Post Match Thread: City v Juventus

[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.