Martin Demichelis

[Neville Kneville]

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.

We don't need hindsight though tbh do we ? We all knew when it happened that it was the worst thing he could have done, yet the bloke earning the big money rather than the ones paying to watch him, can't keep his head enough to realise it.

He did do very well indeed defensively before that, although his passing was Conference standard. But that's Demichelis. He looks nice & solid, then either goes missing or dives in & costs us a goal.

Been doing it all season, did it for Argentina, & has previous for that kind of thing.

 

[sir baconface]

can anyone explain to me.. what the flying fox has lescot done soooooo wrong that our dumb manager cannot see that demishite and nastashite are not now or ever will be as good as the good old fashioned clear the line kick the ball out no messing about lescot? are there photos i need to know about ? is someone shafting someone else mind boggling? wtf !
#

What dribblesome, semi-literate, unfunny shite.

 

[Phil1]

The press/media were dying for him to make a mistake, he's been getting it from MOTD, Red Top gutter papers and juvenile radio for weeks so it shouldn't be a surprise that his sending off has intensified the ridicule.
Truth is the only error he made last night was making the challenge. Letting Messi go one on one with Hart (chase back and make it as uncomfortable as you can) and keeping 11 men on the pitch was what he should have done, but hind sights everything and in the heat of the moment it's understandable why he went for it.
People are too quick to be sucked in, he's far from perfect but no fucking way near as bad as is being made out.
The problem we have at the back with Lescott and MDM is that between them we've got the perfect defender, unfortunately their attributes are skewed - Lescott is a strong, solid no nonsense defender who gets his head in and can keep his discipline but can't pass for toffee, which obviously counts against him in our set up. MDM on the other hand has good passing range, sets us up for quick attacks and is usually very composed on the ball, his problem is he can't defend for toffee.
Looks like we've just gotta make the most of a bad situation.

 

[pml79]

He got two things wrong last night 1 not shoutin to kompany to stop droppin back playin messi back onside n then slidin in on that tackle should av stayed on his feet

 

[skybluepete]

this fukin manager ?

You really are touchy about mr pellegrini aren't you - no malice meant by what i said but i do find it a bit worrying that he seems to have his favourites and very limited use of any english players or interest in them.

I question your support and will happily do so to your face.

You can question it all you want pal- my support doesn't and never has wavered for the club i support and love regardless of whether i like a player or manager.
I dont boo or get on any individuals back, never have and never will, so , your opinion of my support means fuck all to me .
Simply iv got a bit of an opinion of a player and one on the manager and iv used industrial language, im sorry you get offended so easily- i suggest you lighten up a bit.

 

[the originalkippaxman]

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.

Highlights what we already know. We need a worldclass CB. I did feel sorry for Clichy who was having his best game for a long while and was just too tired at the end. Thought him and Kolorov did an good job against Alves and Sanchez.

Though if you read and believe what the press say this was not the case.

 

[jimbopm]

Taking the red card moment in isolation and then using that moment to lambast Demichelis is such a blinkered view. And here is the reason why.

The whole incident starts when a questionable tackle on Navas is not given as a foul. The key thing about that moment was that it allowed Barca an oppurtunity to thrust forward knowing that most of the city team had ventured forward and out of position.

Up until that attack we had done an excellent job of making sure all of Barca's forward play took place in front of two banks of 4, and Joe had very little to do in net other than sweep up some errant through balls.

On this occasion however Barca were presented with a clear oppurtunity to scythe city open. Kompany's choice was either to meet the ball carrier and try and make a tackle before he could thread it though to Messi, or drop back and try and do as he done all game previously and try and keep the Barca attack in front of him so he could read the game.

It is only with the benefit of hindsight we can see this is the wrong decision by Vinnie, had he come to meet the ball carrier he could have thwarted the attack instantly. In the event that the ball had still been passed to Messi, he would have been offside as Kompany would have been up the pitch.

As it turns out, Kompany's decision to drop back in was costly, as Messi waited for Vinny to take up a position which played him onside. From the point the ball is entirely in Demichelis' court.

The opinions of others have been exhausted from this point on so I won't go into it. What I wanted to demonstrate is that the whole passage of play leading up to MD's challenge was the catalyst for his spurr of the moment decision. He either had to believe that he had a chance of playing the ball, or that he was attempting to bring Messi down outside the box to thwart the goalscoring oppurtunity. Either way he did what he thought was best for the team, get off his case!

 

[kp789]

spends far too much time on the floor for a top class centre half

the left side of our defence is an area we've neglected too long, no point buying likes of negredo, fernandinho and navas when at highest level your weaknesses find you out

I think it is a stretch to consider him as a centre half. I think he has literally been brought in as a stop gap and to his credit he is giving it a go and putting in some decent performances, but he is just not good enough for this level anymore.

Agree with that he was brought in to be Kolo's replacement and doubt MDM expected to play this many games.

That was meant to say 'considered as a top class centre half'

 

[hgblue]

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.

Agree with all of that. There's a reason most neutrals have identified DeMichelis as our weak link. Maybe those who constantly defend him should mull over why this is?

 

[nedums noodles]

at fault again last night and cost us the game in the chelsea league match..just too fuckin slow…everybody knows he's our weak link!!