making sense of this club

somervillain said:
Like many of you on here, I've been at a loss as far as explaining a club as maddeningly inconsistent as City have been this season. However, during today's match I had when seemed to me to be an epiphany.

If this seems obvious to some of you or has been discussed on here in a thread I've somehow missed, I apologize, but here's what I think is going on with the club.

In a nutshell, the only way City can win this season is if they score first -- and early on.

In the 18 matches in all competitions in which City have scored first, they have gone on to win 12 of those matches and drawn two.

In the 11 matches in all competitions in which City have conceded first, they have come back to win just once and earned a draw on one other occasion.

Now this might seem relatively obvious, as scoring first tends to be a huge advantage in football. But what happens after this first goal is the really interesting thing.

When City score first, they have a +11 goal differential (27 for, 16 against) the rest of the match. When City concede first, they have a -1 goal differential (9 for, 10 against) the rest of the match.

When you break down City's 53 goals in competitions, 23 have come while leading, 21 while even, and just nine while behind.

Now this leads me to two potential explanations:

1. City are a mentally fragile side that don't deal well with falling behind and aren't able to pull themselves together and rebound from that.

2. City rely almost exclusively on counterattacking for goals, so when opponents go on top and tend to stop attacking, these opportunities disappear, meaning City are left to produce goals from build-up play and set pieces.

Or possibly a combination of the two.

Either way, this is something that needs to change going forward if City are to make a return to Europe next season.
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I think there is a lot of truth in your post. Said pretty much the same to Pam at the game.

And when we don't counter we tend to try and walk the ball into the net.

We are much better when the play is free flowing.
 
mackenzie said:
I think there is a lot of truth in your post. Said pretty much the same to Pam at the game.

And when we don't counter we tend to try and walk the ball into the net.

We are much better when the play is free flowing.
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Opposing managers seem to have a pretty good idea how to shut down City when they don't need to worry about scoring. It seems the only way to prevent this is to not put them in a position where they can sit back and clamp down.

Everyone is going to find scoring against a defensive-minded side much tougher, but it seems to negatively impact City much more seriously than your typical side.
 
somervillain said:
Everyone is going to find scoring against a defensive-minded side much tougher, but it seems to negatively impact City much more seriously than your typical side.
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Again, I agree.

On several occasions this season we have visibly wilted after the first half hour if we haven't scored. And some of our most naturally gifted players have looked stifled by it. I once said that sometimes we look a team of boys rather than men when that happens.

Then you get the games like today where everything just "clicks" and we are fantastic.
 
ballinio said:
Knight1979 said:
maybe just maybe today was the spark that will light their arses in gear for a respectable 2nd half of the season and a top 10 finish.
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oh dear, you`ve fell for it !
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don't see why since Bolton is currently 10th with only 2 more points than City. It's a very tight table this season.
 
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