I think I miss fewer than a handful of matches a year due to work or travel. We rely so much on broadcast technology we take it for granted that it will always work! However, alcohol always DOES work :)Not a bad idea, in all fairness...;)
What do you actually mean? Do you mean Kev is not good for our team? On the day we win?Is It time to admit we are a better side without Kev in the 11 ??
I went to have a look at the reports and comment on the match in the French newspapers today. It was not easy because nearly all of them hide reports on matches behind a pay wall but thankfully Le Parisien had a couple of articles about the match available to all. One was by Thierry Henry who covers the CL for a French broadcaster and the other was an article by someone who is presumably a French pundit. The two articles made largely the same points, which are not dissimilar to what we get over here.
For obvious reasons their focus was on PSG. Henry's piece was on the theme that their front three make no contribution at all when PSG don't have the ball, the Pochettino has not been able to do anything about this but daren't drop any of them. Its title was that you can't defend with 8 men and win the CL. He argued that you can get by in Ligue 1 but that if there's one team above all others that will take you apart for that kind of defence it is Manchester City. All night long City exposed PSG's full backs by attacking with 5, which gave the centre halves 2 or 3 to look after while our wide men and full backs overloaded out wide. N,M and M strolled about doing nothing.
The other article took up the same theme but started by saying that Pep showed ho much better he was than Poch in every department and tat PSG had no answer to City's high line and players who were always available. PSG were dragged across the pitch while Walker and Gundo created overloads. City's equalising goal came at the end of a long period of City possession and City had 9 men in the attack while PSG defended with 7! For the winner City had engineered 2 against 1 at the far post. All the way through City's players were technically better than their opponents.
Interesting stuff. As I say, not very different from what our own more objective pundits say.
Is It time to admit we are a better side without Kev in the 11 ??
Is It time to admit we are a better side without Kev in the 11 ??
Probably not, just different. We are a better side thanks to Pep adapting the tactics to available players. Maybe Kev would have scored early on, produced a ball in that any of our forwards couldn't miss. We didn't miss Kev, Phil or Jack last night because Pep has the players so well coached. I'm sure that if he had the PSG front 3 we would still produce the same standard of play. He'd know how to get the best out of them and they would know what's required for the team.
I was at a gig, on Wednesday, so this was one of the only games I have missed since time began! I watched the full replay and it was a superb performance. A few things stuck out but the main one was the completeness of the game that Rodri had: his positional play, protection of the ball and use of it was utterly outstanding. Cancelo and Walker were both excellent, as were Gundo and Bernardo. Zinchenko also did very well indeed, especially given his lack of game time. Watching PSG was very revealing because their play without the ball bears no comparison with ours whatsoever: they have several players who simply walk about waiting for others to get the ball and give it to them. As ever, a great team does not have individuals who are not prepared to work for it.
I noticed that too. PSG rely on getting the ball to their front 3 and hoping they string together a fantastic move. By sitting off their back four we effectively flooded the midfield and closed off the supply to the front 3 and negated the threat. The fact that the same front 3 couldn't be bothered to track back to try and get the ball from the back helps as well, of course.On PSG, I thought it was interesting to see how limited in possession they were too. On the occasions they managed to break out on the counter attack they looked very dangerous, but there were parts of the game we sat off and let them keep the ball. They barely looked like they could progress into the final third when we sat back.
We were the best side in the first tie - didn't deserve to lose. And much the better side in Wednesday's game. Great performances all around, probably a bit unlucky not to have scored more, and showed real determination after going down a goal.