Mancini's Way...

[simon23]

Mancini's first task was to stop us conceding a bucketful of goals every game

Mancini's next task (and long term aim) is to teach City how to win. Not draw or lose but win. I don't think Mancini cares much how this is done as long as it is done and a top 4 spot is secured.

Once a top 4 spot is secured then next season is a different ball game and with different players.

And whilst in the meantime we can all bemoan the fact that we are not playing like Barca under the new regime it has to be said we didn't play like Barca under the previous regime either. In fact I don't recall us ever playing like f**king Barca so its not as if Mancini has 'betrayed our glorious heritage' or similar bollocks.

He hasn't done task 1 yet! We've conceded 11 in 11... i tihnk the majority of us wouldnt demand we play Barca-esque football yet or even soon or perhaps ever! But the way were setting up currently is stiffling our best players and making it harder for the team going forward. A middle ground is needed between all out attack and this all out defend we're currently employing, imo.

spot on!!

balance is the key word and my fear is that mancini only knows one way to play

 

[KenTheLandlord]

Winning ugly is a necessity now and again. Let's set up like we did tonight at Stoke and Chelsea, I've no problem with that.

At home to Bolton though? Like you say Dave, we can do better, much much better.

Are you sure we can do much much better? It was in home games exactly like tonight that Hughes lost his job by being unable to grind out results from winning positions.

Mancini seems to be being criticized for making a team who were leaking goals focus on defending. The law of averages says that if you stop conceding, but don't stop scoring, you're going to be a winning team. No matter shit performance or good performance, we haven't stopped scoring goals. Barring our two worst performances of the season (Everton and Spurs away), we've created and scored in every match we've played.

Give it time. If we're still this dour and negative in six weeks, I'll be very surprised...

Except Birmingham away.

 

[Nelly's Left Foot]

A little patience is needed. There's been a lot to put right.

Once the confidence in the system develops, the more expansive football will follow.

Robinho is going to get homesick for city before too long.[/quote]


Totally agree with the patience thing.

But I don't actually see what the system is apart from a lot of defensive players and 3 maybe 4 at times to hopefully score the goals.It is getting us by at home but losing away but yes patience is needed.

As for Robinho getting homesick..... well that's just ridiculous.He is at home now.

 

[BobKowalski]

Mancini's first task was to stop us conceding a bucketful of goals every game

Mancini's next task (and long term aim) is to teach City how to win. Not draw or lose but win. I don't think Mancini cares much how this is done as long as it is done and a top 4 spot is secured.

Once a top 4 spot is secured then next season is a different ball game and with different players.

And whilst in the meantime we can all bemoan the fact that we are not playing like Barca under the new regime it has to be said we didn't play like Barca under the previous regime either. In fact I don't recall us ever playing like f**king Barca so its not as if Mancini has 'betrayed our glorious heritage' or similar bollocks.

He hasn't done task 1 yet! We've conceded 11 in 11... i tihnk the majority of us wouldnt demand we play Barca-esque football yet or even soon or perhaps ever! But the way were setting up currently is stiffling our best players and making it harder for the team going forward. A middle ground is needed between all out attack and this all out defend we're currently employing, imo.

We conceded 9 in Hughes last 3 games in charge so Mancini has stopped us conceding 'a bucketful of goals' every game. He hasn't stopped us conceding goals all together but we are getting more clean sheets.

Mancini has started with the bleeding obvious (and the amount of goals we conceded prior to his arrival screamed 'bleeding obvious') the defence. And not just the defence as in the 4 poor sods at the back but defence as a team. This does curtail the attack and Mancini has to get the balance between the two right but short term he will err on the side of caution because his bosses want wins and a top 4 spot.

Bolton last night was about 3 things. Getting a win, winning and getting 3 points. Everything else is white noise.

 

[Rammy Blue]

fucking hell, it's not long since we drew 7 league games on the bounce!

Bob's record:

4 wins out of 4 at home
1 win / 2 defeats away

3 away draws would have given us same points away as we have at the moment in which case if we were unbeaten in league we would have same points but W4 D3 L0.

win at home, average a point per game away = job done.

now i know that the above is over simplified as it is unlikely we will win our remaining 7 home games but we only need to win a couple away and we are laughing all the way to the top4.

 

[simon23]

lets see if its still white noise when we play decent teams and he plays the same way and we lose.....cause it will happen if we play like we did last night against bolton.....

We need to look at the bigger picture and looking at last nights perfromance and then thinking about the bigger picture it starts to get very worrying

but i guess we will have to wait and see!

 

[Revolver]

Apart from the occassional slap stick trademark City defending the team last night and against Portsmouth reminded me of Liverpool under Houllier and Benitez. Functional, defensive with occassional glimpses of skill (Gerrard and Torres for them Johnson and Adebayor last night for us) but not very exciting.

Not complaining just an observation (and probably wrong)

 

[BobKowalski]

Apart from the occassional slap stick trademark City defending the team last night and against Portsmouth reminded me of Liverpool under Houllier and Benitez. Functional, defensive with occassional glimpses of skill (Gerrard and Torres for them Johnson and Adebayor last night for us) but not very exciting.

Not complaining just an observation (and probably wrong)

Not a bad shout. How much of this is short term expediency or long term aim on Mancini's part we can only surmise but I suspect it is more expediency then anything else.

 

[GStar]

We conceded 9 in Hughes last 3 games in charge so Mancini has stopped us conceding 'a bucketful of goals' every game. He hasn't stopped us conceding goals all together but we are getting more clean sheets.

Mancini has started with the bleeding obvious (and the amount of goals we conceded prior to his arrival screamed 'bleeding obvious') the defence. And not just the defence as in the 4 poor sods at the back but defence as a team. This does curtail the attack and Mancini has to get the balance between the two right but short term he will err on the side of caution because his bosses want wins and a top 4 spot.

Bolton last night was about 3 things. Getting a win, winning and getting 3 points. Everything else is white noise.

We also conceeded none in Hughes first three league games, its not a big enough trend... conceeding goals has been a problem since the derby league game. I don't think its fully been adressed yet, and further too that, i don't think playing three defence minded midfielders and no width is a long term answer.

The only thing with your last bit is, three points for a win, 1 for a draw. The incentive is there to win matches, not draw them, erring on the side of cution in't a way to get us into the top 4, winning games, scoring goals, battering the opposition and creating a fear in our opponents is.

I think we'd benefit much more long term if we were willing to win games 3-1 or 4-2; our defence is coming togther now with Boyata, Kompany, Lescott and Bridge all in the frame and Micah back soon. And we've got the pace and creativity to scare any team in the league.

I agree that Mancini needs time to develop, i just don't see how we've gone from standing toe to toe with Chelsea (and winning) or even our set up at Wolves under Mancini, to this. He's the man though, i've no grounds to really question him.

 

[Anonymous]

Apart from the occassional slap stick trademark City defending the team last night and against Portsmouth reminded me of Liverpool under Houllier and Benitez. Functional, defensive with occassional glimpses of skill (Gerrard and Torres for them Johnson and Adebayor last night for us) but not very exciting.

Not complaining just an observation (and probably wrong)

Not a bad shout. How much of this is short term expediency or long term aim on Mancini's part we can only surmise but I suspect it is more expediency then anything else.

Course it is....Inter were very easy on the eye, and played a very fluid attacking game under Mancini...I think we'll see this team get better and stronger as the season progresses as long as Mancini can control the dressing shit stirrers...