did a huge amount wrong, we started OK with a break right from the kick off and while we didn't have too many shots that was testament to their defence rather than City playing badly.

The match stats show that we had 7 shots in total, they had 8, while we had 4 blocked to just one by them. So it was tight. Overall we had 3 corners to their 1, 25 throw ins to their 17, 88% pass success rate to their 81, 20 aerial balls won to their 16, and just 8 clearances to their 26. Overall possession was 60/40 so please stop telling me they didn't turn up.

At the end of the day it was a long pass forward from more or less the half way line, great pass that led to their goal. On another day Havertz could have tried to chip the keeper and put it over the bar, tried to slide it past Eddy and gone wide and so on. We see one on ones missed every day. Last night he didn't. We don't know if Ferdo or Rodri would have been there to prevent the pass. On another day you don't see the superb tackle that stopped Foden from scoring; on another day you'll see player sent off for far less that that block tackle on KDB, and you'll see KDB put in one killer pass that gets us back in the game. It was just fine margins, they set out to be good defensively and last night they were very good. We weren't crap, they stifled us well. They didn't hammer us, we lost by the finest of margins. There was nothing there to suggest to me that playing either DM would have changed anything for the better.

Should Pep have changed it? Well the alternative was showing Chelsea the team they'd probably prepared for anyway. We might have lost by more. But we have a manager that has been there, bought the T-shirt and so on and has earned the right to do what he thinks will work for us. For me, it was worth a punt against a side that he KNEW had the measure of us. If it pays off he's a hero.

Tell me to fuck off by all means, but for me the real disappointment was the post-match thread last night. How can people slag off the team and manager and say it's embarrasing? For me, it's embarrassing to have won the title, especially after a poor start, the league cup for a record successive 4th consecutive time, and let's not forget, 6 times in 8 years, and see Aguero beat Rooney's all time one club scoring record on the last day, then see all those posts deriding the team and the manager.

I'm disappointed, but more in the reaction rather than the match. Seems to me that we've just turned into what we used to hate the most - glory hunters who think we have a God given right to win everything and can't take a defeat on the chin, and that's sad when I think back to how well we took it in the late 90's and bounced back. That hurts more than the defeat last night ever will. Today I'm ashamed to be a City fan, and none of it has anything to do with the way we played last night.
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Great post. Disappointed but not devastated. It won’t be a once in a lifetime thing that we’ve blown. We’ll be back and we’ll have learnt from this.
 
Disappointed we didn't win, but not surprised we didn't.
Evert single game of football you play is a learning curve and you learn from your mistakes/defeats and move on.

Last night, as sickening and gutting it was to lose, it unfortunately happens.

It was only our 1st ever champions league final against a side who had before last night already appeared in 2 previously in just over the past decade.

Like I said you learn as you go along, and I'm as sure as certain we will be back in the final in the not to distant future.

In honesty as messed up as it sounds. By losing in the final, the players know now what it feels like to have got to the final but fall at the last hurdle and will be hurting.

You win some you lose some, that's life.

Use the hurt and anger from last night as a tool for motivation and go again next season.
 
Strange delayed reaction, of a sort that I never get after a defeat. I was annoyed and disappointed last night, but dealing with it ok, basically. But through the day a deeper sense of sadness has set in. We had a chance, there, a big chance, to put the cherry on the cake. I've hung around in my pyjamas all day, something which I just never do. It didn't seem worth getting dressed.
(P.S. Dressed and washed now, feel a bit less like a dosser…)
 
Just very disappointed we didn’t show up and do our thing , control of the midfield is Pep’s usual mantra. Why he didn’t is genius if we win and idiotic if we lose. Not even a ridiculous Red card or bizzare VAR call to blame this time. Just lost to a very well coached 800 million pound team.
 
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