Manuel Pellegrini

[supercity88]

I still think Kun is far more important to us against CSKA than Jimmy, and he stayed on till the 85th minute so im not quite buying that Milner was brought off to save his legs

I don't think they are linked, and of course Sergio's more important, so don't you think he would have taken Aguero off after 60 minutes had we been 3-0 up (as we should have been) ? Milner meanwhile had a direct replacement, arguably 2, Sergio didn't.

Possibly, you would have thought so.

This comment isn't linked to our convo, and slightly off topic, but at the moment Jimmy is becoming the 7th most important player on the teamsheet

Hart, Zabba, Vinny, Yaya, Silva and Aguero. Milner has been that good recently that he is playing himself into that bracket, he needs to keep his performances and work rate up, which you would imagine he will do now he has been given a sniff of regular first team football

The point about Aguero is how I see it. At 1-0 had we conceded with Aguero off the field it would have been a bad situation for us. We had to keep him on because he can score from nothing. We should beat CSKA everyday of the week. Let's not make it a bigger game than it is. There is pressure because of our previous results but we should beat them and ideally Aguero can play 60mins, put us a couple goals up and then come off this time around. Having 3 strikers, of which one isn't particularly prolific, and playing 2 when we start... something doesn't add up. We must be going for someone in Jan. Rodriguez from Southampton seems a real possibility.

Milner is definitely a crucial player for us, he would start everygame for me at the moment.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

In hindsight the subs call was probably good logic . He could have reasonably expected more from Dzeko and Nasri against 10 men. They both let him down in that one offered nothing offensively and the other went absent defensively.

The didn't let MP down. The players already on the pitch got tired and Fernandinho lacked composure so they hardly saw the ball.

 

[OB1]

The level of whinging over some substitutions in a game that we won is quite incredible.

As others have pointed out, we do not know how significant the subs were to the lack of composure that City showed in the closing stages. Personally, my inclination is to accept that the Rags would have gone for it and City would have got nervous regardless of any substitutions.

Take a look at a chalkboard and you can see that United attacked pretty evenly down both flanks in the closing stages and City played a lot of inaccurate balls out from the back; they do not paint a picture that the absence of Milner, Jovetic or Aguero was the a significant factor.

Even if the manager did make mistakes, they are just additions to a list that is far shorter than the one of things he gets right.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

The level of whinging over some substitutions in a game that we won is quite incredible.

As others have pointed out, we do not know how significant the subs were to the lack of composure that City showed in the closing stages. Personally, my inclination is to accept that the Rags would have gone for it and City would have got nervous regardless of any substitutions.

Take a look at a chalkboard and you can see that United attacked pretty evenly down both flanks in the closing stages and City played a lot of inaccurate balls out from the back; they do not paint a picture that the absence of Milner, Jovetic or Aguero was the a significant factor.

Even if the manager did make mistakes, they are just additions to a list that is far shorter than the one of things he gets right.

Good post OB1

Over the season, grinding out this win might do more for our confidence than stuffing the rags by 4 or 5.

We kept the clean sheet and showed character to not let "Oliver's Twisted" performance deny us the three points.

 

[BillyShears]

But I have been losing patience with his tactical inflexibilty, I have been losing faith in him being the one to take us to the next level (I don't think he will) and he did piss off our star player yesterday.

But I don't want him sacked and I think he'll still do a good job within his contract period with us.

Fair enough. I still think your post was very reactionary but we've all been there at one time or another. I do think it's important to acknowledge that for the most part even throughout our blip the discussion around Pellegrini has remained for the most part respectful and actually interesting. Twice i've changed my mind because of well thought out arguments I've read. Maybe I just feel the point about the subs is being laboured but then i'm contributing to it so I should shut the fuck up too!

 

[nellyonthewing]

In hindsight the subs call was probably good logic . He could have reasonably expected more from Dzeko and Nasri against 10 men. They both let him down in that one offered nothing offensively and the other went absent defensively.

The didn't let MP down. The players already on the pitch got tired and Fernandinho lacked composure so they hardly saw the ball.

You say "The players already on the pitch got tired" - surely it should have been the side with 10 men that gets tired in the latter stages or are you saying we have fitness problems.? A more likely scenario that we brought on two lazy players who effectively neutralised the extra man advantage and didn't impact the game .

 

[cleavers]

We kept the clean sheet and showed character to not let "Oliver's Twisted" performance deny us the three points.

"Oliver Twist", now that's quite a good nickname for the twat.




On another point raised above, the point of "bully boys" defending the manager, do you not see the irony of such statements, peopel are defending the manager today because they think he deserves it, some are the same people who were criticising him last week for a poor week.

Nobody is "bullying" anyone, just debating the issues from their own veiwpoint, its just a claim from those who don't like others to have a different opinion.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

In hindsight the subs call was probably good logic . He could have reasonably expected more from Dzeko and Nasri against 10 men. They both let him down in that one offered nothing offensively and the other went absent defensively.

The didn't let MP down. The players already on the pitch got tired and Fernandinho lacked composure so they hardly saw the ball.

You say "The players already on the pitch got tired" - surely it should have been the side with 10 men that gets tired in the latter stages or are you saying we have fitness problems.? A more likely scenario that we brought on two lazy players who effectively neutralised the extra man advantage and didn't impact the game .

The team that plays twice a week (including trips to Russia) can get tired agains the team that plays only once. They had 11 men with Oliver.

We wasted a number of passes out of defence in the last 20 minutes that didn't help matters.

 

[cleavers]

We wasted a number of passes out of defence in the last 20 minutes that didn't help matters.

Especially as the man brought on to hold the ball up when we did get it away, wasn't interested in doing so.

 

[uwe rosler 28]

Both changes had to be made as both players were running on empty! Clichy looked so much better with a bit of cover in front of him seems to be made a bit of a scapegoat on here but basically he is always playing against 2 or 3 men as teams target that area knowing silva or nasri won't do the covering.