Madrid v City CL semi final 2nd leg

[Tony Flags]

I really really hate to do this but that was really aweful football yesterday. Sorry, I sincerely expected a bit more. Anyhow I understand if I get banned.

 

[doctor whites]

My glass is always half full but alas after last night my faith and trust in a lot of our players has gone here's to the future blues and a new era.

 

[Walking on the blue moon]

At the moment the best teams in Europe are Barcelona, Bayern and Real. Barcelona were eliminated because the quarter finals coincided with a period of very poor form for them. Atletico come fourthin my book (despite beating Bayern) and then come City and Paris. There is a clear gap between the first three and the others. This is the gap City failed to close. Real are in their best form of the season: we have been playing well recently until Sunday. What has been clear from the semis, and long before that, is that City, in common with other teams, do not move the ball anywhere near as quickly as Barca, Bayern or Real. I think it is this which makes much of our team look static, not to say statuesque, when we play top teams - and our groups have ALWAYS included at least one top team. I don't think the problem is lack of effort - last night's BT statistics showed we actually ran further than Madrid, but they pass more accurately and more quickly. They also play better without the ball - they reorganise to get the ball back much quicker than we do and they hunt in packs. Our players found they were surrounded by three whites or we had to play longer and risk giving the ball away. Noe, in circumstances such as these it is easy to look "timid", as though you're not getting "stuck in", "not going for it". In fact it's very frustrating and you feel as though you're always running up a dead end. That was what it was like against Bayern at the Etihad in 2013 and in the Nou Camp last season. It's not that we are a disgrace, it's not that we are lazy and it's not that our team needs binning - it's simply that we have to accept that for the moment Real are better, just as Barca were better last season. And more perspiration never maks up for inspiration.

The good news is that a lot of what is being said in the papers this morning is nonsense. City do not have the problems identified. "This team" is not a mile away from getting to the final as Keane assures us. There is no point talking about "this team" any more, there is no point talking about "City's problems". "This team" and "those problems" were Pellegrini's and he isn't going to be able to solve them. Next season we'll begin to see Pep's team and they will play in a very different way. I don't know what our formation or tactics will be, I don't know whether they'll be the same two weeks together, but I am convinced we'll be very different and very much better. Whether we'll break the stranglehold the Spaniards have got on the CL is a different question.

Great post! I don't often associate Real with passing prowess (at least compared with Barca and Bayern), but over the two legs I'm rather shocked at the gap between their passing ability and ours. This season our passing is really sub-standard. Crisp, accurate exchanges are few and far between. Don't know why, probably because of our players' characteristics or something to do with our training.

And you are right in that this makes the players look as if they didn't care. Personally I think it didn't make sense for them to switch off last night given their efforts in the 1st leg or in the two against PSG, which took place less than a month ago. Plus we virtually gave up three points against Southampton. At first I thought it had a lot to do with fitness, but then you are right in that more perspiration doesn't mean success without inspiration at this stage. Recently it seems Atleti has become the fashionable term for passion and desire. But passion alone is not enough to win you games. Their organization instead made them the tightest defence in Europe. They press a lot, but they press intelligently. Otherwise they would probably look like headless chickens with huge gaps left behind for exploration. Anyways, our game plan seemed a bit different. It's like they were instructed not to venture out too much. Hence there were many sideway and backward passing. But the trouble is when we did attack, we lost the ball too easily. But this would probably be corrected quickly under Pep, who wants 100% possession:)

 

[Eds]

everyone should go to this twitter account and scroll down to the analysis of both semi finals with videos to emphasise various points @szteveo

 

[Terra Passenger]

Overall I was happy with Peller's starting lineup and substitutions.

Yaya might well have had a monster game - you'd never know unless you started him. I think I'd have preferred to see Yaya off at half time though, but that's a small thing.

Our defense was decent - conceded an unfortunate own goal.

Going forward, we didn't create nearly enough chances. Kun dropped way back into midfield due to lack of service. This was likely due to Yaya having an off game and KDB not being played central.

The one thing I really didn't like though was the inability for Pellers to fire up the team with say 15 to 20 minutes to go and just go all out for a goal. But this has been a common theme with Pellers - completely unable to motivate anyone.
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Real were there for the taking. Real were really poor... to wit, just one goal in the 2nd leg and we were through. A real missed opportunity.

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I feel real bad for Kompany - his career is probably over due recurrent muscle problems.

 

[Phil1]

I really really hate to do this but that was really aweful football yesterday. Sorry, I sincerely expected a bit more. Anyhow I understand if I get banned.

Banned for that? Haha! There'd be nobody left on the forum if that was the case.

 

[Father Paul]

At the moment the best teams in Europe are Barcelona, Bayern and Real. Barcelona were eliminated because the quarter finals coincided with a period of very poor form for them. Atletico come fourthin my book (despite beating Bayern) and then come City and Paris. There is a clear gap between the first three and the others. This is the gap City failed to close. Real are in their best form of the season: we have been playing well recently until Sunday. What has been clear from the semis, and long before that, is that City, in common with other teams, do not move the ball anywhere near as quickly as Barca, Bayern or Real. I think it is this which makes much of our team look static, not to say statuesque, when we play top teams - and our groups have ALWAYS included at least one top team. I don't think the problem is lack of effort - last night's BT statistics showed we actually ran further than Madrid, but they pass more accurately and more quickly. They also play better without the ball - they reorganise to get the ball back much quicker than we do and they hunt in packs. Our players found they were surrounded by three whites or we had to play longer and risk giving the ball away. Noe, in circumstances such as these it is easy to look "timid", as though you're not getting "stuck in", "not going for it". In fact it's very frustrating and you feel as though you're always running up a dead end. That was what it was like against Bayern at the Etihad in 2013 and in the Nou Camp last season. It's not that we are a disgrace, it's not that we are lazy and it's not that our team needs binning - it's simply that we have to accept that for the moment Real are better, just as Barca were better last season. And more perspiration never maks up for inspiration.

The good news is that a lot of what is being said in the papers this morning is nonsense. City do not have the problems identified. "This team" is not a mile away from getting to the final as Keane assures us. There is no point talking about "this team" any more, there is no point talking about "City's problems". "This team" and "those problems" were Pellegrini's and he isn't going to be able to solve them. Next season we'll begin to see Pep's team and they will play in a very different way. I don't know what our formation or tactics will be, I don't know whether they'll be the same two weeks together, but I am convinced we'll be very different and very much better. Whether we'll break the stranglehold the Spaniards have got on the CL is a different question.

I kind of get the drift of your argument and I agree up to a point. However, at least half the current squad at present perhaps more are incapable of playing the kind of football you describe. Yes maybe we covered more ground last night but we didn't do it very effectively.It did seem to the uneducated eye at least that it was a bit of a half assed effort by the players on the night and that is what has pissed most people off. You suggest it can be explained as a quality gap which led to frustration and gave the impression that we were not putting in the effort. The truth is probably somewhere in between. As I have said many times before and as you argue the game is now largely about moving the ball about at pace and players moving about the pitch in packs in a coordinated manner. The current management has no idea how to implement this and as I said a lot of our players are not suited to this kind of game plan. Will Pep make a difference? yes he will but he won't be able to do it over night as many here seem to hope. However, the disaster which Pellers has become will be improved upon next season. We may lose games but not in the embarrassing manner which has become common place this season. Indeed, only for Joe Hart we would have got a hiding over the two legs against a poor enough Madrid. We only got to the semis because we were lucky to top our group and drew a Kiev team who looked like they had just returned from spending the winter on a beach in Thailand. PSG a team of roughly our standard also made it fairly easy for us by not really turning up. While some of the negativity is well over the top the reality is that we are not in a good place at present and could well find our selves in the Thursday night cup next year. The one minor trophy won over the last two years has come at a very high price.

 

[BigOscar]

Our midfield movement was bordering on the embarrassing and it has been all season, it's like watching England play. The CB's get the ball and look for someone making a move in front of them, no one does. They then roll it either left or right to either the fullback or other CB in the hope that someone might make an angle for them instead, they don't. Rinse and repeat, then blame the CB's for not being good enough at passing.

 

[Sky Blue]

I really really hate to do this but that was really aweful football yesterday. Sorry, I sincerely expected a bit more. Anyhow I understand if I get banned.

Banned for your shit spelling of awful!

 

[Father Paul]

Just off topic a little,Madrid's twelfth man, the crowd, to a man where I was sat (in amongst them) everyone was up and down making noise encouraging their team any way they could .Don't know how it came across on TV? But everyone, men young and old women kids the lot were doing their bit. We could really take a lesson or two in getting behind your team. We tried to make ourselves herd (as we always do away), but the Madrid crowd were having none of it last night. We did try, albeit in a slow pedestrian manor then give the ball away with a loose pass, but I bet not one city player could hear a call from a team mate out there?

The is an old golden rule when playing away in big European games. YOU GO OUT AND SILENCE THE FUCKIN CROWD EARLY DOORS!!!!! We never looked like doing this.