Pellegrini Thread

[Anonymous]

You really do come out with some nonsense.

Stop being silly.

My apologies. I'll leave you footballing intellectual heavyweights to duke it out over what Pellegrini's doing wrong and what he needs to change.

 

[City_Sean]

For me, Pellegrini is a blessing, this squad was immensely talented that Mancini made us to look good, rather than very good, our attacking football is sublime, watch any top team in europe and we look just as good, The only problem is defensively, but If we added 1 top centre half, we'd master Pellegrini's high line.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

As tWe've dragged ourselves through Christmas and new year, rather than roar through it, but have had to weather injuries, suspensions and a packed schedule. We aren't playing at our best, but we haven't been able to play even close to full strength throughout.

The performance yesterday was terrible but I didn't see much wrong with pellegrini's selections, and his arm was forced in a lot of decisions yesterday. The only strange thing he did for me was the straight swap of yaya for fernandinho, where yaya would surely have been more effective further forward, maybe with Milner deep.

But overall we roll on, keep fighting and trust that that crispness comes back into our game without any major damage caused.

I said after the game the other day, I'm extremely pleased with this Xmas period. We've taken full points in games where we had to slug it out in tired and torrid conditions. It's alright going round thumping Spurs 6-0 but if you then drop points to Palace it's essentially useless.

Pellegrini has shown that he has put together a squad that can twat teams on their day but also grind out results when they need to, making us favourites for the title in my book. Our problem last year was our inability to keep motivated in the smaller games which is starting to clear up

I'm a little concerned at our upcoming away fixtures mind but I've gone from disliking Pellegrini when he took over to at least beginning to understand his methods and admiring them somewhat. He doesn't play how I would like us to play but he's doing a very good job in my opinion.

It was much better to have got our only draw yesterday rather that in one of the last few league games.

The fixture schedule is a bastard and we are fighting and all fronts. It won't be the end of the world to exit a cup or two over the next month or two. One positive of this schedule is that we get to give game time to fringe players. The likes of Milner, Garcia and navas have come through this period with their status enhanced

 

[Mr. Aguia]

My only issue with the team selection is playing Clichy and Boyatta at FB's. They can't play at the same time. It was obvious vs Palace that having them, plus Garcia restricted the offense immensely. So instead of playing Clichy vs Swansea and then Kolorov could have played yesterday he tried to continue doing the sam e thing that didn't work before and hoped for a different result. Not unlike playing Garcia at CH or playing 2 strikers on the road in the PL.

 

[Anonymous]

My only issue with the team selection is playing Clichy and Boyatta at FB's. They can't play at the same time. It was obvious vs Palace that having them, plus Garcia restricted the offense immensely. So instead of playing Clichy vs Swansea and then Kolorov could have played yesterday he tried to continue doing the sam e thing that didn't work before and hoped for a different result. Not unlike playing Garcia at CH or playing 2 strikers on the road in the PL.

For my money the big miss yesterday was Vinny. Easy to say with hindsight but with him instead of two left footers at CB we'd have had a better result. However I fully understand the need to rest someone like Vinny who has a history of injury problems.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

My only issue with the team selection is playing Clichy and Boyatta at FB's. They can't play at the same time. It was obvious vs Palace that having them, plus Garcia restricted the offense immensely. So instead of playing Clichy vs Swansea and then Kolorov could have played yesterday he tried to continue doing the sam e thing that didn't work before and hoped for a different result. Not unlike playing Garcia at CH or playing 2 strikers on the road in the PL.

We certainly have a lack of overlap with boyata in the side. But these selections were clearly with Wednesday in mind. We should have had enough with what we had o the pitch. The manager made an attempt to rectify this yesterday by switching silva and Milner at half time. When this didn't really work he sent on navas.

We were poor at right back in particular, but full backs are the players who get the most tired and need the most rotation.

 

[Shaelumstash]

You really do come out with some nonsense.

Stop being silly.

My apologies. I'll leave you footballing intellectual heavyweights to duke it out over what Pellegrini's doing wrong and what he needs to change.

Not sure why you edited out my actual point? Strange.

Just to clarify, most managers have a preferred system, but if they do not have the players available to make that system work, they will adapt it for the good of the team.

Hope that helps.

 

[taconinja]

My only issue with the team selection is playing Clichy and Boyatta at FB's. They can't play at the same time. It was obvious vs Palace that having them, plus Garcia restricted the offense immensely. So instead of playing Clichy vs Swansea and then Kolorov could have played yesterday he tried to continue doing the sam e thing that didn't work before and hoped for a different result. Not unlike playing Garcia at CH or playing 2 strikers on the road in the PL.

For my money the big miss yesterday was Vinny. Easy to say with hindsight but with him instead of two left footers at CB we'd have had a better result. However I fully understand the need to rest someone like Vinny who has a history of injury problems.

Really? I feel we were too narrow because of the lack of respect our fullbacks generated on the attack. I didn't think the opposition generated enough of a sustained attack to miss a CB.

 

[Anonymous]

Just to clarify, most managers have a preferred system, but if they do not have the players available to make that system work, they will adapt it for the good of the team.

Is there a finite point at which the system should be abandoned then ? For example - if we have to play Garcia/Fernandinho in a two man midfield do we immediately abandon the high line ?

Do we also then abandon our one touch passing when Milner, Kolarov, Dzeko or Lescott play ?<br /><br />-- Sun Jan 05, 2014 4:36 pm --<br /><br />

Really? I feel we were too narrow because of the lack of respect our fullbacks generated on the attack. I didn't think the opposition generated enough of a sustained attack to miss a CB.

Yep - really. That was the change I would've made at half time.

Not for our defending, but for our attacking. We play from the back - so when we don't have a ball player at the back everything becomes slower. The key to breaking down stubborn back lines is being able to transition quickly from defence to attack and also overloading the midfield by having one of our centre halves push forward to create the extra man. Was never going to happen yesterday with the triumvirate of Nastasic, Lescott, and Garcia.

 

[taconinja]

Just to clarify, most managers have a preferred system, but if they do not have the players available to make that system work, they will adapt it for the good of the team.

Is there a finite point at which the system should be abandoned then ? For example - if we have to play Garcia/Fernandinho in a two man midfield do we immediately abandon the high line ?

Do we also then abandon our one touch passing when Milner, Kolarov, Dzeko or Lescott play ?

-- Sun Jan 05, 2014 4:36 pm --

Really? I feel we were too narrow because of the lack of respect our fullbacks generated on the attack. I didn't think the opposition generated enough of a sustained attack to miss a CB.

Yep - really. That was the change I would've made at half time.

Not for our defending, but for our attacking. We play from the back - so when we don't have a ball player at the back everything becomes slower. The key to breaking down stubborn back lines is being able to transition quickly from defence to attack and also overloading the midfield by having one of our centre halves push forward to create the extra man. Was never going to happen yesterday with the triumvirate of Nastasic, Lescott, and Garcia.

It's definitely a possibility.