Mancini on his team selection and The Carling Cup:

[simon23]

er milner aand also swp are in midfield as well both who are excellent defensive as well as going forward.....whe we lose the ball both have the pace and know how to tuck in and defend...swp pace can be used to defend against cole out on the left hand side (which is one of chelskis best ways of attacking....having swp there will make him think twice about it...and SWP tackles as well as anyone....

and as for milner...well people on here led me to believe that he has a great engine on him and is a box to box player who can defend as well as attack .

so thats 4 vs the 3 you mention ( i hope i dont need to go into detail about how godd defensively Yaya and dejong are....dejong can track lampard with his late runs int ot ehbox which meand yaya can take control of essien when he comes forward.....cheslki dont attack ddownt he right as much as their left so milner can also tuck in and help out

Get this into your head please.......IM NOT anti RM...!! If you read some of my m,ost recent posts i was actually defending him for the basis his team selection last night.i unberstand why he put some of the kids in...but he got the balance wrong again

No, that's 4 vs 5, when we include Cole and Ferreira. Their spare man will be in midfield, while ours will be at the back. We'll be going two up top against Terry & Alex, but in fairness the ball will only reach them via a punt from the fullbacks.

De Jong and Toure would have to watch the runs of - and run past - Essien and Ramires, at which point they'd run into Mikel. Similarly, Mikel will be able to receive the ball from defence and start their moves from a fairly advanced position.

I know that you're not anti-RM, it's just that I'm very anti-442 ;)

the 5th man is tev defending from the front which the man in thehole can do if you have a player like tev...roonney does it to great affect for utd....even ronaldo when he played central for utd use to do it...gerrard does it when he plays that role just behind torres

its not 4-4-2

its a fluid system that mens when defending its a 4-5-1 (tevez defends from teh front which he is superb at) and wehn we attack its at least 4-3-3 but actually its 4-2-4 (swp milner ade and tev)

the key is swp and milner getting up and down...or one of them holding and one going when on the attack if we wanted to eb a bit more conservative.

It certainly gives more attacking options than any system RM has put out this season and it doesnt leave the striker isolated (which is happening every single game .....note tevez reaction early on in the wigan game after he had a long range effort...he was bollocking yaya for not getting forward and supporting him on the righ hand side)

now this system might be a risk against chelski....but against any other team in teh league its definaely workable.....however even against chelski id rather see us go and attack them and possibly lose than sit back and wait for the inevitable to happen or just rely on a lucky break

mancini i think is trying to emmulate the chelski model of playing which is fair enough...but he aint got anywhere near it yet....our ssystem ends up like this:


gk

back 4
midfield 3








front 3 (sometimes just one or two!!)

 

[persvenality cult]

Agreed that Raymond is likely doing a little self promotion but the types of injuries and where they are happening is what worries me. Chelsea's injuries have mostly been onfield playing type injuries where a good number of ours have been off field or in training itself. It's the repeated soft tissue injuries that I would be worried about. We're not seeing broken leg type injuries like Fullham or injuries as a result of rash tackles, but muscle and soft tissue injuries that are the result of overuse.

Tis a recurring theme but I worry that's because the perception was put out there, leading people notice the incidents... if you see what I mean. Scanning through phsyioroom.com, it seems the vast majority of injuries at all clubs are ligament/muscular. Yes, Zamora broke his leg, but the rest is two groins, one knee, two ankle strains and one calf.....

five hamstrings at Sunderland, now THAT's a trend.

It doesn't mention causes. I certainly thought Kolarov was out due to that bad tackle. It was straight in the ice, the prognosis got worse after a few days but doesn't the initial swelling sometime make it hard to tell the extent of the ligament damage?

Balotelli, I don't really understand... cartilage damage, they were right to leave it to heal but sometimes it doesn't, and he needed an op. he said he overextended... what struck me was that he said he didn't have much muscle on that side of his body. eh?

Boateng got his injury on international duty, or so he says 'I had problems with the knee from the [Germany] match in Copenhagen'. Then the drinks trolley. errrr, okay. They are bloody heavy mind you.

Lescott and Bridge... seems to me they always are injured.

Richards, hamstring... Ade, no comment your honour.

But yep, definitely something to watch.

I notice Ancelotti is saying Lampard is out due to a something or other. I'm more than a little suspicious of both managers' pronouncements on injured players at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised to see the dead rise from the graves an hour before kick off on Saturday.

Am I kidding myself or did we do okay last year? Certainly it was horrid during November, December, January... but I thought we did pretty well until the end of the season. Petrov had a problem but he was out of favour. Don't remember us having a problem until Given's Shoulder.


p.s., yes, I noticed Dorrans again last weekend. Not quite Milner-esque in his footwork and energy, but he has time, and he's already a very useful player, I'd take him like a shot.

 

[bluemanc]

"I don't regret making the changes. I have big problems at the moment and we couldn't take any risks.

"If I had more players available it would be a different team. But when you play like us and Chelsea, on Saturday at 12.45, the time to recover is very short.

"They would need minimum three days so to play tonight would have been dangerous."

"Saturday is more important, the FA Cup is more important. The Europa League is more important.

"I did not regard this as a necessary sacrifice. We wanted to win. That is why I had four senior players on the bench.

"But I knew there was a chance we could lose because we started with six young players.

"I am happy with these guys. We might have lost the game but they can improve. If they do not play tonight, when will they ever play?"


Hopefully all will work out for us this season. Our manager has clearly prioritised. I personally think we have blown a big chance this evening of silverware. Its not the end of the world of course, Liverpool can hang their heads in shame and Chelsea to. Yet I cant help but feel, we should be winning these games.

That's exactly what he said when we got beat by stoke last year,he certainly knows a few excuses to use going off the stuff he's used today.

 

[Marvin]

Going into this game I was aware of 7 injuries

Now we know we have 9 injuries and 3 fit defenders

So the team picked itself, because surely no City fan would have wanted us to play the 1st regulars who are expected to play against Chelsea and Juventus?

A week or so ago we had threads complaining about the injuries, and now we have threads complaining about the team selection. Injuries force a team selection.

I am hoping that this is just a passing difficulty. I don't think any of the injuries are long term, and Adebayor and Boateng are, last I heard, close to returning. With 2 difficult games in the next week we can't afford to lose anyone else

 

[masterwig]

So the team picked itself, because surely no City fan would have wanted us to play the 1st regulars who are expected to play against Chelsea and Juventus?

I did.

Will failing to beat Chelsea end our league campaign? No.

Will failing to beat Juventus knock us out of Europe? No.

We had a real chance in the League Cup and we've pissed it away by playing a joke of a line-up.

 

[LoveCity]

Found this interesting. Mancini's English is still very imperfect which may hamper his communication with players. If/when it improves, will that help us?

Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti has revealed he could only have conquered the Premier League once he mastered the English language.

Ancelotti, 51, enjoyed a glorious debut season at Stamford Bridge and lifted the club's first league and FA Cup double. The Italian admitted he only truly felt at home after "three to four months" when he could communicate properly with his players.

Speaking to Sky Sports News, he said: "I had some difficulty because it is not easy to speak a new language. I tried to do my best and after three or four months everything was OK.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

Found this interesting. Mancini's English is still very imperfect which may hamper his communication with players. If/when it improves, will that help us?

Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti has revealed he could only have conquered the Premier League once he mastered the English language.

Ancelotti, 51, enjoyed a glorious debut season at Stamford Bridge and lifted the club's first league and FA Cup double. The Italian admitted he only truly felt at home after "three to four months" when he could communicate properly with his players.

Speaking to Sky Sports News, he said: "I had some difficulty because it is not easy to speak a new language. I tried to do my best and after three or four months everything was OK.

So is Ancelotti's and Carlitos and Yaya and Silva and Jo and frankly half of the english player's.

 

[LoveCity]

So is Ancelotti's and Carlitos and Yaya and Silva and Jo and frankly half of the english player's.

But Ancelotti's point is, regarding his own success with Chelsea, he couldn't have achieved what he has so far until he became fluent in the English language.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

So is Ancelotti's and Carlitos and Yaya and Silva and Jo and frankly half of the english player's.

But Ancelotti's point is, regarding his own success with Chelsea, he couldn't have achieved what he has so far until he became fluent in the English language.

It's not an issue. read the training threads and tell me how may times it's mentioned. None.

 

[YourBirdCanSing]

"Saturday is more important, the FA Cup is more important. The Europa League is more important.

Awful attitude.

From the Official Site:

"I knew that there was a chance we would lose with six young players, but we did want to win. Saturday is more important, but if I had not so many players injured, I would have put out a stronger side."

Says it all, really.

According to Mancini's mate Robbie Savage on 5 live, the owners have set Mancini a non-negotiable target of Top 4 or he's out. And because of our injury situation, he decided to gamble with the Carling Cup, to try and keep us on course for it. So the truth is that Saturday isn't more important for the club. But it may be more important for Mancini's job.

Thing is, most City fans will tell you that Saturday's NOT more important. Very few of us expect to get anything from Chelsea, and losing doesn't cost us 4th place, just makes it a little bit harder than it was before. On the other hand, to have progressed last night in a very winnable cup with very few good teams left in it would have been a cause for real optimism.

So, faced with terrible injuries, Mancini decided to cut his losses on a very winnable cup, to try to keep us on course for 4th.

High risk strategy if you ask me. The question is, will it backfire?