Post Match Thread: Barca vs City

dom said:
Off the ball, Barca pressed..

Off the ball, we shuffled...
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City do not press. City have not pressed a game for 5+ years. For whatever reason, it is not in the mind of Pellers or Mancini. Don't understand why not, especially in europe but also now in the premiership as teams have worked us out.
Barca, Real, Bayern, PSG, Juve all press - with or without the ball. City don't. Complete arrogance in my book
 
The only positives I can see is the general success of the 4-5-1 which we have been craving for a while. Would also work a lot better without that midfield having to carry Yaya around the park all night. Time to cash in on him before his value drops more than it no doubt has already.

Yaya's laziness was only bearable when he was throwing in quality goals which unfortunately hasn't been happening.

Hart will take great confidence from that performance and it might just be enough to get us across the line in 2nd if we learn from that effort in the second half.

Aguero never to take a pen again, that miss has been coming for a while. Put your foot through it FFS.

Bony looks at odds with possession football, which will hopefully not be long term. If we fail with the signing of Bony on top of Mangala and Fernando then what's that? $100 million wasted when we have little scope to spend? That's the most disappointing aspect of the season. We haven't strengthened whatsoever and our squad now needs rebuilding.
 
mrbelfry said:
Didnt really see the big improvement with a 5 man midfield that others have. Still acres of space in there. In my mind this game shows exactly where we are lacking this season and it isn't formation.

We seem to have lost our identity as a team and every simple thing seems hard work. Players don't seem to enjoy themselves at the minute and consequently aren't supporting each other as we should and merely waiting for someone to do something magical. case in point was when aguero robbed the keeper and tried the shot into the box. There wasn't a single city player giving him any option but a difficult shot and there was several barca players back. No one went wide to help Sergio and no one was racing into the box for a rebound or cross.

We have a serious lack of movement from any of the players in front of the ball. And our forwards are playing too far apart to link up effectively. We are really poor at playing with width so stretching the play is pointless. We need to have our players buzzing around each other near the box rather than out wide because we can't cross and we don't have the players in the box.

Defensively we are very poor with players either being bypassed in midfield or over commiting. Barca by contrast close down all the angles and intercept so much and most other midfields do this better than us. We desperately need some stability in the back 4 - Kompany screaming at everyone for not keeping the line when he was the only player keeping Suarez onside in the first half and Sagna getting caught upfield or sucked into the middle are symptomatic of that.

I'm generally a fan of Milner but the more praise and attention he gets the worse he plays. Nasri is either great or sulking and is most effective when either taking on players or when playing the triangles with Silva and Toure. You can normally tell in the first 5 minutes if he's gonna play well or not.

Silva is at his best when he can play short snappy passes so he's needs players close to him or running off him.

Man that was a more of an essay than I intended to write but the wife is watching greys anatomy and I'm bored :)
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Great summe mate, thanks!!!

At least bring another view of the whole thing, and its refreshing to ear someone who thinks, thats not all here ist to change the tactics, sack the manager, or throw some players away.
 
We press, but honestly its about 10-15 minutes per game and even that is not that high pressure, high intensity stuff. Its a limited version of pressing.

We still try to find all kind of reasons why we dont press.
I mean we try to copy Barca arent we? Then we should do everything to copgy their killing pressing especially around 2008/2009/2010. That pressing with tiki-taka was immense. If you only do the tiki-taka part of it it can be a mess...

We either press hard or will give up our style and defend+counter well. But we cant defend or counter basically effectively.
Also cant press.

What we can do is play our possession based game when opponent let us. Or when we are in extremely great form. But no team is in huge form ever trough a whole season. Maybe for 2-3 or 4-5 months max.

Especially Pelle's system with 442 it should be all about workrate and pressing when we dont have the ball. Yet we come up with excuses that Aguero cannot press as he will be tired to attack, same with Silva, Yaya dont have legs to run unless its a sprint forward, Nasri would be wasted tracking back, Dzeko dont have energy etc...

LOL.

Than look back Bayern under Heynckess. Tracking back from stars like Ribery or Robben. The way they helped out the team off the ball. And also having enough energy to create chances or finish them...
 
Brilliant performance from Joe Hart, I thought he and Messi were the best players on the pitch. I hope Hart and Messi exchanged shirts at the end.

Although City were outclassed Aguero was having a few sniffs. I thought Silva and Yaya were pretty decent too. I don't like Navas and think he's an awful player (reminds me of Lennon) but he was causing them a few scares early on in the second half, him and Milner were doing very well with their movement, directness and Milners pressing

Biggest difference for me is that Barca are more of a team, City don't always play like one. Seeing a magician like Silva on the ball and some players not even making runs or being on the same wavelength as him. People throw the phrase out world class way too often but it's in games like this you really see who is world class and who isn't
 
Positives. We kept 11 men on the field. Negatives. It didn't make a toss of difference.

Hart. Its all been said but great performance. Outside of that and at the risk of sounding like a broken record its all about belief again. We had zero belief that we could really beat Barca and qualify. PSG gave them a better game then we did. PSG with the same FFP restrictions showed what can be done with belief. That and work rate. But the work rate is a by product of the belief and that is Pellers job. To instil that belief.

Ah well. We were better in the second half but they never convinced me it was on. Secure a top three finish and then see where we are in the summer.
 
I just hope that what the club (Txiki in particular) learned from the two games is that you can't stand still anymore. The first team needs improving every summer, even if it's just one player as we've seen with Barca and Madrid in the past. We've spent the last three years adding to the squad depth instead of complementing our core of Hart, Kompany, Yaya, Silva and Kun who now are all that bit older and may have been robbed of giving this competition a fair wack when in their prime. Obviously, it's not just about bringing in players but I just think we need to start behaving like the elite club that we now are in future transfer windows.
 
The penalty wasn't the best but sergio has more than made up for us during the 4 years he has been here. A true city legend and hero. Overall barca were much better than us and the football they play is fantastic . All the best to them for the remainder of the competition.
 
Without FFP we would have started that game with Aguero, Suarez & possibly Messi upfront. Just think about that for a second.

FFP has had the desired effect of crippling our progress. We can buy Wilfried Bonys for £30m but what we need are galacticos to level the playing field. A Bale, a Ronaldo, a Neymar, a Suarez. We simply can't compete anymore & it's criminal.
 
Johnsonontheleft said:
Without FFP we would have started that game with Aguero, Suarez & possibly Messi upfront. Just think about that for a second.

FFP has had the desired effect of crippling our progress. We can buy Wilfried Bonys for £30m but what we need are galacticos to level the playing field. A Bale, a Ronaldo, a Neymar, a Suarez. We simply can't compete anymore & it's criminal.
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PSG had the same FFP restrictions. How are they doing?
 
BigOscar said:
Proud of the effort from most of the lads, even if we are well short of Barca's quality. Best moments of the night other than Hart have to be Pellers showing Nasri and Yaya what he thought of them. He's finally had enough and I think most of us have as well. 3 or 4 aren't good enough, but those two lack something far more important than talent. Well done the others though, heads could have dropped but they didn't.
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100 percent. I don't mind losing. But losing with these guys on the pitch is an embarrassment. They are not City and never have been.
 
Only Hart deserves to be in the next round..
We took a football lesson from Barca once again
Messi is the best player in the world i ve ever seen
We are to slow , not a proper counter attack
We need a new coach, a new team and a new plan immediatelly. Competition is huge in Engand and Europe. We have to be quick or we will be dead
 
Was it just me who got pissed off with the Barcelona love-in by Shreeves and Red Nev? It's like they were going to go for a bukkake party with the team after the game.

They were beating each other off every time Messi moved. Got right on my tits.
 
I thought we were pretty shit to be honest, Barca played well for 20 minutes, but we could still have lost 10-0.

To me it emphasised who we need rid of in this squad, and its quite a few......

Those that were good enough tonight....

Hart, brilliant tonight (but he's not always).
Kompany, a couple of early mistakes, but did well otherwise, defenders will make mistakes against their front 3.
Demechelis, as above.
Fernandhino, our best player after Joe.
Milner, not the greatest footballer, but he never stops trying or gives up, and will play anywhere, as he had to tonight to cover other shortcomings.
Silva, tried and tried to create, difficult night for him, and he's not on his best form.

The rest were average to dreadful.

Sagna, did we sign his twin brother ? didn't put a foot right all night. Useless going forward, pretty useless defending too.
Nasri, back to f**king useless, and should have been sent off, played like a prick tonight.
Yaya, lazy bastard unless we were heading towards their goal, and their goal highlights why we need to get rid soon, we need a better team player than that.

All need to go.

Kolarov, was OK, and had a tough job, but that stupid foul on Messi, is every reason why we need to get rid.

Aguero, wasn't good either, doesn't do enough for the team in games like this for me, doesn't ever defend from the front, its required at this level. I have some sympathy for him as he was utterly isolated, but on more than one occasion tried to be billy big bollocks when a pass would have put a colleague in with a better chance.

As for the subs....

Navas, runs about a lot, tries, but completely useless as any kind of threat.
Bony, where to start ? we played with 10 men once he came on.
Lampard, the game was at his pace when he came on, but he offered little even then.

We need a HUGE shake up in the summer, we are light years behind Barcelona and the like, much like the rest of the PL.

Of those not involved tonight.

Mangala, needs time, but needs to up his game.
Zab, is far better even off form than Sagna.
Jovetic, gone.
Fernando, also needs time, but I can't see it working.

Clichy, I'm comfortable with.
Boyata, I'd keep because he can fill in.

As for the PL, this season needs to be a big wake up call, I couldn't personally give a shite for the other clubs really, but while our league might be competitive, and exciting, its nowhere near good enough in europe.

Its no embarrassment losing to Barcelona, who are good anyway, and are on top form right now, however, we are light years behind that level.

Oh, and the TV commentary and punditry tonight, f**k off, you'd be right behind any other english club, but you are w*nkers about City on a regular basis.
 
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