Post Match Thread: City v Juventus

[GStar]

Frustrating.

Lack of movement and flow when we play Nasri, complete lack of defensive coverage too. Against Evra, it might just have been the opponent to get Navas back into some form going forward.

Said it from day 1 but Bony was a nonsense purchase, a very good forward who can not and should not be anywhere near our team under it's current structure... we don't play to any of his strengths and with Nasri we only had Sterling who has any appetite to run in behind when he holds the ball up, any even then his finishing is weak.

Then taking Sterling off for De Bruyne and removing our only threat to turn the Juve defenders - they must have loved it tonight, we set up and played right into their strengths.

Having said all that we were still the better side for the majority of the game and had we finished our chances, could have been 3 up before Manzukic even had a chance. I'm sure it won't be a popular opinion but i can't hep but feel Pellegrini has no idea how to play to our strengths, whats the saying "more by luck than judgement", that's him to a t.

Pogba failed his audition, showed too much of the ball to our midfield, often dispossessed and looked to have a poor temperament - there's talent there, but worth no where near the kind of money quoted during the summer.

 

[MacD]

Let's face it we've had worse days as City fans – but I couldn't lose interest.
I do agree about the mental block though! For all of Vinnie's stirring words in yesterday's press conference tonight the players showed the same lack of belief the have every year in Europe, and I can't for the life of me see why! Juve weren't great tonight - but neither were we... I don't think Juve could believe how bad we were! They've not won a game all season, we've not lost one... maybe we need to get a sports psychologist in or something, but the lads need to shake off this european inferiority complex quick!

Not losing interest in City but the Champions League has never caught my imagination. The domestic trophies are of far more interest to me. Perhaps it's do with our wretched form. I thought tonight was going to be the night we finally caught fire and showed our true worth but yet again it was the same performance as previous seasons

 

[pogrom92]

Oh so indirect with such a slow build-up. Hundreds of short sideways or backwards passes. Any decent Italian side will lap that up and, tbf, Juve defended well and scored a beauty.

This!
Nasri should not have started, he slows things down and runs in circles.
Silva off form today.
Toure actually tried, but Juve midfield outpaced him and never slowed down.
After what happened last year in CL, we might still qualify for the group stage, but we have not made a step forward in Europe yet.

Bright spot is our PL form, so looking forward to West Ham.

 

[bluemc1]

Didn't take our chances, simple really, neither team was great and we missed our chances, we can go there and beat them but I feel it's another 2nd place and meet one of the big 3/4 (PSG) in last 16
Really starting to see the CL as a huge distraction from the things I really care about winning

 

[waspish]

Let's face it we've had worse days as City fans – but I couldn't lose interest.
I do agree about the mental block though! For all of Vinnie's stirring words in yesterday's press conference tonight the players showed the same lack of belief the have every year in Europe, and I can't for the life of me see why! Juve weren't great tonight - but neither were we... I don't think Juve could believe how bad we were! They've not won a game all season, we've not lost one... maybe we need to get a sports psychologist in or something, but the lads need to shake off this european inferiority complex quick!

Juventus are no mugs and they thrive on games like tonight when they know a team are coming on to them and leaving space for them to attack.

 

[Prestwickblue]

Yaya's usual "do fuck all" champions league performance.

Pellers needs to be man enough to stop selecting him.

I have to agree. Lazy slow waste of space. Why debruyne left on the bench then put wide when Tou're should have been resting get for the weekend

 

[blueincy]

Well there was 50,363 there tonight so interest wise it's gone up but maybe it's 'new fans'

It might have something to do with Viago gone, fucking crooks..

 

[Aguerovic]

One thread popped up around a week ago or so, saying City have got the 4th best squad in Europe, or something similar. I said on that thread, "City may have a quality squad but in terms of CL experience, they have none". For example, buying a player like Sterling for 50m, who is known for scoring against mid table sides like QPR, Villa, Swansea, isn't an ideal player to rely for goals against other great teams in Europe. Not yet anyways. Pelegrini reached Quarters with an average Malaga side in CL, furthest than City ever have so there can't be any blame for the manager.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

Why we think we can break down a compact team with slow sideways passes I'll never know.

 

[steviemc]

Not great, but certainly not the end of the world. Defensively we were good, and very little could be done about their goals. Bony doesn't seem to be great at finding space and although he's usually good at holding the ball up, that's mainly useful if he's got a player near him, not when he's isolated with a defender on his shoulder all the time. Playing as deep as we did allowed us to be wary of their pacy attack, but never really let us get into our stride.

That said, I'm sure Pellers wanted us to play out quicker and sit higher, judging from his reactions on the touchline. Fern was great, and once again showed his class in both defence and attack.

I would have liked to have seen KDB on earlier as not only does he keep the ball moving quickly, he's excellent as playing cross-field balls at pace - stretching the width of play. The game was crying out for this. Playing through the centre wasn't working as we were getting out-muscled and knocked off the ball far too easily.

Credit where it's due to Juve, they had a plan and were well drilled and Buffon needed to be sharp. Was surprised how strong they were in the challenge when up against some of our bigger guys. I have a feeling that a few of our lads were struggling with fitness or injury today as there was certainly a spark missing. Plenty more to play for yet, so far too early to condemn.

 

[ninjamonkey]

No complaints with that result. Juve outplayed us. Or more accurately, Allegri out-thought Pellegrini.(which isn't exactly hard) I said in the pre-match thread that if we play our usual game and don't adapt to Juve's strengths and weaknesses we'll get beat. To use the tactical turtle's phrase, Pellegrini's "filosofee" is great and exciting, his Game to game management however is piss poor. We never ever adapt our game depending on our opponents and it's why we keep failing in Europe.

No one player had a particularly bad game tonight. Heard Bony getting a lot of abuse after the game but i thought he was decent. I said the same thing after Palace, we can't expect him to do the things Aguero does, we need to play to his strengths or not play him at all.

Silva, Nasri, Sterling and Yaya, were not great but none of them really had a terrible game we just got it wrong tactically, were predictable and for a team like Juve, easy to play against. And once they scored the second we were never going to break them down as we carried on doing the same thing over and over and didn't even put them under pressure.

Slightly worrying how the defence fell apart when Otamendi came on. I know they'll need time together to gain an understanding but If one from him and Mangala can't become the organiser in the defence pretty quickly when Kompany isn't playing then we need to be playing Demichelis in place of one of them. And finally, Fernandinho was superb yet again tonight. Completely ran the game, can't give him enough praise. I do fully expect him to be "rested" on Saturday now.

 

[WyongBlue]

Very frustrating night for you guys, very frustrating morning for me over here in Oz, that said I thought we had done just enough to get over the line..............

 

[Bluep*ss]

I have to larf............Some on here wondering why Navas wasn't playing. He was subbed at half time a couple of games ago and got slaughtered on here after Palace game.
If he had been picked - 50% on here would go into meltdown.
Kompany was shown on the bench with his right shin covered in ? ointment or bacon fat - similat to Aguero at Palace.
I still think Silva was not 100% and Sterling was worried about his hamstring. You cannot expect it to be right on Tuesday if it was "strained" last Saturday.
Aguero should not have come on - he was not fit. - Probably out for 3-4 games now.

 

[oneclubfrommanchester]

This is whats going to happen. We will finish 2nd in the group (cos were good at that) probably by winning the final match. Will draw RM or Barca or a team of this quality, then get knocked out saying how we nearly got through. Seen it all before. Never mind Ill be more than happy to win the PL title and FA cup with COCup as a bonus.

 

[Sergio Picasso Aguero]

The game was poorly managed by the Pellegrini .
His changes caused unnecessary problems and left our defenders expose.

Bony needs to go; he's not CL quality striker and i have no idea why people on this forum keep defending him. He's NOT what we are looking for.
He belongs on a mid-table team. I like Nasri but he tends to slow our play down.

Hope we get over this one fast. We can still win the Group.

This but apparently you're not allowed to criticise Bony

 

[Wilmslow Road]

We buy the best player in Getmany and play the snail Nasri.
Granted Navas fucked up at CP but he still poses a threat down the wings and stretches them.
Once agin a Pellers shows he can't cut it in Europe. Not for us anyway.
Total disaster against a team that are playing like Sunderland in their league

 

[donachie&chadvalleybigleague]

I expected a tight game against Juve and that's what it was. We were never gonna rip them a new one and anyone expecting that is living in cuckoo land. They pressed and closed well when we had the ball and defended deep and in numbers, making it difficult to get behind.We did enough to win the game in my opinion but did not put away our chances when they came. They did. That's football.

I agree. I would have put Navas on though. Other than that, we missed our chances, they took theirs (our careless marking allowed one of theirs, a rare wonder goal for the other). They are a great team but we were largely on top. We move on.

 

[TheThirdDeano]

Don't worry blues, all in good time.

 

[Yates]

Why we think we can break down a compact team with slow sideways passes I'll never know.

Same every year man, I have to laugh or I'll cry. I like KDB because, he doesn't fart about, he spots a pocket of space, he pings in a pass and moves, Yaya, Silva and Nasri all guilty of holding onto it too long, Nasri the worst of the 3. We are crying out for a Patrick Roberts type of player, attack, attack, attack, Sterling is kind of like this but not as jinky.

 

[ono]

Same old Same old. We can get away with it more often than not in Premier League but we miss far too many chances to win a competition like this. We only have a couple of ruthless players in the team. It nearly cost us on Saturday at Palace. It actually almost cost us at home to Chelsea when Hazard should have scored at 1-0 after we had missed half a dozen easy chances,

Juve had 1 proper chance, which they missed, 1 half chance and 1 moment of brilliance. We had Sterling missing two one on ones, with Silva somehow not scoring the rebound on the second one, and we had Bony missing a sitter. Chances are few and far between at this level and we just aren't clinical enough.

Hopefully it gives us a kick up the arse anyway. I don't think we were particularly bad. It's hard to play with any tempo against a team of 11 defenders. If we continue with tonight's 'chances created to chances conceded ratio' we should get through the group comfortably. Our saving grace is that Gladbach are absolutely shite at the minute, and also the away game at Juve might suit us more.