AIQ88 said:
WTF is wrong with some of you? Have you already forgotten where we were not too long ago? Are we already Barça and too good for teams like Stoke?
Man City post of the thread so far.
I would guess that what Mancini means is that he doesn't necessarily want your side playing long ball, but he does want you to be a bit more committed, a bit stronger physically and matching every Stoke player yard for yard instead of lounging around. Don't forget that your team against us last week seemed to have been picked by putting your outfield players in a line arranged according to height, before picking the ten tallest players. It didn't work because you didn't match us for work rate and we were able to disrupt your play with ease. Vieira's idea of matching Stoke physically appeared to be to give the ball away and make clumsy fouls, or to run into a corner, dive and then stamp on Whelan's testes. The key to the game will be Kompany and Toure. If Kompany plays in midfield and is used as Hughes used him against us at the CoMS, you will have a very good chance as you've already injured our only other get out ball. If Toure plays, you might have problems - I have never seen such a defensive liability since we had Paul Williams playing. The best way to minimise the effectiveness of the long throw is to not give them away. Think of Delap like a spin bowler, working the opposition goalkeeper, luring him into traps and trying to fool him. A spin bowler doesn't get the chance to do this if he bowls one over and gets taken out of the attack. Of course, if you're Kolo Toure, you can just smack the ball out for a throw-in, forget to mark your man and appeal for offside.
If you want to come here and play tippy-tappy, go for it. We'll love it. Well, our team will, but the supporters and neutral audience will be bored into submission by the scintillating halfway-line football. We get the ball into the scoring area as quickly and as often as possible, give me that any day of the week. Our whole style of play for the past few years has been about getting the ball into the final third and then keeping it there by whatever means possible. As we become more established, we evolve. Last year our attacks were generally brief affairs followed by backs to the wall stuff. Now with players like Tuncay and Etherington we've gotten better at keeping the ball there and attacking for longer periods of time.
By the way, there's nothing we're entertained by more in Stoke-on-Trent than Prima Donnas getting roughed up by a proper football team that play hard-but-fair, especially when the aforementioned Prima Donnas start whining before, during and after the game. Great fun. Seriously, everyone going on about entertainment, we're proud of our team - we can identify with them, they go out there every week and bust a gut for the manager, they're the last proper football team in the Premier League. We couldn't be prouder.
