jma said:Didsbury Dave said:jma said:What happens to the esteem that this group are held in if they continue the trend (which began early/mid last season) whereby they are out fought by inferior players on a regular basis?
I have reservations about the tactics that are currently being employed and the way they are affecting the form and confidence of some players.
However, this group of players got their own way by forcing out the nasty man who was shouting at them. For me, that means that they have to, have to show that they were right and that without the nasty man whose nasty words held them back we are going to see ten or twenty percent more effort, team spirit and desire.
So far, it still looks very much like last season in terms of effort, team spirit and desire, with inferior teams taking City for a soft touch who you can rely on not to match your bottle when you play them at your ground.
It still rankles with me the way this group sacrificed the FA Cup final to make their point. Something that should be unthinkable, imo. Personally, my view of the group will be severely tarnished if they do not do something significant by the end of this season.
Simplistic fan talk to go down the 'they have no bottle' route, I'm afraid. They didn't lose that game because they had no fight. They lost it because they regressed to last season 's square passing along the line, in the absence of silva. This allowed the opposition to keep getting organised and we couldn't break them down.
When a match is fiercely physical, like Chelsea was in the latter stages, these lads give as good as they get. There are certainly problems at the moment, including over reliance on our tight passers, and a big gulf between our first 11 and our reserves.
You get 'outfought' as you call it when you get frustrated, I suppose. That happens with this lot and it happened on Sunday. The belief that a few away wins bring will go a long way to restoring belief.
If it was one game the I'd agree with you. Talk of attitude and 'passion' annoy me intensely when they are presented as an antidote to anything.
But this is a twelve month trend of dropping away points and not turning up away from home. With many different line ups. Many different players present. Many different opposition.
If teams like the rags didn't consistently make a mockery of "the best players will win" then I'd tend to agree it isn't about attitude. But I've just watched a crap rag line up (bar a handful of them) beat a far superior Arsenal line up. I watched them run away from a far superior City team last season. I watched them give a good two legged game to a far superior Real Madrid line up last year. I've watched Chelsea in Europe give Barcelona a game every time they play them. I've watched numerous inferior teams give this City team more than a run for its money away from home.
I've not watched this City team beat a team that has better players than them once. I can't recall the last time this team ground out a few results when playing worse than the other teams.
I have seen this team adopt a relaxed and slow tempo against teams, like against Sunderland, numerous times away from home in the last 12 months and then seem chocked and surprised when the inferior opposition don't roll over and have their tummies tickled.
I've seen this team hammer the same teams at home because they aren't faced with the same challenge, the same belief from the opposition and the same hostility. Regardless of line ups and tactics.
You get a carbon copy away performance from this squad, unless they are faced with a challenging team (not including European teams that are superior, against whom they have crumbled). It starts off slow, with no-one panicking because they know/think that they are better footballers ad have got plenty of time to score a few against some mugs. Then the other team realises that City aren't offering anything like they do at home and grow in confidence. If the opposition scores then City gradually ramp up the panic and don't have the composure and self belief that they are going to turn it around (like Fergie's rags always did or like these same City players do at home). The football breaks down and panic football sets in.
It isn't a certain set of tactics as it has happened for a year with different managers and formations. It isn't selections as it has happened for a year - with Silva, without Silva, with Aguero, without Aguero, or anyone else. It isn't the inability to play in an aggressive (in terms of attitude, not physicality) and dynamic way from the start - I see these players do that most weeks at home and definitely every time they come up against an English team they deem to be one that has the right to be considered one of the best.
So what's left, causing this total difference in atttitude away from home. Complacency, bordering on arrogance and, in my opinion, a lack of determination and the refusal to lose that can be found in teams that dominate (as this squad should be).
The word brittle comes to mind.