Our Squad

[scorer]

Again i'll start thisb thread saying this is not a Anti-Hughes thread... sorry folks.

Seriously.

Do people think the squad of players (minus Robinho) is worthy of 17th in the League?

I personally thought we were worthy of competing for a UEFA cup spot with the squad that finished last season along with the likes of Kompany, Zabaleta and SWP.

It's okay top say... ahh but we're only 9 points off the top six, that ninepoints is a defacit, a handicap call it what you like, we are behind and it means we have to be that many points better than the teams that are already there just to catch up with them.

The point of this thread is to say the squad of players (regardless of who the boss is) is surely better than where we are.

I point to the defeats and draws in order of pissed offity (nice new word huh)

Brighton Away
Midgetland Home
Newcastle Away
Spurs Home
Fulham Away
Boro Away
Everton Home
Bolton Away
Hull Away
Wigan Away

Regardless of whether or not your pro or anti-Hughes, our squad is better than the results above show. Lets not forget Spurs and Newcastle were both bottom of the league when we played them.

I say again, at the start of the season and especially when SWP joined us I had expectations of going for a UEFA cup spot. Now I think that is totally unrealistic (though i would be delighted if we were actually to compete).

What is wrong that means the tallented squad of players we have cannot compete. It is mind blowing.

For the record i think (liverpool apart) our squad is better than ALL the above teams and that the majority of our players would walk into the above teams.

Petrov is the only injury I think we can claim to have (Danny Mills apart) as Bojinov has as good as never played for us, this season or last.

So come on WHY WHY WHY???

 

[Anonymous]

Mate, I wake up, make a coffee, switch on my computer...to find THIS THREAD.

I'll give you five potted reasons:

1. Dunne and Richards losing their natural defending abilities early in the season.
2. No natural striker of any real quality in the squad.
3. New players integrating into a new system with a new manager.
4. Certain "squad" players underperforming since the know they'll be out on their arse in January.
5. Injuries to Petrov, Johnson, Bojinov, Sturridge, Garrido, Robinho, et al at various times over the last three months.

 

[scorer]

Mate, I wake up, make a coffee, switch on my computer...to find THIS THREAD.

I'll give you five potted reasons:

1. Dunne and Richards losing their natural defending abilities early in the season.
2. No natural striker of any real quality in the squad.
3. New players integrating into a new system with a new manager.
4. Certain "squad" players underperforming since the know they'll be out on their arse in January.
5. Injuries to Petrov, Johnson, Bojinov, Sturridge, Garrido, Robinho, et al at various times over the last three months.

Morning Billy.. I will PM you for that beer....

But dont you get where i'm coming from...?

To answer you points.

Dunne and richrads have not blended well agreed... but we do have options don't we (definition of a squad)
If we dont have any natural strikers then why? I think Sturridge, Evans, Jo and Benjani could all probably be incontenbtion for a place in the teams i mention
I'd rather leave your third point if thats ok with you?
Squad players, if they think they are on their way ouit shoudl be prforming out of their skins to be either a) a part of the City dream, or b) to be notioced and go to another Prem club when they leave City. And again I'll leave that one there if its okay with you?
Injuries, the only one over and above what i already posted is Johnson. Injuries are part and parcel of a football season.

I still maintain that this sqaud is far superior to the league position we are in and that the majority of the team could walk into most of the tams I listed...

 

[Anonymous]

So basically, you won't accept any of the actual reasons why we may be under-performing.

I guess the only option left is, it's the manager's fault.

And you said this wasn't a Hughes Out thread.

Ask one of the mods to give you a "Hughes Out" sticky or something, because some of what you post is criminally inane. Just my opinion, and yes, please do PM me for that beer...;- )

 

[scorer]

Ask one of the mods to give you a "Hughes Out" sticky or something, because some of what you post is criminally inane. Just my opinion, and yes, please do PM me for that beer...;- )

Lol... doubt they's allow it.... hmmm.. maybe after WBA on Sunday..?

seriously without blaming the manager there is something missing... heart and soul maybe? a sprinkling of fairy dust??
I dunno.

 

[Anonymous]

Ask one of the mods to give you a "Hughes Out" sticky or something, because some of what you post is criminally inane. Just my opinion, and yes, please do PM me for that beer...;- )

Lol... doubt they's allow it.... hmmm.. maybe after WBA on Sunday..?

seriously without blaming the manager there is something missing... heart and soul maybe? a sprinkling of fairy dust??
I dunno.

Again, something integral to a successful season for any football club...some fucking luck.

If you look at the catalogue of absolutely HEINOUS decisions which went against us in the early part of the season and which cost us AT LEAST nine points, then you'll see that where we are is not some kind of unmitigated disaster due to poor management, but a combination of many many things.

A question for you...I've noticed on here that many supporters of Mark Hughes (myself included) have acknowledged that something's not right, and that Hughes really needs to sort out the results, but more importantly, the performances in the coming weeks. What about the likes of you....why must you continually make totally speculative, snidey insinuations....such as SWP and Robinho weren't Hughes' signings...

 

[scorer]

why must you continually make totally speculative, snidey insinuations....such as SWP and Robinho weren't Hughes' signings...

A bit harsh Billy. I genuinely believe SWP was Hughes's signing and have never said anything different.

Robinho was IMO a board signing and this is why. I think you'd agree the takeover was one of footballs best kept secrets, it knocked the socks off most City supporters (and players i bet). Hughes would not have had time to even consider bidding for Robinho, i think (personally) this was all going on in the background and Robinho was effectively a gift, a very welcome gift, from ADUG.

But to reiterate the point I believe SWP was Hughes's signing under Thaksins regieme.

 

[mancity1]

Ask one of the mods to give you a "Hughes Out" sticky or something, because some of what you post is criminally inane. Just my opinion, and yes, please do PM me for that beer...;- )

Lol... doubt they's allow it.... hmmm.. maybe after WBA on Sunday..?

seriously without blaming the manager there is something missing... heart and soul maybe? a sprinkling of fairy dust??
I dunno.

Its everybody at the club who are underperforming and you cannot separate the management from the players as some mutually exclusive set of factors.

We have lost games largely because we don't know how to grind out a result when teams close us down and put pressure on our players when they have possession.

Inevitably we crack and make a basic error and don't have the ability to " set our stall to recover" to quote someone and " ask enough questions " to quote the same person" when we concede a goal.

So far to the best of my knowledge the vast majority of goals we have conceded is because of errors we make , Hart has not been beaten by an unstoppable blast all season so we are doing some things well but crucial errors lack of discipline and poor choices by OUR Players are costing us points most weeks.

Why this is and what can be done to address it properly is up to the players and management to fix.

All sides we play a similar style to Everton against us from now on especially when we are at home.

Yes I agree we have the talent and the squad to be doing much better but if they lack the belief and mental toughness to match up what is thrown against them invariably we will come undone as we did on Saturday.

West Brom will throw the kitchen sink at us from the outset on Sunday and if we can throw it back at them with interest they will buckle and our superior skill will bring us home but unless your can match the physicality of teams with less talent in the premiership you lose more than you win.

 

[Anonymous]

why must you continually make totally speculative, snidey insinuations....such as SWP and Robinho weren't Hughes' signings...

A bit harsh Billy. I genuinely believe SWP was Hughes's signing and have never said anything different.

Robinho was IMO a board signing and this is why. I think you'd agree the takeover was one of footballs best kept secrets, it knocked the socks off most City supporters (and players i bet). Hughes would not have had time to even consider bidding for Robinho, i think (personally) this was all going on in the background and Robinho was effectively a gift, a very welcome gift, from ADUG.

But to reiterate the point I believe SWP was Hughes's signing under Thaksins regieme.

What about the rest of my post...can you concede that we've been incredibly unlucky in terms of decisions going against us which ultimately cost us points in the early part of the season? Even if we say we would be six points better off if the correct decisions had been made, where would we be in the league?

 

[scorer]

A bit harsh Billy. I genuinely believe SWP was Hughes's signing and have never said anything different.

Robinho was IMO a board signing and this is why. I think you'd agree the takeover was one of footballs best kept secrets, it knocked the socks off most City supporters (and players i bet). Hughes would not have had time to even consider bidding for Robinho, i think (personally) this was all going on in the background and Robinho was effectively a gift, a very welcome gift, from ADUG.

But to reiterate the point I believe SWP was Hughes's signing under Thaksins regieme.

What about the rest of my post...can you concede that we've been incredibly unlucky in terms of decisions going against us which ultimately cost us points in the early part of the season? Even if we say we would be six points better off if the correct decisions had been made, where would we be in the league?

Yes i would agree we've been unlucky at times, but I am a firm believer that over the course of the season these things do equal themselves out... more or less, for example we could easily have had a penalty awarded against us at Fulham and we didnt... though again I accept that luck does come into to it, but is not the ultimate factor at this stage of a season. If we were to get relegated by a single point i will we have been robbed.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes i would agree we've been unlucky at times, but I am a firm believer that over the course of the season these things do equal themselves out... more or less, for example we could easily have had a penalty awarded against us at Fulham and we didnt... though again I accept that luck does come into to it, but is not the ultimate factor at this stage of a season. If we were to get relegated by a single point i will we have been robbed.

Yet again, though, there is ANOTHER mitigating factor which you are just dismissing. If you take into account all of the mitigating factors I've listed in this thread, you have your reasons for why we are where we are...and yes some responsibility lies with the manager, but not to the extent which you and some others are arguing...

 

[scorer]

Yes i would agree we've been unlucky at times, but I am a firm believer that over the course of the season these things do equal themselves out... more or less, for example we could easily have had a penalty awarded against us at Fulham and we didnt... though again I accept that luck does come into to it, but is not the ultimate factor at this stage of a season. If we were to get relegated by a single point i will we have been robbed.

Yet again, though, there is ANOTHER mitigating factor which you are just dismissing. If you take into account all of the mitigating factors I've listed in this thread, you have your reasons for why we are where we are...and yes some responsibility lies with the manager, but not to the extent which you and some others are arguing...

Okay, you win, hughes is brilliant. I am wrong and we will end up in UEFA next season and probably win the trophy (along with the FA cup) as well.

I was trying to be pragmatic and talk about the squad as a squad rather than a group of individuals... but fair enough youre right and i really dont know what i was thinkin...

 

[rastus]

Poor defending, crazy own goals has cost us at least 4 points (Newcastle/ Everton)
If we had not made those serious 2 errors we would have 22points and in 9th spot and everything is rosy. We/ Hughes/Players need to sort it out.

 

[bluemoondays]

Again i'll start thisb thread saying this is not a Anti-Hughes thread... sorry folks.

Do people think the squad of players (minus Robinho) is worthy of 17th in the League? I personally thought we were worthy of competing for a UEFA cup spot with the squad that finished last season along with the likes of Kompany, Zabaleta and SWP.

I point to the defeats and draws in order of pissed offity (nice new word huh)

Brighton Away
Midgetland Home
Newcastle Away
Spurs Home
Fulham Away
Boro Away
Everton Home
Bolton Away
Hull Away
Wigan Away

I say again, at the start of the season and especially when SWP joined us I had expectations of going for a UEFA cup spot. Now I think that is totally unrealistic (though i would be delighted if we were actually to compete). What is wrong that means the tallented squad of players we have cannot compete. It is mind blowing.

So come on WHY WHY WHY???

Cut down the text a bit so the quote won't be too big

Maybe blue tinted specs time but on the bright side we have 6 of them games at home in the 2nd half of the season, considering I seriously didn't expect us to beat the top 4 home or away (although hoping for some decent results) they should be bankers - yeah, right......this is City we are talking about ;-)

 

[simon23]

i think some of our squad are overated......

benjani, evans, vass, gelson, dunne, ball, garrido, hamman (too old), caceido

none of these are good enough to take us where we want to be....

that leaves MH with very few options once he starts picking up injuries.......especially long term ones to very key players in Boj (Porbably anyway), petrov (our most consistant threat last year) and johnson (I know some dont rate him but he adds what noone else in the squad does and that is drive from midfield...he provides a different option)......plus rohbino hasnt been fit since before the derby and swp hasnt been fit since the derby cause he got kicked to high heaven everytime he got the ball!!

 

[Oohvonkyvonky]

Wow - this was just 3 years ago...Pinning our hopes on Petrov, Robinho, Dunney, Johnson etc etc..Crazy days!!!!!!!