Martin Demichelis

[BoyBlue_1985]

with that statement you have confirmed you know fuck all about football.

Oh I do mate, I just dont like MDM

I am just glad I have missed your other 30,000 posts because clearly they were total fucking nonsense as well

Fucking hell mate 1 bad post = 30000 nonsense posts
Clearly your opinion is always correct then so I will bow to you
Cheers for pointing out that I obviously spend too much time on here, 33000 posts thats just ridiculous

 

[the originalkippaxman]

The one thing that is starting to annoy me is the way some city fans seem to have a hate figure in the team but can not given any reasonable explanation in to way they think he is shit. It seems to make them more popular with others and make them seem like they actually have an idea of what they are talking about in a crowd.

Back on to MDM I thought he had a solid game up to the point of the penalty and broke down a lot of attacking play on the edge of the box. He was in a catch 22 situation when the sending off incident happened because what ever he had chosen it would have been his fault. Cold light of day does not help in the heat of battle.

There is a large group near me that are all pro Lescott and anti MDM and Nastasic. Even though I offer them numerous examples that Lescott is now too slow, not comfortable on the ball, can not pass, a major fuck up waiting to happen (QPR fine example). They just wont have it. When that back pass from a good 35 yards out went straight for a corner I just had to laugh. 250 Million people worldwide watching and we've got this useless fucker kicking a ball out for a corner.

How he played prior to that incident is (at this level) frankly irrelevant. These games even ties are often decided by one mistake. We were not playing some mid table Prem fixture.

The only decision he needed to make was to try to make it difficult for Messi to get a shot away. And if he couldn't do that then as a defender you stay on your feet and allow the goalkeeper to try and make the save. What you don't do is attempt to make a tackle from the right side of a left footed superstar when last man on the edge of the box. You invite the referee to send you off and give a penalty. That one decision, one brain freeze has ultimately cost us any hope of progressing in the CL. Its such fine details.

Does this make him a crap player? No. But he's let the team and manager down big time. Difficult to take on the chin. Easier to sometimes get beat and beaten well at this level and hold your hands up and say 'they were merely too good'. No City fan came away feeling like that. Regrets are horrible in football.

Some valid points out of curiosity would have preferred Lescott to have started

 

[gio's side step]

The one thing that is starting to annoy me is the way some city fans seem to have a hate figure in the team but can not given any reasonable explanation in to way they think he is shit. It seems to make them more popular with others and make them seem like they actually have an idea of what they are talking about in a crowd.

Back on to MDM I thought he had a solid game up to the point of the penalty and broke down a lot of attacking play on the edge of the box. He was in a catch 22 situation when the sending off incident happened because what ever he had chosen it would have been his fault. Cold light of day does not help in the heat of battle.

There is a large group near me that are all pro Lescott and anti MDM and Nastasic. Even though I offer them numerous examples that Lescott is now too slow, not comfortable on the ball, can not pass, a major fuck up waiting to happen (QPR fine example). They just wont have it. When that back pass from a good 35 yards out went straight for a corner I just had to laugh. 250 Million people worldwide watching and we've got this useless fucker kicking a ball out for a corner.

How he played prior to that incident is (at this level) frankly irrelevant. These games even ties are often decided by one mistake. We were not playing some mid table Prem fixture.

The only decision he needed to make was to try to make it difficult for Messi to get a shot away. And if he couldn't do that then as a defender you stay on your feet and allow the goalkeeper to try and make the save. What you don't do is attempt to make a tackle from the right side of a left footed superstar when last man on the edge of the box. You invite the referee to send you off and give a penalty. That one decision, one brain freeze has ultimately cost us any hope of progressing in the CL. Its such fine details.

Does this make him a crap player? No. But he's let the team and manager down big time. Difficult to take on the chin. Easier to sometimes get beat and beaten well at this level and hold your hands up and say 'they were merely too good'. No City fan came away feeling like that. Regrets are horrible in football.

Some valid points out of curiosity would have preferred Lescott to have started

Good question. Probably not. At this level he lacks pace. So in principle it was the right decision but my post was not specific to any point about team selection. It was merely to highlight that ultimately MDM has cost us the game and how well he was playing prior to the incident will not be remembered.

Worse case scenario if he stays on his feet? Messi scores. We remain 11 v 11 and decide to battle on and try to equalise and if we can't we shut up shop and accept 0-1. More importantly, our players are not fucking knackered having put phenomenal levels of energy into the final half an hour (which concerns me for Saturday).

And that tiredness was also a crucial factor in Clichy mentally switching off in the build up to the second goal which has killed the tie completely.

 

[M18CTID]

The one thing that is starting to annoy me is the way some city fans seem to have a hate figure in the team but can not given any reasonable explanation in to way they think he is shit. It seems to make them more popular with others and make them seem like they actually have an idea of what they are talking about in a crowd.

Back on to MDM I thought he had a solid game up to the point of the penalty and broke down a lot of attacking play on the edge of the box. He was in a catch 22 situation when the sending off incident happened because what ever he had chosen it would have been his fault. Cold light of day does not help in the heat of battle.

There is a large group near me that are all pro Lescott and anti MDM and Nastasic. Even though I offer them numerous examples that Lescott is now too slow, not comfortable on the ball, can not pass, a major fuck up waiting to happen (QPR fine example). They just wont have it. When that back pass from a good 35 yards out went straight for a corner I just had to laugh. 250 Million people worldwide watching and we've got this useless fucker kicking a ball out for a corner.

How he played prior to that incident is (at this level) frankly irrelevant. These games even ties are often decided by one mistake. We were not playing some mid table Prem fixture.

The only decision he needed to make was to try to make it difficult for Messi to get a shot away. And if he couldn't do that then as a defender you stay on your feet and allow the goalkeeper to try and make the save. What you don't do is attempt to make a tackle from the right side of a left footed superstar when last man on the edge of the box. You invite the referee to send you off and give a penalty. That one decision, one brain freeze has ultimately cost us any hope of progressing in the CL. Its such fine details.

Does this make him a crap player? No. But he's let the team and manager down big time. Difficult to take on the chin. Easier to sometimes get beat and beaten well at this level and hold your hands up and say 'they were merely too good'. No City fan came away feeling like that. Regrets are horrible in football.

Yeah, let's crucify the bloke because he made one mistake shall we? Let's completely ignore the fact that if it hadn't been for our captain playing Messi onside then the situation would never have developed in the first place, that situation being that he was totally isolated from the rest of the defence and had the small matter of trying to deal with the greatest player on the planet bearing down on our goal.

Laying all the blame at MDM's door is out of order but hey ho, this club always has to have a scapegoat for a section of our fanbase and MDM just happens to be the latest member of that club.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Donkeychellis was exposed tonight he simply cannot be trusted in the big games time to put him out to pasture and bring back Nastasic

Nastasic needs 4 or 5 years experience before he's ready to play at that level. Apart from a couple of stray passes early on, Demichelis had done pretty well before the penalty. It was Kompany who actually let the side down in that incident but he was superb apart from that.

Perhaps a man of his experience shouldn't have dived in and taken a chance on Hart saving from Messi but it's easy for us to say that in hindsight.

 

[gio's side step]

The one thing that is starting to annoy me is the way some city fans seem to have a hate figure in the team but can not given any reasonable explanation in to way they think he is shit. It seems to make them more popular with others and make them seem like they actually have an idea of what they are talking about in a crowd.

Back on to MDM I thought he had a solid game up to the point of the penalty and broke down a lot of attacking play on the edge of the box. He was in a catch 22 situation when the sending off incident happened because what ever he had chosen it would have been his fault. Cold light of day does not help in the heat of battle.

There is a large group near me that are all pro Lescott and anti MDM and Nastasic. Even though I offer them numerous examples that Lescott is now too slow, not comfortable on the ball, can not pass, a major fuck up waiting to happen (QPR fine example). They just wont have it. When that back pass from a good 35 yards out went straight for a corner I just had to laugh. 250 Million people worldwide watching and we've got this useless fucker kicking a ball out for a corner.

How he played prior to that incident is (at this level) frankly irrelevant. These games even ties are often decided by one mistake. We were not playing some mid table Prem fixture.

The only decision he needed to make was to try to make it difficult for Messi to get a shot away. And if he couldn't do that then as a defender you stay on your feet and allow the goalkeeper to try and make the save. What you don't do is attempt to make a tackle from the right side of a left footed superstar when last man on the edge of the box. You invite the referee to send you off and give a penalty. That one decision, one brain freeze has ultimately cost us any hope of progressing in the CL. Its such fine details.

Does this make him a crap player? No. But he's let the team and manager down big time. Difficult to take on the chin. Easier to sometimes get beat and beaten well at this level and hold your hands up and say 'they were merely too good'. No City fan came away feeling like that. Regrets are horrible in football.

Yeah, let's crucify the bloke because he made one mistake shall we? Let's completely ignore the fact that if it hadn't been for our captain playing Messi onside then the situation would never have developed in the first place, that situation being that he was totally isolated from the rest of the defence and had the small matter of trying to deal with the greatest player on the planet bearing down on our goal.

Laying all the blame at MDM's door is out of order but hey ho, this club always has to have a scapegoat for a section of our fanbase and MDM just happens to be the latest member of that club.

Not crucifying him. Merely stating his 'one mistake' was significant and crucial. The only thing MDM had to do was stay on his feet. That is my only point here. I am not making him a scapegoat. He himself has let the team down. Not me.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

I think it is easy and understandable to blame MDM because the combination of the sending off and going 1-0 down changed the whole complexion of the game, but ut's harsh. The initial error was Vinnie's: Messi was miles offside until Vinnie ran back - too far back - and Messi was able to step onside in between our two CBs. Only MDM appears to have seen the danger, and he was never - as Martin Samuel says in the Mail - "one on one" with Messi, but rather trying to get to him as he advanced on goal. His aim seems to have been to ignore the ball and take the little fella out outside the box - quite ruthless, pretty cynical and totally unsporting, but not a penalty either - and he succeeded. The ref gave the penalty from miles away, quite wrongly, but the red card quite rightly. 0-0 and ten men is a different game to 0 - 1 and down to ten. I would have preferred 0 - 1 with eleven like most, but MDM isn't the criminal lunatic most seem to be claiming.

I didn't rate DeMichelis before last night and I saw nothing to make me change my mind that he's an accident waiting to happen.

I am far from convinced by MDM, I don't think he's good enough to be CB in a CL winning team (not now anyway) and he makes me nervy and edgy every time he plays. But he was bought on the last day of the window when we were in dire straits, he was intended as emergency cover and we don't have a CB to play the way Pellers wants with Nastasic injured. I like Joleon, but he doesn't look comfortable on the ball certainly when Barca are the opposition! He looked edgy as well last night. I thought MDM's distribution was very poor last night, but he wasn't the complete disaster the papers make out this morning. I thought his big error of judgement was making the "tackle" at all - I think Joe is as good as anyone coming to meet a forward, even Messi and I'd have put my money our Joe. But what really eats away at me, is that all season I've been having nightmares about the high line we defend, and yet the one time all we had to do was defend it Vinnie got back and nullified the whole approach. I was screaming at the box. I'm not going to dream of thinking of breathing a word of criticism of Vinnie, who was again more magnificent than I can say. I feel though that MDM was trying to deal with a line which had been broken. He didn't do it and he made the situation worse, but in a split second it does happen quite often.

 

[NorthamptonBlue]

Was watching the match in an Irish bar in Prague. Just before the game an Irish guy came up for a chat, wished me luck and laughed about MDM starting. "Bet you could do without that, the guy always f*cks up doesn't he". Hard to argue really. I don't buy the 'no choice' argument. I was always coached as a lad that defenders shouldn't ideally tackle at all but always try to reduce the strikers angle. After the sending off, it was always going to be difficult and I would have taken 1-0 like a shot. Still happy though because we played Barcelona in CL. I never thought I would see that in my lifetime. Chill everybody - this is quite a ride! Enjoy.

 

[davymcfc]

Played well but made a stupid decision that cost us heavily.

 

[skybluepete]

That backpass from Lescott still makes me laugh. We was playing well and giving it a real go until he did that.

I thought Pellegrini was going to run on the pitch and chin Lescott.

Lescott would not even be here this season if Mancini had also remained in charge.

Are we saying both him and Pellegrini are wrong? Remind how great Lescott was in the Champions League last season?

Demichelis, for the £4m, for his technical ability, is a safer bet than our other options.

Doesn't make it right, but Pellegrini is working with his present reality, and I admire our manager for seeing what so many others can't.

A blind man can see that Lescott is shite with the ball at his feet, we had to play MDM last night and he was doing a decent job until the penalty.

Lescott 88% successful pass completion rate throughout this season - " he's shite , he can't pass, he's not comfortable on the ball" etc. etc.
He can look as uncomfortable as he wants but if he defends well and passes simple, that for me is good enough at the moment.
People on here are hypocritical they go on about MD , he's better than lescott this,that and the other but how well would MD have coped last night coming into a game v barca at full strength when we had not only just gone one down but also gone down to 10 men.
Obviously the back 4 came under intense pressure as a result of this , add to this our players tiring as the game wore on,inevitably there was going to be the odd mistake and i thought personally that for 40 mins with 10 men against arguably the best team in Europe , we limited them to very few chances and performed admirably.
It was a very difficult moment to enter the game for lescott and loads of you want to highlight a back pass , admittedly he panicked and made a bit of a hash of it but did barca score ? Answer -NO
I've already said i dont think MD had a nightmare last night but he seems prone to make a big mistake anytime.
There was a period in the first half where he kicked the ball out of play with the outside of his right foot under no pressure ( thats the problem playing a right footed c/h on the left ) and then gave it away in very dangerous areas twice in close succession( one of these passes was after he had won the ball very well).
I repeat , i dont think he's shit, i think he can play, but for me from the bench , which is what we bought him for-cover only.
Im not well up on who are the best c/halfs that are available or could be persuaded to be but we definately need a world class c/h to play alongside vinnie for next season.
I dont think anyone of us would class a player that cost us 3/4 million to be a world class player.
I also maintain that against a full strength barca team we need a full strength team too, that means a match fit aguero, match fit nasri and a match fit fern .
Hopefully we will have this in the 2nd leg and give it a go- if we fail , let's do the domestic treble !!