Palace v City post match thread.

[Phil1]

Glanced through this thread and I think people are just repeating the City narrative of the season rather than what actually happened in the game ie City lazy, Yaya lay, players showed no desire etc. When yesterday that was complete nonsense. We are as determined and committed a side as you will find in the league. When you play us you are going to get a physical, but fair game. Our players are always going to give 100% and run until they drop. I saw the Burnley game and the performance from City was nothing like against Burnley, today your players were committed and gave a 100%.

Pellegrini also deserves no blame yesterday, because he got his tactics and selection spot on. City shut down our threats better than any team this season and Bolasie, a player as fast and powerful as any, could not do much.

That being said it was not a good City performance and it was obvious despite trying very hard your team was low on confidence. The passing was slow, not enough chances created, the crossing was poor and when you had shots they were wild.

Aguero, Silva and Navas had poor games and Yaya was not great either, but he kept trying.

It wasn't our best performance either, but Murray and Dann were brilliant. Not surprised by Murray, because he should have been a Premier League player a long time ago as should have Speroni, Jedinak and Zaha. Wilf's movement off the ball needs a lot of work, but United have really done a number on him. Next season hopefully he can get back to his form he had a couple of years ago.

We have got lucky with a couple of decisions, but cannot blame the ref for them really. Seen the replays and the offside was marginal, but the penalty should have been spotted by a linesman. Pardew does seem to be a luck manager, which has helped. Hopefully we can push on and try and get 9th.

YaYa kept trying? That statement is as ridiculous as the insinuation that Aguero and Silva didn't.
I like the way you kind of gloss over the fact you got lucky with a couple of decisions as though they didn't make much difference - they were the main reason you came away with the points, more so than a couple of plucky performances by Dann and Murray. (They were only "brilliant" in the context they were allowed to look that way on occasion)
I'm gutted that we didn't win last night but compared to other games this season where we've deserved nothing, that wasn't the case against you (which I appreciate youve acknowledged)
You say MP deserves no blame yet it was he who sent out Dzeko and watched an half arsed performance throughout the whole first 45 yet kept him on well into the second. Same for Toure. I also thought Mangala should have started ahead of MD who had one of his worse games since joining.
I don't want to sound bitter - if the boot was on the other foot and we'd picked up 3 points we looked like we wouldn't then I'd be made up. I just find it hard to credit Palace too much when we were our own biggest enemy on the night.

Good luck for rest of season though, like your club and fans.

 

[Ray78]

Pellegrini also deserves no blame yesterday, because he got his tactics and selection spot on.

How have you come to that conclusion given he played two front men who have zero chemistry and one of which makes no contribution when we lose possession? which,in that formation,is only marginally less than when we have it.......

We still created chances. Aguero hit the post, Speroni's save. they cleared one of our chances over the bar, wrong decisions from both Merlin and Dzeko in good positions. Murray's handball.

 

[mancunianpear]

Pellegrini also deserves no blame yesterday, because he got his tactics and selection spot on.

How have you come to that conclusion given he played two front men who have zero chemistry and one of which makes no contribution when we lose possession? which,in that formation,is only marginally less than when we have it.......

Well Bony was injured and Dzeko had come off the back of scoring several goals for Bosnia. It's not as if Aguero works hard enough either, but that was not a problem yesterday, because the team did work hard enough. You had virtually all of the ball and we did not create on the counter. Yesterday your players just did not play well enough despite being set up very well.

When Pellegrini sets up like he did against Barca/Liverpool/Arsenal/Roma(home) then he deserves all the criticism he gets. Yesterday was not one of those days.

What exactly could he have done better? You need to play two strikers, because he planned to push as back and needed goalscorers. Dzeko gives a physical presence both defensively and attacking wise against a very big team.

He does? All I see of Dzeko is him getting brushed aside by people half his size, then sat on the ground not giving a toss.

 

[Wafty Cranker]

Glanced through this thread and I think people are just repeating the City narrative of the season rather than what actually happened in the game ie City lazy, Yaya lay, players showed no desire etc. When yesterday that was complete nonsense. We are as determined and committed a side as you will find in the league. When you play us you are going to get a physical, but fair game. Our players are always going to give 100% and run until they drop. I saw the Burnley game and the performance from City was nothing like against Burnley, today your players were committed and gave a 100%.

Pellegrini also deserves no blame yesterday, because he got his tactics and selection spot on. City shut down our threats better than any team this season and Bolasie, a player as fast and powerful as any, could not do much.

That being said it was not a good City performance and it was obvious despite trying very hard your team was low on confidence. The passing was slow, not enough chances created, the crossing was poor and when you had shots they were wild.

Aguero, Silva and Navas had poor games and Yaya was not great either, but he kept trying.

It wasn't our best performance either, but Murray and Dann were brilliant. Not surprised by Murray, because he should have been a Premier League player a long time ago as should have Speroni, Jedinak and Zaha. Wilf's movement off the ball needs a lot of work, but United have really done a number on him. Next season hopefully he can get back to his form he had a couple of years ago.

We have got lucky with a couple of decisions, but cannot blame the ref for them really. Seen the replays and the offside was marginal, but the penalty should have been spotted by a linesman. Pardew does seem to be a luck manager, which has helped. Hopefully we can push on and try and get 9th.

I agree with this, it's always nice to get a well informed opinion from an opposing fan.

People will slate Dzeko and say he did nothing, but he often does nothing only to pop up with a goal. So I think MP got it spot on.

 

[Chippy_boy]

On seeing that team sheet,and in particular,the names of Yaya and Dzeko,i was in no doubt that we would struggle to get a result.

Had we played one upfront,and included a second midfielder who is capable of a decent shift......while not rotating half the fucking team.....then i'm sure the 3 points would have returned North.

The exact same comments get posted on every post match thread,because the same mistakes are being made by our manager.....every man and his dog can see where we can improve and yet we continue to handicap ourselves by playing a system that is incredibly transparent,doesn't suit our players,and gives the opposition a huge advantage - its fucking bizarre.

After most of our defeats I would agree with you, but not yesterday. 4-4-2 worked just fine yesterday and demonstrably so, given the extent to which we controlled the game. Where we fell down was our dismal form in front of goal. It's been like that on and off for months. We are FAR too slow in the build up, allowing any half organised defence to be able to keep us from scoring for hours.

Yes we had bad luck, but we keep having bad luck. We are making our own bad luck! The sobering thought is that if we replayed that game 5 times, with the same tactics, I reckon we'd lose 3 of them!

We are trying to pass, pass, pass like we are Barca, but we don't have Messi, I Nesta or Xavi in the side (not to mention Neymar and Suarez). We have a fantastic header of the ball in Dzeko, but we never cross to him! Aguero is the best striker in the world playing off the shoulder of the last defender, but we have him coming deep and playing with his back to goal?!!

In short we are not playing at all to our strengths.

 

[abu13]

What gets me how we consistently make bang average players look great.

Take Glenn Murray, very average player yet we make him look like Pele. Winning every header, bullying our defenders.

Same against Burnley twice. Ings, Boyd, Barnes all have stormers against us.

All these players and there teams have at least double the desire when we come up against them.

I agree completely.

Glenn Murray / Edin Dzeko

Who looked like a £25 million pound striker, it certainly wasn't Dzeko.

 

[salfordbluetrue]

the similarity between eriksons final months and now are there to see and pellers has himself to blame pissing about with the defense buying a 25 million pound striker and not playing him getting rid of his home grown players and simply ignoring the fact that silva and nasri play better together as for dzeco soft crap on the floor and shit scared in the air

 

[Blue Mooner]

Glanced through this thread and I think people are just repeating the City narrative of the season rather than what actually happened in the game ie City lazy, Yaya lay, players showed no desire etc. When yesterday that was complete nonsense. We are as determined and committed a side as you will find in the league. When you play us you are going to get a physical, but fair game. Our players are always going to give 100% and run until they drop. I saw the Burnley game and the performance from City was nothing like against Burnley, today your players were committed and gave a 100%.

Pellegrini also deserves no blame yesterday, because he got his tactics and selection spot on. City shut down our threats better than any team this season and Bolasie, a player as fast and powerful as any, could not do much.

That being said it was not a good City performance and it was obvious despite trying very hard your team was low on confidence. The passing was slow, not enough chances created, the crossing was poor and when you had shots they were wild.

Aguero, Silva and Navas had poor games and Yaya was not great either, but he kept trying.

It wasn't our best performance either, but Murray and Dann were brilliant. Not surprised by Murray, because he should have been a Premier League player a long time ago as should have Speroni, Jedinak and Zaha. Wilf's movement off the ball needs a lot of work, but United have really done a number on him. Next season hopefully he can get back to his form he had a couple of years ago.

We have got lucky with a couple of decisions, but cannot blame the ref for them really. Seen the replays and the offside was marginal, but the penalty should have been spotted by a linesman. Pardew does seem to be a luck manager, which has helped. Hopefully we can push on and try and get 9th.

I agree with this, it's always nice to get a well informed opinion from an opposing fan.

People will slate Dzeko and say he did nothing, but he often does nothing only to pop up with a goal. So I think MP got it spot on.

Its good to read an objective assessment from an opposing fan with no particular axe to grind. The problem with a portion of our fan base is that they are now seeing what they want to see and regurgitating the same old tired arguments for every single game - it's the City disease of a self defeating prophecy - which I wrongly thought we had started to eradicate.

I was really interested to see your point, and fully agree, that we look like a team low on confidence. That is why a player of Yaya's quality is now hitting shots in row Z that previously would at the very least be testing the keeper. (albeit he did eventually get it right)

Also it was good to see how you recognised how we shut down the break away threat that palace possess with the pace of Zaha and Bolasie. I don't agree that Silva and Aguero were poor I just think they lacked that cutting edge again something that confidence would change.

Good luck for the rest of the season, I like Palace, they are a proper club with a good set of fans and I wish we would take a leaf out of your book with the support at home.

 

[East Level 2]

The penalty box is NOT a place we need to play football around... it's a place we need to get INSIDE. Once inside, a shot, or a foul (pen) might be possible. GET IN THE BOX, and take it from there lads, don't get to the edge of it, and wait.

I don;t normally agree with much you post, but on this I do to a degree, we do fanny about too much, and even from our 22 attempts tonight, there weren't enough direct ones.
That said, with a 5/22 goal attempt ratio, its hard to understand how they scored twice as many as we did.
Its not good enough.

I agree in principle but:
Playing around the box isn't a problem if we do it at speed to force a mistake from the defenders and then exploit the mistake. Passing it slowly and often predictably doesn't work if the defence keeps its shape.
We rarely break at pace as a unit; get the ball on the halfway line and they'd sooner take five passes to get back to Joe instead of taking a chance going forward. I accept opponents can't score if we've got the ball, but we can't score if we've got it in our own half.
We also need someone willing to attack the box at pace and try to draw a foul or cause some confusion or panic. That Carlos bloke used to do it, and while he may not have been as pin-point accurate as Sergio he knew how to worry defenders.
Another one we've never replaced.

 

[East Level 2]

I think the story of the match and our season in effect was best summarised when Milner got in a cross in a dangerous position with nobody positioning themselves for the cross for the easy tap in as any half decent side at least with an air of confidence would.

He was rightly pissed off and rightly pissed off with the attitude of the side which is defeatist as soon as we concede.

No positivity no urgency no leadership and again you will come unstuck against a side that wouldn't have a chance in hades of having a single member of their squad in our side all things being equal.

11 average grafters at least prepared to put in a shift and defend a lead overcoming 11 primma donnas not prepared to graft and fight for points.

An all too familiar theme for us this season on far too many occasions to remember in truth.

13 times conceded first leading to 13 losses bar a championship side at home in the F A Cup and not once when we have conceded first have we won a game this season in the premiership.

Just cos Bony scored first it doesn't mean he scored for us.
And didn't we go a goal down at Sunderland?