Mister Appointment said:
Another constant complaint is “too much rotation”. This is the classic armchair complaint that is completely at odds with the modern game and the modern approach to sports science. Pellegrini doesn’t make unilateral decisions on who should be rotated when. It’s a decision the medical staff are involved in based on the fitness of certain players. You can’t continually ignore rotation whilst we win football matches but then blame rotation whenever we don’t win them. The manager for his part isn’t going to pick sides which he thinks are inferior simply for the sake of it, and he equally isn’t going to simply rotate for the sake of it.
I'm going to disagree here, you, me, and most others were saying pick the strongest side on Saturday, and yet we get 3 out 5 changes in defence again, this is not a rare occurrence , its the norm, so its little wonder that our defending for much of this season is below par. Now neither I, you, or anyone else, actually knows what the fitness people are saying about player fitness levels, but having had a week off in the warm, and having another week before the next match, I can't really see a reason for these defensive changes, week in, week out. We were fortunate to get past Sheff Wed in the previous round after similar changes, so a lesson should have been taken from that. To defend properly as a team we need to have some continuity, and we're not getting it, and in front of the back there are also constant changes, and this is not doing us any favours.
You know my views on the manager, but he's not helping himself, and while defending may not be his priority, we're not doing the business up front either, which means we need to be tighter at the back. We've let in 2 goals in 4 of the last 6 games (ignoring last weeks pointless friendly), and we haven't kept a clean sheet in 7 games, that's not the form of champions.
We had a great run after the home defeat by CSKA, but we were still letting in silly goals, and he rightly was praised during that run, but the defensive problems were still evident.
I'm not seeing the crisis that many in this thread are seeing, after all its only 3 games, 1 draw and 2 defeats, and in 2 of the 3, our opponents have probably had their best game of the season, but you can't escape the fact that we're badly off form since West Brom away, a month ago, and too many changes defensively is at the heart of it for me, I don't just mean in these last three games, I mean in the season as a whole. What is our best back 4 ? Do we know ? I know who I'd pick personally, but how many times have that back 4 played together this season ? In our 2 full back positions, we are taking a risk every time we play the back up players imho, even one of them. I'm not so troubled by the CB's, though Vinny's form is worrying because he's not doing the basics well right now, and I think we should pick a pair and stick with them (injury permitting), and I'm also thoroughly unconvinced about rotating keepers.
Nearly everyone's mantra for 'boro was play the strongest side, even the managers it seemed, and then he didn't, so its little surprise he's coming in for criticism over that decision.
The game itself was a bit misleading, firstly everyone sees the score and thinks we must have been poor, but by all accounts (I didn't see much of it, other than highlights) we played well first half (even Steve Claridge, who never gives us an ounce of credit said this), and probably should have been out of sight by half time, but yet again we didn't take our chances, a characteristic of this season. Then another characteristic of this season, we give away a stupidly poor goal, putting 'boro on the front foot, and giving them something to hold, and the ability to hit a weakened defence, quickly on the break. We still nearly pulled it level, only to see a second scored with almost the last kick of the match.
I'm not giving up on the season yet, we all know that typical City will lose at home to 'boro and then beat Chelsea (or Barcelona), but for me we need to stop rotating players when there isn't a need, if some of them don't like not playing, then tough shit, play better, and you won't be dropped, and that includes Milner, who's head is now clearly elsewhere.