Norwich VS city post match thread

[blueinsa]

Just put myself through the 'highlights' again. It was interesting to see the lengthy Aguero run in the second half, as no player made the slightest attempt to get to him and support. Silva was in the best position, but he just gives up and settles on sitting and waiting for Aguero to pass it back, instead of attacking the space beyond.

For 90 mins yesterday and in most games of late, its as if there is an invisible wall surrounding the box that we are unable to run past.

Its unexplainable and completely infuriating.

 

[blueinsa]

Bang on. We weren't as abysmal as people on here say, but that's to be expected straight after the game. As for Norwich, absolutely dire, with no ambition whatsoever.

Going forward we're toothless, and once again we're relying on Aguero doing something great. No one appears to want to take responsibility. Silva keeps turning inside and giving sideways passes, this may be down to a lack of movement up front? Aguero was coming deeper for the ball....... well, if he's coming that deep then how can Silva pick out a pass? Bony tried, but what is he being told to do, or more importantly what is he being told not to do (don't make too many forward runs, or don't get too far ahead of the midfield). No one from midfield is making forward runs into space, or late runs into the box. Why? That's why Navas, Sterling and Silva keep getting the ball in half decent positions, then turn back on themselves - fuck all going on in front of them.

It's pretty depressing to watch. At the minute we look like a poor team trying to immitate Arsenal.

Nailed it mate.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Ive just watched Bournemouth beat Swansea on MOTD and what is clear is.......while their individuals are limited ability wise,their effort and gameplan are both a level above ours,they play direct,high energy football which is clearly ensuring they are performing greater than the sum of their parts.
It seems to me we are doing the exact opposite,both in performance and tactics,we have an incredible amount of the ball in most matches yet we piss and ponce about with it,and ultimately lose it,this scenario is then repeated over the entire 90 mins while we sit on tenderhooks waiting for the opposition to feed,and take full advantage,off any scraps that come their way.....its so fucking frustrating and aggravating that we aren't performing anywhere near the level our talent should ensure.

I completely agree mate, I really do.

The thing that baffles me, is that one team having all the possession and the other team resorting to park the bus, is an entirely predictable scenario and it's what we've seen much of over the past 5 years. If you go back 3 or 4 years, we had been destroying teams for so long, the opposition started to realise they couldn't beat us by trying to match us. So they started defending deep and letting us have lots of the ball. A pattern emerged with us passing it around aimlessly in front of them for 90 minutes, struggling to break teams down, often to be rescued by a moment of brilliance from Sergio or Yaya, but sometimes not. And sometimes (Sunderland) getting shafted right at the end with a real sucker punch compounded by a bit of comedy defending.

We recognised that we needed more width and more pace in the team. We needed to inject some urgency into our attacks and to try to get in behind the defence. So now we have Navas on the right and Sterling on the left, both of whom are lightening quick and can be very direct and cause havoc amongst defenders. (I say "can be" because we seem to have trained both of them not to be.)

We have all the tools needed to unlock defences like that of Norwich. Why for the love of god are we not using them properly?

 

[jrb]

The last minute, Yesterday.

99% of players would have hoofed the ball into the box In an attempt to score a goal and to win the match.

We picked the ball up in our own half, by the time we kept on passing it sideways, and got halfway into the Norwich half, the ref blew for full-time.

It's more than obvious that this type of play, regardless of the need for urgency, has been coached/drummed into the players.

That aside, you'd think professional players would take responsibility and have the mental capacity to look at the situation and think, fuck it, it's going long as we've only got 1 minute left to score a winning goal. But no, true to form, they passed the ball about to death until the Ref blew for full-time.

 

[Wretched Vengeance]

Just watched the highlights again.

Still scratching my head at the ball Fernandinho played to Kun after bursting into the box.

Aguero was surrounded by defenders. Can't quite believe Fern didn't just put his laces through it.

 

[cleavers]

That aside, you'd think professional players would take responsibility and have the mental capacity to look at the situation and think, fuck it, it's going long as we've only got q minute left to score a winning goal. But no, true to form, they passed the ball about to death until the Ref blew for full-time.

Whilst I agree with that in the final seconds, we actually hit too many long balls yesterday, what's the point hitting the ball at Aguero, at 100 mph, in the air ? Aguero was part of the problem yesterday, playing for himself, and not the team, kept coming back and getting in Silva's way, I thought he was very poor.

 

[Omnia Vincit Riot]

These last few posts have absolutely summed up what we all seem to know - what utterly baffles me is how can the experienced professionals responsible for how we play and manage games seemingly not see this?

How after so long, with the same frustrating slow bollocks passing and reticence to 'just fucking have a shot!' Have they not changed things? Why can they not see what we all see and stop hoping that one of our stars can rescue something?

They must see other teams and how they press the opposition, how even a random shot from a midfielder with 1 goal a season can still lead to a good chance falling for someone more prolific? It's almost like they don't know what to do if about 40 passes don't result in a tap in.

 

[warringtonblue]

From where I sit in CB level 3, it can clearly be seen the lack of movement when we have the ball. The number of times we get in a position to cross and there is no one in the box is incredible.

Don't understand the constant tactic of having a wide player (Sterling/Navas) constantly come inside and wait for the fullback to overlap, by the time they get there, the chance has gone

 

[Deleted member 58678]

I've not read the rest of thread, but I'll assume it was all Pellegrini's fault, and none of the players, as that is how these threads usually go when we fail to pick up three points.

I actually didn't think we played that badly, but, and its a huge but, wtf are we doing in front of goal ? I haven't seen the passing stats from the game, but what did we have 800-900 passes ? Mostly completed I would imagine, so I'd like to know how we only managed to have three shots on target, and not one in the second half.

For much of this season we have been poor defensively, but I can't fault any of them yesterday, I thought we looked very solid, and both FB's got forward well. The midfield too, played OK, I thought Fernando played well, with only 1 error that I can remember, Fernandhino wasn't at his best, but still had a decent game, and got forward well at times. I thought Silva had a good game too, certainly better than he's been recently, despite being constantly fouled again.

The real issue yesterday was our attacking options, they were ALL shite, have they forgotten how to shoot ? To me they didn't seem interested in playing for the rest of the team, just themselves (or not at all in one case). Aguero seemed to spend most of his time coming back into midfield, where he wasn't needed, Navas was Navas at his worst, how many crosses did he hit at the defender ? Bony was just anonymous again. Sterling when he came on didn't do anything of note, and Kelechi, while he got around a lot, didn't really get into any decent positions, but was probably the pick of the bunch, just for his effort.

So what was missing ?
What else could Pellegrini have done to win the game ?

Some credit also has to go to Norwich, who looked well organised at the back, and fought for their lives, unlike Villa last week.

An individual game is not about the players on the pitch on that day. Yesterday's game started in pre-season and really started after last Saturday's win against Villa. It's all about the organisation, demands, motivation, threats and preparation put on the team from July onwards. Then the same five things plus the new tactics in the week/half week leading up to a game.

The distinct lack of direction from the manager in these five areas is glaring so from week to week the players are out there on the pitch in a disorganised manner, having come from a far too nicey-nicey (even possibly lazy) environment with a lack of stern motivation and fear of what happens if thy don't perform and they have no clue what the gameplan is or what the opposition are going to do because they aren't told any of that.

The players have been shite but that is the manager's fault and since he should have been sacked after Burnley away last season or at least last Summer that is also the Director of Football's fault.

A ship with no sails will just randomly drift out to sea and that's what's happening with City.

 

[Newman Noggs]

I understand that shooting from outside the box can be seen as giving up possession, but against the parked bus defences where we're struggling to pass through, we really need to be doing it more often. Both Fernandinho and Delph have scored lucky goals this season with deflected shots or poor goalkeeping from outside the box so I can't see why we don't do it more often if only to surprise the opposition and lift the crowd.