BobKowalski said:
In conclusion I reject the 'not a team' premise. We very often play as a team. You just don't win that many games or win the PL if you can't play as a team. Over 38 games you will get found out. The best team does win the title and right now we are the second best team.
If we're such an efficient team, why can Mancini not get the most out of half of our players? He only seems to get as much juice as possible out of our defensive players (except Kolarov who is beyond help) while attack-minded players like Aguero, Silva, Dzeko, Balotelli, and Nasri have all underperformed and have often looked frustrated, as if they're on some sort of invisible leash (and some would place the blame on all of them individually, but isn't it an awfully big coincidence?). Mancini is a very good defensive coach at organising teams the Italian way, but seems unable to put together a truly great attacking side and the only way we play free flowing football are against naive teams who don't copy others who figured out how to counter us.
I'd put it down to his stubbornness and one-track mind when it comes to how we should play, there is very little in the way of variety or unpredictability in which to catch the opposing team off guard. He isn't very flexible at all, he doesn't seem to have done any work on our off-the-ball strategies which is how you break teams down when you have players making intelligent runs in twos and threes to confuse defenders and create gaps (ours just stand still waiting for the ball most of the time). There is also a lack of fluency between defence, midfield, and attack which explains that stagnant feel that you can't deny exists in so many of our games - the slow, ponderous, uncreative approach that sees us march up field then turn back. Defender passes to midfielder, midfielder to defender, defender to goalkeeper, goalkeeper to defender, defender to midfielder... the clock ticks. Not even Serie A teams so often send the ball back to the defender from an attacking position like we do, simply because they don't know what else to do. And this all comes down to Mancini's tactics and team-building ability.
We're truly found out when we play against high tempo, high pressing units who really seem to give everything for their manager and work for each other. Ajax, Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Everton, Liverpool, Southampton, Swansea (last season) have all beaten or drawn with us playing this way. A growing list of teams and unless we fundamentally change we better pray more teams don't end up playing this way or it'll mean more dropped points for sure. A lack of togetherness shows in these games. We're very fortunate there are still teams like Newcastle who offer us space to play and haven't copied the others yet.
Do you not find it strange that we are so rarely able to play really well? When we play very well, as we did against Newcastle, it's a cause for special mention when it should be a common event. Do we blame the squad - valued as the third highest in world football at Transfermarkt - for this when Frank de Boer managed to get a team that cost £4million (less than Scott Sinclair) to build, and featured Liverpool rejects Babel and Poulsen, to function perfectly as a unit and take 4pts from us through superior tactics and hunger from the players?
Our whole 'teamwork' aspect is really lacking IMO, if you look closely it even shows in the basics like throw-ins where the throw-in taker often take forever to release the ball because no one shows for it as his team-mates are just standing around.
