Newcastle (a) post-match thread

[Marvin]

I would play Foden more often, but there are things in a football team which are difficult to understand from the outside. The players have chosen Dave as their captain, his authority is really big and this is his final season. Pep values his experience and Dave had some quality moments yesterday. To bench the captain for a 19 y.o can't be an easy decision. Gundy had a big role in the run in last season and signed a new contract recently. Things like that matter. Hopefully we will see more of Foden now.

A coach has to make these big calls. It's obvious to me that Foden should be starting and that Silva's role should be coming on in the last 30 mins.

 

[Marvin]

woke up this morning and looked at all the headlines and liverpool have won the league ?? its over and gone, manchester city are in a mess pep looks down and arteta could be off to arsenal and city fans left crying over another bad day and result ????

fuck me just checked the date its 1/12/2008 and its all been a dream and nothing as changed, stuck in mid-table fighting the drop just get 40 points is the cry from the stands and maybe get in euerope league by the fair play rule and we still are dreaming of winning some silverware and the best chance is the league cup and because the top 4 play there youth and don't really care about the it, the biggest game of our season is here next weekend and if we can beat united then its been a great season

That was all OK until the conclusion. Our season should not come down to beating Utd. Then we have gone back to 2008. And they are well capable of beating us too. One Rashford counter-attack and our defence will part like butter.

I'd prefer to say stuff as it is. City work so hard for goals, and we can't defend. We are back where we started in Pep's first season. The difference is that injuries have put us there and we'll recover when they return, but Pep wrecked our chances by making the wrong calls in the interim.

Two great seasons back to back. A poor season has followed. We were dealt a rough hand. Let's salvage what we can from this one, and then re-group for the next.

 

[Semper aggressus]

That was all OK until the conclusion. Our season should not come down to beating Utd. Then we have gone back to 2008. And they are well capable of beating us too. One Rashford counter-attack and our defence will part like butter.

I'd prefer to say stuff as it is. City work so hard for goals, and we can't defend. We are back where we started in Pep's first season. The difference is that injuries have put us there and we'll recover when they return, but Pep wrecked our chances by making the wrong calls in the interim.

Two great seasons back to back. A poor season has followed. We were dealt a rough hand. Let's salvage what we can from this one, and then re-group for the next.

I agree with most of this, although I think our hand would have been less rough if we'd signed another top centre back as soon as we knew Vinnie was leaving.

Fern can cover there but he's a lot better in centre midfield than defence, his challenges being close to our goal have led to quite a few conceded this season. You can get away with that far from goal. And we miss him in midfield.

Whatever happens this season, it's clear we need to spend fucking huge in summer. Too many legends have aged at the same time. And some positions, after numerous transfers, are still an issue. (Centre back, left-back and now midfield pace yet again - unless Sané stays). Probably striker next year too.

 

[Inter Me Nan]

Cheer up everyone, it's the rags next week.

 

[Marvin]

I agree with most of this, although I think our hand would have been less rough if we'd signed another top centre back as soon as we knew Vinnie was leaving.

Fern can cover there but he's a lot better in centre midfield than defence, his challenges being close to our goal have led to quite a few conceded this season. You can get away with that far from goal. And we miss him in midfield.

Whatever happens this season, it's clear we need to spend fucking huge in summer. Too many legends have aged at the same time. And some positions, after numerous transfers, are still an issue. (Centre back, left-back and now midfield pace yet again - unless Sané stays). Probably striker next year too.

I think I am too harsh on Pep.

We knew we went into this season light at centre-back and what happened? Sods law. Laporte gets a major knee injury and Stones gets a small injury too. Also Mendy has struggled with his reovery. So Pep tries Otamendi. It failed. So he moves to Fernandinho. It fails. I wanted him to use the younger players but in truth he is far better placed to know if they are ready. Perhaps they are not. However having seen Garcia and Harwood-Bellis I feel that we should not buy a central defender.

In midfield we knew Silva and Fernandinho were right at the end of their careers. Well they have been replaced or replacements have been identified in Rodri and Foden. It just needs time to take effect.

Aguero is also getting on.

I agree then that 'too many legends have aged at the same time', but I think most of the rebuilding has been done. We just need time now to bring them through.

 

[Proy]

Had more than enough chances but as per, we are not taking them. Then we concede 2 chances and of course they score twice.

It does feel like his first season, but I’m not buying this whole squad rebuild bollocks. We need a couple signings, specifically and incredibly at centre back.

Fir whatever reason we seem to be playing differently this season and the biggest positive change we can make right now is to go back to it.

 

[City_Sean]

The laughable decision that Harry Maguire was our only target or bust has absolutely cost us this season. We have zero leaders in the team.

 

[OB1]

So annoying reading week in week out about how shit we are, gets right on my tits. Let's get it right, we are not shit ,we are one of the top football teams in the World, not England, not Europe, in the World, we are suffering from a bit of a confidence thing at the moment, .maybe a bit from the injuries we have, maybe a bit from losing a great inspiration and Captain, maybe because some of the team are mentally tired after the previous seasons and maybe that a couple are not quite good enough for us or not performing well enough. But we are not shit. Ask any sensible football fans anywhere and they would say to us get your heads sorted you are a brilliant team. Sorry for shouting, WE ARE NOT SHIT

I said last season that people lacked perspective about this team when things didn't go to plan. I get very tired of seeing people say we were shit: we are almost never shit by comparison to other teams or even ourselves.

The team is not at its best, no one can deny that. However, we remain the top ranked team for the season on whoscored.com. No, it's not a perfect measure but there is value in performance data and it's absolutely more objective than a lot of supporters.

There's a huge amount of criticism of our defending and the team undeniably has problems there that need addressing because it has deteriorated but I reiterate that we are still allowing less shots on goal than the rest of the league. Yesterday, it was six, which is below our season average, and three of those were from free kicks; two of them were extremely hopeful ineffective long range efforts. Only one of their shots was from inside the box and then only just. For the most part our defending was effective but there were lapses combined with two excellent strikes that punished us.

City remain comfortably the top scorers in the league but that return is not high enough given how many shots we have and chances we create, 24 shots and only two goals yesterday was not good enough.

We also had 77% possession yesterday.

None of that actually speaks to being shit or a lack of effort or desire, which is one of the more cliched criticisms.

The team / squad does need freshening up and is probably entering a bit of a transitional stage but there is a lot of quality in the squad, especially if everyone is fully fit. However, collectively and individually things can go one of two ways and that will determine how much freshening up the playing personnel will need. Pep will need to think long and hard about whether he needs to change some tactics or just change personnel.

 

[citytill1die84]

Why don't our wingers run passed opposition fullbacks? Sterling & Mahrez are rapid Mahrez didn't try taking his fullback on once from what I remember look at St Maxim fella left our fullback for dead.

Frustrating that we just pass back into Midfield, get the ball, run passed defenders get in the box and hope you're hacked down we don't do it :(

 

[Eccles Blue]

My philosophy, as always, is that everyone tried, it's just that some tried in different ways and it didn't work. I've said it before and I'll say it again.......... sorry............ No one goes out deliberately to have a bad game/day. Sometimes your tactics work, sometimes they don't. Unfortunately at the moment most of our lads seems to be hitting the tactics not working stage at the same time. I would never presume to tell Pep (or any manager) what to do apart from asking him to keep encouraging them, keep telling them it will come right, we are not fundamentally doing anything wrong.


Just my humble opinion. :-)