Mancini: Fight Fire With Fire!

[visitingstokie]

the guy is clueless u'd better get rid 'the special one' might come if u pay him enough money

 

[hotdel1]

In truth the first thing we must do is match them, for workrate and effort, then think about how best to beat them, i dont think the long ball is the way to go to be honest, increased tempo of the passing and sharp movement in the areas which the opponent is weak, but then i think that will beat most teams, thats just me

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

the guy is clueless u'd better get rid 'the special one' might come if u pay him enough money

Pulis?

 

[unexpected item]

Mancini mind games methinks. Stoke haven't beat us this season, and I don't see that changing on Wednesday.

 

[BusterPhillips]

We can't play them off the park because there pitch is the size of a match box and they play with 4x central midfielders, which means if a ball gets headed away by our defence there will be more stoke players than city players ready to pick up the loose ball.

In Ade, Rse, Kompany, Lescott, Richards and Barry we have players over 6 foot. I say let's give it a go, it'll ne dire but f**k em, winnings all that counts!

I,d rather we beat them by playing them off the pitch than resorting to stuart pearce tactics

Totally agree, dont lower your standards! (besides who the f*ck do we have who takes Delap like throws? most cant cross it past the first man!)

 

[StrangewaysHereWeCome]

I think thats lie some one already said (penny dropped), He's aware of their style now and him and Kidd will have spoke (hopefully) with Kidd filling him in on these sorts of footballing "sides" and what can we do to counter their threat whilst, at the same time, working on the tactics to hit them when in posession.

I believe this will have been planned from the morning after the first tie. Or, I might just be talking bollocks lol

 

[christened at st marks]

I think he is talking about going tall in defence and midfield ie what point is NDJ when the ball will go over his head 95% of the game

 

[Tricky_Rici]

Our whole game plan at home revolves around sucking teams into playing the game on our terms, because were going to be better at it than the opposition. The best hope you have of getting a result is to get the ball wide to players with pace (SWP, Bellamy) and run at our full backs. Lumping long balls into the box against us will end it tears, without a shadow of a doubt.

He doesn't mean literally playing like Stoke.(humping the ball up all night long) Read what he said. We are going to match you in every aspect of your game when necessary, but we will still play football. As for trying to match Blackburn at your place. Please. Don't insult us. You lot really need to come down to earth and get a sense of how go you really are.

Doesn't make sense though mate. The passing game rarely works against us (at home) as we still sit deep and hit teams on the break with long balls for Fuller to chase down the channels. He either beats his man and creates something from nothing which he does very often or we have the terrible downside of winning a throw. Whatever tactics you use to try and play us at our own game, it still won't make Toure any good at heading away crosses and throw ins which we eat for breakfast at our end.

How's that for you?

An honest appraisal of how we play the game and with Etherington missing it will only be more than usual. Not a suggestion of needing to come down to earth but realising what we can do and will continue to do until we have a couple of hundred million to spend on new players. ;-)

Plus while it has a history of working against certain teams like yourselves and Arsenal then why would we do it any differently.

As Stateside said and i did on the other thread, your best bet is get it wide and try and skin our full backs for pace as they haven't got a lot of it.

It's your manager's choice but i honestly don't think you can match our intensity and aggression whichever side you put out and playing football will always be the way to beat us, you just need to play it better than last time.

 

[City Raider]

I really hope he is serious because if he is, you can forget any chance you might have had of beating us. Blackburn tried it a few weeks back and were on the end of a 3-0 beating, and they are far better equipped to try and take us on at our own game than your lot. We have built a team that plays the game a certain way week in and week out, and for Mancini to think he can just show up on Wednesday and out play us at our own game is bordering in the ridiculous.

I fear this is true

 

[Tricky_Rici]

We can't play them off the park because there pitch is the size of a match box and they play with 4x central midfielders, which means if a ball gets headed away by our defence there will be more stoke players than city players ready to pick up the loose ball.

Tuncay certainly isn't a central midfielder mate. Lawrence could well play yet aswell so it's not quite that simple.