Newcastle 1-1 City post match thread

[cleavers]

de Bruyne was our best player.

Oh give over, he was nothing of the sort. He's one of my favourite players, yet I thought he was pretty poor.

 

[sh249]

If he wanted to rest Fernandinho with Madrid in mind then for me it should have been done against Stoke. Toure is always better at home and never plays well two games in a row in 3 days. I can only think that Toure won't be playing Safurday and will be playing Tuesday based on this

We can only fucking hope not.
I suppose it all boils down to how great the need was to rest Fernandinho tonight. I agree in principle that, all things being equal, it probably would have made more sense to play him tonight and leave him out against Stoke (although that game will be as high tempo as tonight, I suspect). But I'm reluctant to be too critical, given that we don't really have any idea as to his condition.

 

[Marvin]

Newcastle looked useless and still appeared to be the better team.
Sick to death of seeing performances like this, they happen far too often. Watching it on TV you see closeups of players faces and they there are far too many with sighing, feeling hard done to, or disinterested.
Newcastle were there for the taking, it wasn't like they were revved up and scrapping for everything - they couldn't believe their luck at how bad we were!

You might be forgiven for thinking it's a CL semi-final coming up and they were going easy on themselves, but it's a style (loose use of the word) of football we've seen before.

When we think we've turned a corner, instead of pressing on and emphasising our strengths, we start taking things easy and expose our biggest weaknesses - complacency and lack of workrate.

I wish I could blame tactics / team selection, and there are plenty of arguments for wondering why certain players keep getting games, but it still doesn't justify the real elephant in the room - attitude.
Yes, I know we've shown fight at times - which demonstrates we are capable of it, but for every time we've shown fight, there is at least another game when we've shown none at all. Tonight was one of those nights.

No urgency, no sense of importance with regard to our top 4 status, no determination.

Has Navas really taken us any further forward from the Johnson days?
Have we got a better central defence than the Lescott days?
Have we got battling midfield that's any stronger than the De Jong days?

We've been damn lucky to get De Bruyne who is clearly an improved addition to our squad, but other than him, are we REALLY much further forward than 3 years ago? I don't believe we are.
I'm not convinced out CL semi-final status is truly an indication of genuine progression - more likely we managed to do quite well for once, but hardly a confirmation of being one of the best 4 in Europe.

We have a very soft underbelly and it has to change.

Have you seen what Sunderland fans think about City's performance.

It's telling what the unbiased think. Some City fans refuse to believe what is staring them in the face

 

[SJC]

I'm happy enough with a point, didn't expect much more to be fair. .

 

[chaddblue]

Oh give over, he was nothing of the sort. He's one of my favourite players, yet I thought he was pretty poor.

Yes he was poor. Spent the whole game getting pushed off the ball and losing possession. However there were half a dozen who were a lot worse

 

[pavelsrnicek]

Same failings over and over again. Win a match or two and revert to the formations that have failed repeatedly. Yaya and Fernando can't play together without Fernandinho but Pellegrini plays them together despite results. Delph on the wing has never worked but not for want of Manuel trying it

 

[Jamoid]

Normal service has resumed

 

[waspish]

Same failings over and over again. Win a match or two and revert to the formations that have failed repeatedly. Yaya and Fernando can't play together without Fernandinho but Pellegrini plays them together despite results. Delph on the wing has never worked but not for want of Manuel trying it

Its Pellegrini he never learns and don't improve any of our players also he doesn't give a fuck about our youth players! Cant wait till he goes.

 

[BobKowalski]

We couldn't be arsed. In fairness I could barely be arsed watching it.

Ah well sooner we put this league campaign out of its misery the better.

 

[gregblag]

Most disappointing aspect of our midfield play were the half hearted tackles being made. At one point De Bruyne backed out of a 50/50 near the halfway line. Piss poor performance from both sides. Crap game.

If that means he has less chance of getting crocked then good on him. He's intelligent when winning the ball and if he doesn't have the English "it's a man's game" viewpoint all the better. What would we do if he went in for the tackle and got himself injured?