Media thread 2022/23

[jimmygrimblesboots]

Net spend is sill a meaningless metric though.

Chelsea should be Ok then

 

[BringBackSwales]

Net spend is sill a meaningless metric though.

Apparently it is. I was talking to some Southampton fans in the pub yesterday who were going on about City only being good because of money. I told them City were about 13th in the net spend league over the last 5 years, they just wouldn’t have it and it’s clearly untrue cos it’s not what they’ve read in the press or seen on Sly

 

[Platt Lane 59]

They've finally realised which side their bread is buttered for the next twenty years.

Unfortunately, the media are usually controlled by older executives/managers.
Despite City being the team of the last decade, as appreciated by younger football fans, the "media bosses" will have grown up with MUFC & Arsenal being the best teams.
It would be great if City got a fair crack of the whip from the media. However, I feel it will take another few years until we get the same treatment as the Red Shirts.
Do not think that Chelsea have received the media support that they should have, either...

 

[remember arthur mann]

Apparently it is. I was talking to some Southampton fans in the pub yesterday who were going on about City only being good because of money. I told them City were about 13th in the net spend league over the last 5 years, they just wouldn’t have it and it’s clearly untrue cos it’s not what they’ve read in the press or seen on Sly

What do you expect from yokels ?

 

[Blueboy73]

Apparently it is. I was talking to some Southampton fans in the pub yesterday who were going on about City only being good because of money. I told them City were about 13th in the net spend league over the last 5 years, they just wouldn’t have it and it’s clearly untrue cos it’s not what they’ve read in the press or seen on Sly

Using the same logic, I'd love to have heard their rationale as to why the rags have been so shit for the majority of the last decade.

 

[Kinkybyname]

from the pen of Mr Winter:

Nathan Aké sits in Manchester City's training facility on Thursday, analysing clips of him shadowing and tackling Bukayo Saka, Mohamed Salah and Antony. City's left back assesses his own positioning and timing and the demand for total concentration. He smiles when asked whether facing these elite wingers is more draining physically or mentally. Either way, Aké is up for the challenge.

He also scrutinises footage of his response for City when the ball is reclaimed. It's almost becoming a trademark delivery of Aké's, that pass down the inside-left channel to Erling Haaland against opponents who risk a high line.

In the art and craft of modern defending, few have rivalled Aké this season. He performs almost a dual role. He tucks into a central-defensive three when the right back, most recently John Stones against Liverpool, steps into midfield.

At left back, he's rarely dribbled past, and it is arguably the greatest compliment of all that Saka, in the FA Cup, and Salah, in the Premier League last Saturday, were both withdrawn early against him.

"It means I've done something well, but not just me, the whole team," Aké says.

At 28, Aké has come of age. He made 13 appearances in an injury-affected first season after joining from Bournemouth for £41 million in 2020, then featured 27 times last year and already 36 times this season. Along with Rodri and Haaland, Aké has been City's best player.

So he takes me through the clips, starting with Saka. Arsenal and City duel for the title, their competition almost distilled in the match-up between Saka and Aké. "It's tough against this player," Aké says. He did his research, going through clips of Saka in the build-up to their meetings in the FA Cup in January and the league in February.

"I watched his games," Aké says. "If you give Saka too much space he can just run at you with pace and you're in trouble. When the ball gets switched to Saka, I try to go as tight as quickly as possible with him so he has less space to do his actions in.

"With Saka it's very difficult because he likes to go inside, but if you close the inside off, he'll go outside and cross. He can go both ways. It's very tough."

In one clip, Aké jockeys Saka, waiting for the right moment to intervene. "I don't like to go down [to ground] ? only if I'm 100 per cent sure I'm going to get the ball, especially in the box. I try to stand up. Nowadays wingers can chop in the last moment so if you go down you're 100 per cent gone. One little touch is a penalty, a foul or a yellow card."

Aké still went to ground twice, tackling air, during one Saka dribble towards City's six-yard area. "I don't really want to go to ground, because players like Saka can hold the shot and you're already on the floor. This, in the end, was all or nothing. I was trying to recover a bad position by myself." He did, blocking Saka's shot.

The challenge of facing Arsenal is not simply about Saka. "There's Ben

White coming up [from right back]. [Martin] Odegaard makes the runs in behind and that makes you tuck in and that creates a space for Saka again. At the moment they [Arsenal] are flying. They play the way we do. So the games were very intense, almost like chess ? both pressing each other so high that there was not a lot of space to play."

Communication is "important" when countering threats like Saka. Aké talks to Jack Grealish, City's left winger. "He defends very well. He always comes back and sometimes takes the inside and I go more on the outside so Saka has to cut back and go backwards. That helps. Also, the central defender behind me tells me that he's got the inside if it's closer to the box. Then I can take more of the outside."

Such has been Aké's excellence this season that a frustrated João Cancelo left on loan for Bayern Munich. "No, it's not a compliment in a way to me," Aké says. "He's a massive player for us. It was abrupt. Suddenly, it happened. It was a bit strange. That's football."

Aké became even more important.

"We didn't really have too many options on the left," he says, modestly. Oleksandr Zinchenko departed for Arsenal last summer and it's probably between the Ukraine captain and Aké for the left-back slot in the Premier

League team of the year. "It's nice to be mentioned. Zinchenko's been amazing this season. He's always been. When he was here the quality he has [was obvious]. It's very good to see how he's playing."

Aké's been in England almost half his life, having arrived at Chelsea via the youth systems at his home-town club, Den Haag, and Feyenoord. He's proved versatile, playing in central midfield for José Mourinho and Rafa Benítez at Chelsea and as a left back while on loan at Watford. "I'm still most comfortable in the middle," Aké says. "But the way we play suits me perfectly, because it's building up with three, so I'm basically a centre back anyway. Then when we attack I go to, basically, a full back. It's a bit of both."

He returns to scanning a sequence of him making tackles, including a particularly robust one on Tottenham Hotspur's Emerson Royal. "I'm a defender. These are the moments where you have to win the ball. When you do, it feels good.

When you've done a tackle like that, I feel the crowd. I feel a lot of appreciation from the fans."

He doesn't always get his timing right, diving in and cleaning out Michael Olise against Crystal Palace. He was booked, one of only two yellow cards he has received for City this season, the other being for a foul on Sean Longstaff that sent the Newcastle United midfielder flying.

His determination to protect City's goal was seen in the way he stooped to head clear under the raised right boot of Eddie Nketiah, the Arsenal centre forward. "This is just natural defender's instinct," Aké says, laughing. "I've especially seen John Terry do it back in the day."

Aké was alongside Terry when Chelsea defeated Watford in May 2017 and the England centre back dived in to head the ball away from Tom Cleverley's feet. "It was a bit lower," Aké recalls. "People like Terry gave that [example] to me in training, and you learn."

So does he have a mad streak? "No, no, no. I don't really think about what might happen. There's been a few occasions where I've landed badly on my neck, at Watford. I've put my family in a few difficult moments when they were watching." In 2015, while on loan from Chelsea at Watford, Aké rose for an aerial challenge with Norwich City's Andre Wisdom, and landed awkwardly.

"I went for a header but stupidly gave everything and I've turned around and fallen on my neck without covering with my hands. So my neck was ... [he gestures at an angle]. People thought I was dead."

The medics rushed on and eventually Aké was able to soldier on. "I jumped off the pitch once," Aké recalls of another potentially dangerous moment. That near-miss was also for Watford, this time against Bournemouth in 2016, when Aké rushed back to save a corner, cleared, but his momentum took him off the pitch at Vicarage Road, over a hoarding and into a six-foot pit with a concrete floor. Harry the Hornet, Watford's worried mascot, peered over the edge only for Aké to spring back out. "I've always got these weird things happening to me," he says with a smile.

Good things too. His wife, Kaylee Ramman, gave birth shortly before the World Cup. "It gives you more perspective on life ? it's not just football, football, football," Aké says.

"I come home after maybe a bad game and I've got this beautiful child and I'm more relaxed. It puts you in a good moment of your life, you're happy, you've got your kid. Those make me more relaxed and happy on the pitch. It definitely helps my football." Aké was one of Holland's successes at the World Cup in Qatar, where he started all five games.

He has continued to excel since then. He understands the expectations under Pep Guardiola. "It's expected that, at Man City, you win, you have a good game and straight away you focus on the next one. It's not like you can relax. The manager expects us to keep going. Everyone's got that mentality at this club. There's always things you can improve.

"The manager knows that even good is still not good enough. He wants to do better. That keeps everyone hungry and that's why we've always been challenging for titles."

There was one moment against Saka when Aké nicked the ball and calmly played it down the line, launching an attack. It's not simply about reclaiming possession but recycling it constructively. "You have to do both," Aké says. "That's what I've learnt over the past few years.

Sometimes the manager tells you not to be stupid and overplay or put people in difficult positions. He explained a few times that, 'The worst thing that can happen straight away is we concede a goal.' So in those situations sometimes he says 'kick it forward', then we defend as a team again, we're set. He obviously likes to play when possible."

And that's where Aké's smooth leftfoot deliveries to Haaland can pay off. "We've had a few meetings about it where teams want to press us high and there's not too much space to play it short like we normally like to do.

"With Erling we have a weapon where we can play it in behind. The manager has been speaking about how we have to do this more as we've got Erling now and he's more of an out-of-out striker. I try to do that more and more."

He's done it effectively against Leeds United and Tottenham Hotspur. "Even if Erling's ten yards behind [their defender] still you feel, 'OK, I can put it in behind,' thinking he can get there. Erling's competitive. In training. In everything. He's a very good guy, very humble. For all the praise he gets and all the goals he gets, he's still the same, exactly how he came in, working hard, just hungry trying to get more and more."

Aké's also hungry for goals and has scored two winners this season. He headed home a Kevin De Bruyne ball after a corner against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup in December. "You get crosses like this from De Bruyne and he puts it on a plate and you just have to tap it in," he says. "It's the quality I'm playing with. I had one chance before as well in this game."

This is typical of Aké's mindset, reflecting on the one he missed, also a header from a De Bruyne cross.

Having ended Liverpool's interest in the Carabao Cup, a month later Aké knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup with a calm, low-placed finish. "I haven't scored many like this. When it came back on my right foot, I thought this the only thing I could do. The ball was perfect from Jack."

After facing Southampton away today, City's thoughts return to the quest for a first Champions League title. "It's massively important. The club's never won it before. We've been close the past few years. We've just got the feeling that everyone wants it, the manager, the players, the fans. Everyone wants it, everyone's ready for it."

Bayern Munich visit on Tuesday. Aké got a close look at Kingsley Coman during the international break when France thrashed Holland 4-0 in Paris. "He's tricky, and he's quick. What is [particularly] difficult with him is that if he's standing still you think, 'OK, he's not going to outpace me.' But his first metres are so quick, it's so difficult.

"Bayern will be tough. I've seen a few games recently knowing that we're playing against them. I watched their game with Dortmund at home. Bayern are playing very well now. With the attackers they have and also the people they can bring on, it's frightening. I'm looking forward to it."

He's in the form of his life and often praised by Guardiola. "Maybe he knows that I won't change too much in behaviour [if praised]," Aké says. "I always work hard, whether I have good games or bad games. I'm levelheaded. I won't change."

He's fêted by fans too. "I get nice messages on social media. When I walk outside, people come up to me and say that I'm having a good season and 'keep going'. " He will.

 

[Tracking back]

Unfortunately, the media are usually controlled by older executives/managers.
Despite City being the team of the last decade, as appreciated by younger football fans, the "media bosses" will have grown up with MUFC & Arsenal being the best teams.
It would be great if City got a fair crack of the whip from the media. However, I feel it will take another few years until we get the same treatment as the Red Shirts.
Do not think that Chelsea have received the media support that they should have, either...

I completely understand the deep rooted bias towards the historical top four clubs from the executives within the media.

However, the issue they (old guard executives) have got; is the contrast between MCFC's achievements and the way the media report on it is becoming ridiculous.

Subscription numbers and profitability will ultimately dictate the narrative within the media. However, the media is on borrowed time now. It's becoming clear to most of their customers that trying to placate a certain football fanbase isn’t what they signed up for.

 

[Gesario]

Do these prehistoric pundits actually believe what they say. Do they think we are a team of wet lettuces. Ffs Ruben, Haaland,Ederson etc would fucking mullar any fucker. Even Bernardo would stand up to any twat. Our players keep their cool but I wouldn't want to mess with any one

Love that Bravo sir

 

[bluechippie]

Harry Redknapp at half time more or less said “you ain’t winnin naffink wiv John Stones stepping inta midfield”

Should be on the market selling towels out of the back of his van,fucking spiv!

 

[Stockton Heath Blue]

At some point SKY will wake up to the fact that Haaland is the biggest box office star in world football at the moment and could be very commercially valueable to them (with Grealish not far behind). SKY is fading into the background as a broadcaster because of its fixation on the 1990s. It has failed to move on with its audience.

Ballon D’Or winner this year/season. Who on the planet is better? Mbappe is a great player, but playing in an average league.