I said in the MOTM thread that the 90 mins from Bernie was as good as anything I had ever seen from a City player. Its criminal that his individual performance ended up on the losing side.It's gone under the radar, given the result, but that performance from Bernardo last night is one of the best I've ever seen in a City shirt. He put on an absolute masterclass. Cruel that he was on the losing side.
Walker deserves huge credit as well, he clearly wasn't anywhere near fully fit, but dug deep and played a big part in getting us in to the position we were in before the dreadful ending.
I’m not putting it on Pep either - but that Rodri sub after losing Walker was poor. We had two full backs on the pitch who simply can’t defend and took our best defensive minded player off against a team who never know when they’re beaten.Spot on.
Pep’s frustrated in the past in the CL, but not last night.
Poor finishing in front of goal and poor finishing of a game saw us lose this.
Crossing the ball into their keeper when we should be seeing the game out in the corner is as Typical City as Steve Lomas seeing the game out in the corner when we needed a goal.
Sir Harry of Kane?Talk of misery... I'm devastated, but next season we will maybe have the greatest striker on the planet in a blue shirt.
No.Sir Harry of Kane?
Cancello can’t defend and is much worse on the right than the left. He’s let a big bearded bloke run off him (who’d only scored 42 goals before last night, so not much of a threat) and then not reacted at all. Even worse than that though, on 89, we‘ve got the ball in their final third and he’s just chucked it in the box as if we’ve got Andy Carroll in there. Madrid had gone at that point and just keeping the ball was all that was needed. All that being said, it can’t have been a huge surprise that Madrid had a go at the end and Ake would surely have been a better substitution than Zinchenko or Fernandinho?Because Cancelo can't defend. He's failed to cut out the cross for the first goal with a half-arsed effort.
Same half-arsed effort Grealish attempts to stop the cross for the second.
We failed to so the basic things in the biggest moments.
All true but Mahrez finished so well. It was some strike. Re nerves i think Pep really suffers with anxiety...understandable...but it does transmit...we looked like a kids team at 2 : 1 really loojed like rabbits in headlightsThe thing is when we went 1-0 up Madrid had nothing to lose and they had the crowd, you can't underestimate that impact. We've done this ourselves in the past and we were in this exact same situation against QPR. It was the crowd and push for the title that got us over that line when really we should of lost it.
Let's not forget that we did more than enough to win this tie, we've put 5 past the Spanish champions over two legs. We've also scored and was defending a lead at a place where only one English team has won over the years (and that's us!). We must be one of the only teams in history to go to Madrid as the obvious favourite.
Despite this when you lose it a bit the only difference is how good your opposition are and unfortunately in the last few minutes of the game they had 2 shots and scored both. On another day they'd miss and we'd be through just as Aguero or Dzeko could of missed against QPR.... I don't think there's anything we could of done differently.
And we'll still find a way of fucking it up lolTalk of misery... I'm devastated, but next season we will maybe have the greatest striker on the planet in a blue shirt.
Sorry mate but I disagree.
A Harry Kane would have converted chances earlier in the game so the last minute brain fart would have been irrelevant.
As I keep banging on about, putting the ball in the net when we really need to is our biggest problem.
I very much doubt you’d find anyone on this forum or at the ground who wouldn’t have snatched your arm off if you’d offered them City scoring 5 goals over those two games.What let us down is finishing. It's what let us down in other games this season. Top of the league but one of worst conversion rates in the prem that's appalling
Just a minute, against Brighton and Wolves we had been reduced to 10 men and that told against us in the end, you can't really bracket the results in those two games with the others that you quote.There‘s maybe a couple of problems we have, one of which is just a by-product of the way we play. That one is about us not really knowing how to ‘chase‘ a game, as it’s something we very, very rarely have to do. It was noticeable that we didn’t lay a glove on Madrid after their penalty and it’s something we’re just not built to do which, given the amount of control we usually have, is perhaps understandable.
More worrying though is a tendency to concede more than one goal fairly rapidly and, even though I accept it doesn’t happen often, lose games that we have been winning.
In recent times we’ve lost the following games from leading 2-0.
Brighton, who scored 3 in 26 minutes and 2 in 4 minutes.
Wolves, who scored 3 in 35 minutes and 2 in 7 minutes.
Rags, who scored 3 in 16 minutes and 2 in 2 minutes.
Last night, obviously.
In the CL, we’ve conceded 2 in 3 minutes against Spuds and 2 in 8 against Monaco and 2 in 2 minutes last night.
Against Liverpool, we’ve conceded 2 in 15 minutes in the 2-2, two in 8 minutes in the FA Cup semi final, 2 in 7 minutes in 2019 (lost 3-1) and, in the CL 3-0, we conceded goals 1 and 2 in 9 minutes, goals 2 and 3 in 10 minutes and all 3 in 19 minutes.
It does suggest that, when we lose control, we’re somewhat all over the place and very open to conceding.
Rashford?Talk of misery... I'm devastated, but next season we will maybe have the greatest striker on the planet in a blue shirt.
We conceded six against Monaco not five.It's revisionism at best mate.
How many goals are enough?
One more than an opponent, every time, that's all it ever takes.
Scored six against Monaco, four against Spurs, five against Madrid...
Two games with Sergio.
A striker makes the difference when the games are tight, not when you are conceding five against Monaco, five against Liverpool, four against Spurs, six against Madrid.
It's a collective mental issue in the biggest moments.
Platt used to say Dzeko scored 'heavy goals which is what I think people are trying to argue we don't have, but five goals across the two ties with Madrid hides the fact our defending was pathetic.
That's bound to happen though. We were comfortable, we had a 2 goal cushion and our best players like Kev had gone off because the game was won. For them to then score 2 goals right at the end meaning we'd have to score another was a big ask.All true but Mahrez finished so well. It was some strike. Re nerves i think Pep really suffers with anxiety...understandable...but it does transmit...we looked like a kids team at 2 : 1 really loojed like rabbits in headlights