Manchester City - tactical discussion

[Dribble]

Nacho is not eligible to play in CL.
Nasri merited his starting spot given his performance at Palace.

The difference between Nasri at Palace and on Tuesday was where he played. Nasri is a No 10, and that's where he played after Aguero went off injured and he was arguably MOTM.

Fast forward 3 days and Nasri is Marooned wide right where we all know he'll drift in centrally leaving the full back exposed with little or no cover. It happens every time he's shunted out there whether left or right, so why do we persist in doing this? As Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”.

 

[Mike D]

Nasri does help with ball retention, I would have started with Navas on Tuesday. Having two quick wide men is where we've had success this season. Full backs and the people in front of them have to be alert to the threat all the time and opens up the middle for silva to have more space.

Nasri is a Rolls Royce player but he drifted into the middle to much. Juve loved that and played compact.

If prefer it if we played a bit more cautious in Europe instead of going all out trying to win a game. Hate to say it but Chelsea didn't do too bad in 2012 doing it that way.

Defending against Nasri is easy you just deny him space. Where as if we'd played Navas with the pace we'd have caused them more problems than we did. For me the game was exactly like last season every time a team came and parked the bus we had no plan B.

 

[Mike D]

The difference between Nasri at Palace and on Tuesday was where he played. Nasri is a No 10, and that's where he played after Aguero went off injured and he was arguably MOTM.

Fast forward 3 days and Nasri is Marooned wide right where we all know he'll drift in centrally leaving the full back exposed with little or no cover. It happens every time he's shunted out there whether left or right, so why do we persist in doing this? As Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”.

Agreed and after a while Nasri being Nasri just gives up and goes through the motions.

 

[K10&S21]

so what did go wrong today tactically

 

[teddykgb]

I think it's hard to gripe too much about tactics when you generate as much as we generated today. I wasn't a huge fan of the Bony for Sterling sub but that's largely because Bony hasn't done much in our setup and the shape change didn't seem to produce more attacking threat.

Overall, as I was saying in the post match thread, I think teams are happy to push us to our right hand side when Navas is on the pitch. We need both sides to be effective to really get into our attacking flow, stretching teams and forcing them to defend with fewer numbers on players in space. Sterling is completely snuffed out right now because they are being very careful to make sure he has no space in which to operate. The injuries have been such a shame because we haven't gotten to see the team shape with all our attackers on the pitch sacrificing Navas to be more of a speed sub late.

 

[K10&S21]

I think it's hard to gripe too much about tactics when you generate as much as we generated today. I wasn't a huge fan of the Bony for Sterling sub but that's largely because Bony hasn't done much in our setup and the shape change didn't seem to produce more attacking threat.

Overall, as I was saying in the post match thread, I think teams are happy to push us to our right hand side when Navas is on the pitch. We need both sides to be effective to really get into our attacking flow, stretching teams and forcing them to defend with fewer numbers on players in space. Sterling is completely snuffed out right now because they are being very careful to make sure he has no space in which to operate. The injuries have been such a shame because we haven't gotten to see the team shape with all our attackers on the pitch sacrificing Navas to be more of a speed sub late.

great analysis. our right side is left freely by the opposition so that navas could defend that side for them and the left is completely shut down. that was great tactics by westham.
we need a more dynamic player than navas on that side.

 

[MeatHunterrr]

great analysis. our right side is left freely by the opposition so that navas could defend that side for them and the left is completely shut down. that was great tactics by westham.
we need a more dynamic player than navas on that side.

KDB when Silva is fit

 

[K10&S21]

also i agree with pellers when he said we played too fast in the second half. we must move the ball fast from the midfield that we did, but we must be a little patient with the final ball to make the right choice. too often the ball went to the right for a blind shoot or cross we must be more dynamic.

 

[The Richard Wright Fan Club]

What baffled me was the Kolarov sub why not take Sagna off and play Navas as a right back? Kolarov's more a goal threat.
Instead it looked like Otamendi went to left back and Fernandinho to centre back.

 

[mcb1207]

Think I disagree. Navas and Sterling were both coming and standing inside too much. Narrowed the pitch too much. Same as Tuesday. And although everyone seems hell bent on knocking Navas, tactically he's not the problem. We created plenty. We dominated. We were sloppy 3 times and it cost us. On a different day we score 5 or 6 and run away with it

 

[dickie davies]

What baffled me was the Kolarov sub why not take Sagna off and play Navas as a right back? Kolarov's more a goal threat.
Instead it looked like Otamendi went to left back and Fernandinho to centre back.

I agree that Kolorov should have stayed on. I think he only hit one cross in all game abd it caused panic
I also thought that rather than subbing Sterling, when we were chasing the game in the last 20, we should have gone 3 at the back and pushed Sterling central and Kolorov wide

 

[Mr Ed (The Stables)]

so what did go wrong today tactically

They had the extra man in midfield when they counter attacked us.

Noble was outstanding for them.

We lost the game in the first half when we were slow and laboured, constantly giving the ball away, combined with poor finishing.

On another day Yaya would have bagged a hatrick, and Kun a couple.

Also Aguero was awful worst game in a City shirt for me, and it's obvious he isn't fully fit.

Bony just doesn't look like a City player, I think we've bought a pup there.

Strange substitutions from our manager as well. We lost all our shape with the Sterling substitution, and unless Kolerov was injured his substitution with 7 minutes to go was strange as well.

Despite what the stats say West Ham had done their homework on us, worked hard, defended like Trojans, time wasted and slowed the game down when they could, now if only we had adopted those tactics when leading Juventus on Tuesday night.

Like I stated earlier in this thread our manager isn't good enough, he's naieve and the sooner he's gone the better, and he's the underlying problem. We have the best squad in the League with probably the 5th best manager it really is that simple imo.