Mancini - Milner

[ST Coleridge]

I take it you think 4-4-2 is the only viable option then

Oh, certainly not. The 442 is dead.

In the current system, the full-backs are covered by Barry and De Jong when the opposition breaks. This allows a little more freedom for Silva and Balotelli.
If you want Silva/De Jong/Milner as a midfield three, then Balotelli has to go on the bench and AJ has to work much harder.

The system's fine, with (imo) the exception of Yaya in the hole. I'd put Milner there, or put Silva there and shift Milner to the left wing (to make more of a 4411).

 

[Joycee Banercheck]

I take it you think 4-4-2 is the only viable option then

Oh, certainly not. The 442 is dead.

In the current system, the full-backs are covered by Barry and De Jong when the opposition breaks. This allows a little more freedom for Silva and Balotelli.
If you want Silva/De Jong/Milner as a midfield three, then Balotelli has to go on the bench and AJ has to work much harder.

The system's fine, with (imo) the exception of Yaya in the hole. I'd put Milner there, or put Silva there and shift Milner to the left wing (to make more of a 4411).

But if we have 3 attackers and two midfielders running at them, won;t their fullbacks be more concerned about our attackers than us about their fullbacks attacking us?

 

[andymcfc8]

I'd have milner in central midfield for city instead of yaya.

 

[ST Coleridge]

Are we in agreement that the team to face Sunderland should be something like:

-------------------------------Hart--------------------------
Zabaleta--------Kompany--------Lescott--------Kolarov
---------------------de Jong--------Barry-----------------
------------------------------Milner-------------------------
------------AJohnson------------------------Silva---------
------------------------------Tevez-------------------------

???

Yeah, this would beat Sunderland. But you could take out AJ and put Balotelli in (swapping wings with Silva).

If Milner doesn't start in the middle, then I hope Yaya's had a good rest ;)<br /><br />-- Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:35 pm --<br /><br />

But if we have 3 attackers and two midfielders running at them, won;t their fullbacks be more concerned about our attackers than us about their fullbacks attacking us?

Presuming that you're not winding me up - There are no real walkovers in the PL, every opposition side will have at least a bit of possession and a few counter-attacks. Even Harry 'Super Attacking Spurs' Redknapp plays with two orthodox wingers, who track their opposite numbers. Mancini actually allows his 'wingers' (usually Silva, AJ and Balotelli) a bit more freedom, but this is balanced elsewhere (by Barry, who constantly slides across to the left).

 

[Joycee Banercheck]

Are we in agreement that the team to face Sunderland should be something like:

-------------------------------Hart--------------------------
Zabaleta--------Kompany--------Lescott--------Kolarov
---------------------de Jong--------Barry-----------------
------------------------------Milner-------------------------
------------AJohnson------------------------Silva---------
------------------------------Tevez-------------------------

???

Yeah, this would beat Sunderland. But you could take out AJ and put Balotelli in (swapping wings with Silva).

If Milner doesn't start in the middle, then I hope Yaya's had a good rest ;)

-- Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:35 pm --

But if we have 3 attackers and two midfielders running at them, won;t their fullbacks be more concerned about our attackers than us about their fullbacks attacking us?

Presuming that you're not winding me up - There are no real walkovers in the PL, every opposition side will have at least a bit of possession and a few counter-attacks. Even Harry 'Super Attacking Spurs' Redknapp plays with two orthodox wingers, who track their opposite numbers. Mancini actually allows his 'wingers' (usually Silva, AJ and Balotelli) a bit more freedom, but this is balanced elsewhere (by Barry, who constantly slides across to the left).

Sorry, mate. It was a bit of a wind up. Not at you personally. I don't even know why I quoted you. I probably meant to quote someone else.

 

[greeny-ctid]

i would drop barry for sunday and put miner in the middle he was in amazing form last season for villa!

 

[Andouble]

"That’s why I moved to Man City, to play there [in central midfield], and maybe I haven’t played there as much as I would have liked but I’ll do whatever’s best for the team. It was great to play in there tonight and hopefully contribute."

 

[Blue Elmo]

Milner was the one player above most last night who I was taking a severe interest in , I soon as I saw he would be playing in the middle I thought it best to see the different side to his game. Watching him last night , he was very very good and how he isn't in our midfield trio is beyond me. He is a box to box midfield player , he defends and he attacks. At the start of the season I heard a lot of people saying he is not an attacking midfield player he isn't that good in terms of creation , if you watched the game last night , that hypothesis is all wrong . Some of his long range passing and passes in behind the full back were superb and caused Ghana's defence real problems. I believe if Mancini put him in the middle , he will prosper and become the player he was at Villa last year the one with 12 assists and 12 goals in all competitions. He has played there a few times , more recently against West Brom and I thought in that game you could not really fault him, he was again very good . At the swamp , he started in central midfield and again I couldn't fault him like I couldn't fault the rest of the team. Play him in the middle , we add a whole new dimension to our game , we get a hard working steam engine who gets stuck in and can create and score goals. If milner were in the middle , we would pose a bigger threat to any other team and look a lot more balanced in the middle . But I expect Mancini to go to using the three he prefers , but if he wants to achieve more he has to play milner or buy a player the same if not better than milner to play in the middle , because atm I believe our problem is in the midfield .

 

[King Geedorah]

DJ Milner and Silva are by far our best midfield trio.

Can't really say that when they've never played as a midfield trio before.

Oh but they have. They played in the same world where a team who've only lost once all season were there for the taking, footballers don't get fatigued because a guy once did a whole day of work then came home and made his own dinner, half a season is ample time to judge a footballer regardless of anything, Balotelli is actually Mussolini reincarnated and the OSCs are in league with the Illuminati. The world otherwise known as Bluemoon.


Milner seems to be in the weird camp of players who would excel if we played in a different system like Dzeko and SWP. I imagine he could do a job instead of De Jong or Barry but he's not assured enough in possession to play Toure's role.

 

[allan harper]

i would drop barry for sunday and put miner in the middle he was in amazing form last season for villa!

Agreed.