We had this all last season and it rarely happened. It's all supposition. We might have played a tad better against a more aggressive side.
Who knows ?
When they came on, I think it was, as before that, we had our "try to run around the parked bus" players on.
Mahrez, Sterling and Silva were supposed to be the creative sparks and Jesus and Sergio scoring.
We didn't recycle the ball well because Bernardo and Ilkay weren't there. When they came on, we did better.
I understand why Pep started with the formers, but Jesus in particular wasn't atnhis best today and Mahrez is still finding his feet and possibly trying too hard.
Fernandinho was on his own in midfield in the first half and he had to make sure the counter attacks were stopped before thinking about anything else
I don't think 'controlling' was part of the plan for midfield, it was 9 players try to unpark the bus & Fernandinho try to run around fixing everything else, everywhere.
When I read comments about him, on here, I can understand why so many people don't realise how good Colin Bell was.
I was sorry to see Bernardo moved out of centre mid for Gundogan, personally. I thought we were pretty much right at that point.
But I recon, on the quiet, Mahrez was the biggest problem. He isn't attempting the kind of play he was signed for.
When he did go for it, he produced a peach of a cross, which DS imo should have scored. But he is not confident in a City shirt yet.
Mahrez, imo, was stopping us from functioning as we would want, by being predictable & negative.
In the future, he will become unpredictable & positive, & Fernandinho will have more time to just pick up the pieces when the ball comes free,, rather than being asked to be Kroos & Roy Keane rolled into one.
Good points.
Dinho’s passing was not faultless today but his mopping up was high value.
Pretty much agree. Mahrez hasn't clicked yet, but you can see the potential.
Today, we left out our creators in the middle to allow the creativity out wide. It didn't quite happen, but we won anyway.
We've got 2 weeks to work on it now. A lot of our players aren't away this time, so I expect we'll be firing better after the break.
May sound stupid in light of recent performances & lack of heading ability in particular, but I now recon Fred would have been more use to City, than Jorginho. We need a bit of extra liveliness more than we need smartarse passing imo, we have a plethora of that.
But neither are fit to lace Fernandinho's boots.
No idea how we will replace him. I see Pep gave John Stones a few minutes there again, at the end.