Martin Demichelis

[aguero93:20]

And we normally play a high line at home to squeeze the pitch, so Demichelis was probably following this philosophy.

MDM squeezed Messi and the Barca midfield very effectively last night and won the ball back on numerous occasions for us in doing so, I was impressed.

He looked like he was rushing everything to much for me, and kept handing possession back over, he wasn't the only one in the first 25 minutes guilty of doing that but it seemed to be him every time, unless that was my perception of it.

He was rushing his passes, but between himself Dinho and Clichy they couldn't get any meaningful possession in that area of the pitch with Busquets, Sanchez, Xavi, Alves and Messi and kept resorting to Fabregas and Iniesta on the left who weren't making any inroads past Zaba and Vinnie, it was great disciplined pressing.

 

[steviemc]

And we normally play a high line at home to squeeze the pitch, so Demichelis was probably following this philosophy.

MDM squeezed Messi and the Barca midfield very effectively last night and won the ball back on numerous occasions for us in doing so, I was impressed.

He looked like he was rushing everything to much for me, and kept handing possession back over, he wasn't the only one in the first 25 minutes guilty of doing that but it seemed to be him every time, unless that was my perception of it.

He did that a bit, as did a few others, but it was a different game than we usually play. We weren't able to play it out from the back like we normally do due to Barca's pressing. Joe had to change his distribution to suit as well.

 

[steviemc]

The only bad thing that happened last night involving MDM was the sending off. He was not to blame for the goal, it was a combination of Messi being the best in the world and Kompany playing him onside. The amount of stick he is getting is absolutely ridiculous, even Pellegrini said he was not at fault in the post match conference. Some of you guys who call yourselves a blue need to take a long hard look at yourselves. Ridiculing and degrading one of our own is ludicrous. MDM made a mistake, and he paid for it. Just like Hart let in that second goal.

I, for one, am proud of the boys who gave it their all last night. At times we played some amazing football and i kept thinking how different the outcome would have been had we still 10 men on the pitch.

Absolutely agree. We need to accept that we haven't got the very best talent for some positions, and hope that everyone gives their all, which is happening more often than not. I could sort of understand the annoyance if we had a much better defender and MP wasn't playing him, but that just isn't the case. A few guys have been sent off for tackling the last man in an effort to save a goalscoring opportunity, but I've never seen anyone receive this much vitriol

-- Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:37 pm --

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.

Have you considered why he's been getting such ridicule in the press? There isn't a secret agenda to target him and destabilise city they do it because he makes schoolboy mistakes almost every game. A lot of ex defenders who know what they are on about pick up on it as well yet the defensive coaches on here won't have a bad word spoken about him.

The truth is he is a bang average defender who is way past his prime and should not be playing at this level. This isn't him bring the scapegoat this is him making yet another costly mistake. He should be nowhere near the first team and I can only hope that Pellegrini has finally taken off the rose tinted glasses and stop playing favourites and play based on merit.

This disagrees with you, as well as MP. Just sayin' like...

 

[AliWaheed]

Navas was fucking hopeless, but there was no understanding of the situation or realisation of danger by Demichelis. He just went blindly through the motions without thinking. Vinny was in position to give Zabba Navas an out ball from the ridiculous crappy move they were trying to initiate, & Demichelis should know where he is & help him, not just jog off doing his own thing because 'that's what he's been doing'.

There was a potential for disaster, It didn't need Barca, to exploit it. Any Premier League team is capable of exploiting a situation as open as that & plenty have v Demichelis this season. He keeps getting caught in no man's land & costing us goals.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7P_e0BdYyc[/youtube]

Go to about the 3:06 mark. What is clear is that when Barcelona attack, Demichelis, Zabaleta and Clichy are all in a perfect line, and that it is Kompany that has hung back, eventually playing Messi on.

Now Keown can bang on about Demichelis keeping position alongside the deepest lying centre back all he wants but Demichelis is in a near perfect line with the two of his thee back four colleagues. So what is the captain and leader of the defence doing still doing at least 5 yards behind the rest of them?

I'm not blaming Kompany, he was my man of the match, but Demichelis does not deserve the tanking he is getting from the likes of you over this incident. As i said in my original post, you have to consider the incident right from the moment Navas was fouled, or dived as you believe then take it from there.

I agree with you, personally I think Kompany din't play the offside trap which should have been setup to stop their counters and that caught Demichelis out of position. Poor decision with the tackle but those things happen and we can't keep on pondering about IF that din't happen.

Messi is well offside.

 

[mscenterh750]

Get off the blokes back FFS, he was playing really really well, then a series of events lead to him getting sent off, but the shit he's been getting on here is a disgrace.

Ask yourselves this, what would you have done, in that situation?. I would've done what he did, because messi was getting away from him, and nobody else was in sight, so he took a chance, but because it didn't come off, he got punished. Fine lines and split second thinking, and I'm sure now he's seen it, he may have thought to do it different, hind sight is wonderful, but in certain moments of play, you do what you think is right at the time.

I don't blame him one little bit.

 

[BigOscar]

I'm not buying into the whole "the amount of shit he's getting is unfair" bit tbh. He seems to have far more people defending him than you'd expect after getting sent off in that manner in a game of that importance. Obviously some people are over the top, but some of the support he's getting is pretty over the top also, some of it is bordering on Bosnian levels. Some people seem determined to convince people that he's amazing, when it's pretty clear that he isn't. All season people seem very keen to overlook his multiple huge errors, as he apparently is brilliant the rest of the time (out of interest, who isn't good if you only judge them on the things they do well and don't judge them on anything they do wrong?)

He clearly isn't good enough and is a liability/weak link/whatever you want to call it, but he's arguably the best option we have, so we have to get behind him if he plays for the rest of the season. But the reality is that his decision to lunge in and get sent off clearly lost us the game and has probably knocked us out of europe, although the rest of the team did fantastically well to keep us in the tie. Going down to 10 against Barca with 40 minutes left, we could easily of been absolutely battered and Demichelis is a very lucky boy that the other players stepped up and made a real game of it. If he's still our first choice CB at the start of the next season, then we will have done something seriously wrong.

 

[Shaelumstash]

He's the new scapegoat for people. Any time Balotelli played and we lost, it was his fault. Same with Garcia, now the same with Demichelis.

Obviously getting sent off and giving away a penalty had a significant impact on us losing the game, but the problem is, if he's not brought him down Messi would have scored anyway, and DeMichelis would still get the blame!

He was playing really well before he got sent off, but people just jump on him, say he's shite, not up to it etc. Watch the game again, he was playing well.

Criticise him for getting sent off by all means, but don't accuse him of being a liability before that because quite simply, he wasn't.

 

[OB1]

Defended well last night and was unfortunate to be put in the position of having to try and catch Messi.

 

[Sigh]

Two bad passes by MDM in the first few. I think it was two. They were through the middle, reasonably ambitious, and plainly obvious because of that. Perhaps more than two? Maybe that set the zoom lenses going so everything he did from then on was seen in light of the opening minutes. As yet I have not yet failed to un-see a migratory something from BM's Whisp of Jack Snipes about MDM having the touch of an elephant; surely an oversight (if sight is the word I want)?

His sending off: I think he did well fouling him outside the box and I credit him for that. No matter his experience he forgot that although he wouldn't concede a penalty, he would be leaving for an early bath. "Shit, I forgot about that...". He ought to have let him go full-stop; he did not. He's a man, not an angel; a good man, not a bad man; a good player, not a bad one. I can't join with the brestest and bightest in dashing this "Jonah" into pieces upon bollocks of woe by which wishy-washy blue-hued craft are cleaving in salty abyssal cataracts. The Milky-white Bars are definitely all yours.

 

[macmanson]

Get off the blokes back FFS, he was playing really really well, then a series of events lead to him getting sent off, but the shit he's been getting on here is a disgrace.

Ask yourselves this, what would you have done, in that situation?. I would've done what he did, because messi was getting away from him, and nobody else was in sight, so he took a chance, but because it didn't come off, he got punished. Fine lines and split second thinking, and I'm sure now he's seen it, he may have thought to do it different, hind sight is wonderful, but in certain moments of play, you do what you think is right at the time.

I don't blame him one little bit.

While I agree with you that his criticism has been extreme, the bolded statement is the key part for me. As a ref, I know that the worst thing he could have done is what he did. As the last defender, once he commits ANY foul on the player it's automatically a red. A tackle from behind is going to end up being a foul 99 percent of the time, so he has to know he's getting sent off. His best bet in that situation was to let the GK do what he can and just be available to clear the ball if he can or simply have been more cynical in his tackle to ensure he came down well away from the box. For the record, not a penalty for me as the foul is from where the initial contact was initiated. A red card was the correct call but the restart should have been a direct free kick just outside the box.