Post match thread : Borussia Monchengladbach away CL

[GazM]

That team was so unbalanced & ill-disciplined it was embarrassing. How many times was the ball lost in attack & BM countered all too easily ? MP has got his work cut out to come up with a solution – the omelette has been over-egged. KDB is not a right winger. Silva/KDB/Sterling in the same team ? Not sure where/how you fit them all in – something has to give in this respect.

 

[kunaguero10]

I'm looking forward to Zabaleta coming back into the reckoning, I think he may well solve few right-side problems.

As consistent as Sagna has been this season he rarely offers a threat going forward (he rarely even tries), whereas Zab will overlap, or even underlap in the case of the already wide Navas, thus providing width, freeing up space for Silva or KdB on the right and providing a much greater threat on the right side.

I look forward to both fullbacks providing attacking threats again; it seems all too easy for the opposition to mitigate it when only Kolarov is getting forward.

 

[kaz7]

Letting them nearly score from our corner is unacceptable,why does mp tell everyone to go up for the corner,leave at least 2 right back ffs

 

[coleridge]

That team was so unbalanced & ill-disciplined it was embarrassing. How many times was the ball lost in attack & BM countered all too easily ? MP has got his work cut out to come up with a solution – the omelette has been over-egged. KDB is not a right winger. Silva/KDB/Sterling in the same team ? Not sure where/how you fit them all in – something has to give in this respect.

Haven't we been saying this since MP arrived? I think that we have to accept it for what it is. Great going forward but generally offering a poor shape for defending and relying heavily on individual grittiness, such as from the Captain.

 

[ZZmaestro]

The game unfolded just the way i predicted it would in the pre-match thread.
Correct me if i am wrong, but playing Yaya in a midfield two doesn't work in CL, has never worked.
Nowadays he would only be efficient if played behind the strikers; his legs have gone, his fitness levels not what they used to be,
it is like playing with 9 men if asked to keep his MD duties.
About our left side, Kolarov is out of his depth in CL, against a top team he will be skinned easy peasy, and once again we seemed like conceding each time they went through his territory.
Joe once again bailed us out and kept us in the game, with the 3 points, this is the only positive to keep from that game.
We seem to repeat each year the same mistakes and are hundred miles from inspiring any ounce of fear in the European stage
as a proper elite team should inspire.
Are teams dreading about facing us ? I don't think they do and it shows on the pitch.

 

[domalino]

Letting them nearly score from our corner is unacceptable,why does mp tell everyone to go up for the corner,leave at least 2 right back ffs

He left 2 back. De Bruyne and Sagna. The only reason it was an issue was because De Bruyne tripped over himself twice in 2 seconds.

 

[dajd1984]

Champions League team needs to be:
HART
ZABALETA - KOMPANY - OTAMENDI - CLICHY (replace if we're gonna win it)
FERNANDINHO - FERNANDO (replace if we're gonna win it)
DE BRUYNE - SILVA - STERLING or NAVAS - DE BRUYNE - SILVA (depending on whether we can expose the opposition more on their right or left and whther we could do with the defensive attributes of navas or sterling more).
AGUERO

THEIR GOAL- Kolarov's positioning/awareness/decision-making was awful. Fernandinho and Fernando's back tracking was way too slow. If these things aren't fixed we will leak many more goals in Europe, especially against bigger teams.
OUR ATTACKING - KDB would be more effective if he could get on the ball more by being in the cente but Silva is best there too so one needs to play wide as neither should be left out.
We were actually getting down the wings quite a bit in the second half yesterday but Kun isn't at the races so there was nobody availale for them to cross to. There was just nobody providing an option for the midfielders to cross to by running diagonally past defenders or pulling away from markers.
OUR DEFENCE - theres no real cohesion and solid feel to it all and hasn't really since Vinny and Nastasic had that promising spell together. Lots of last gasp challenges are saving us over the last few years, and Otamendi does look like he has the pace to be good at that, but it should be a last resort, not something we have to do every time.

 

[willipp]

What a roller coaster of a game. Absolute shambles in the first half but much better in the 2nd. If Kun takes either chance in the first 15 mins it's a very different game but he will get his sharpness back and when he does we will see a very different player.

I woke up this morning and first thing I though of was that 4thofficial behind the goal. How can he not of given that???? I then thought about this place if we hadn't scored, the Armageddon of blue moon meltdowns. That would of definitely been it for me.

 

[Airbags Optional]

Mmmm I think we played well, their keeper made 2 amazing saves from Kun, Kun dragged another wide from Joe's excellent through ball and we carried Yaya in the first half. If Fernando had started I doubt that they would have had the chances in the 1st half. We also had 25+ efforts at goal with 7 on target - away from home in the CL! Similar to Juve if Kun was his usual self we would have walked that IMO. For me the week links were Yaya due to injury and Sterling (even though he put a few decent balls in) as he is not doing enough in taking players on and is very easy to defend against. He also seemed to wait for things to happen instead of making them - 3 crossed from the right went across goal where if he had gambled and been proactive he could of had a chance, ironically the hardest one (a header) he actually attacked and just put it over.
Also we have a CB pairing that have never played together and it shows, they need to understand their roles and adapt. Overall I was happy

 

[Bewar3them00n]

Having Vinny and Mangala out, half a Yaya, and a not yet fit Silva start, left a gaping hole that BM ran through, almost at will last night.
Fernando and Navas helped turn the tables, shoring up the middle, and offering penetration down the wing.
The obvious weak link is Otomendi, at the moment, I'm sure he will come good when he gets to the pace of the Prem.
We need to get Vinny, Mangala fit, Yaya and Silva fit, and we will be back, hopefully the international break will give us time to recouperate, and hopefully Vinny, and Silva will stay at City, not travel to their respective countries for international duties.