Recent home record in big games

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HelloCity

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26 May 2008
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Manchester
Is our home record against the 'big 6' and the top sides in Europe an issue or could it be one in future?

1-1 Liverpool
3-3 Spurs
1-1 Chelsea
3-1 United
0-0 Arsenal
1-1 Real Madrid
0-0 Inter
2-2 Arsenal

1 home win since the start of last season against the 'big 6' and 2 draws against the top pot CL sides we've faced - that's 1 win in 8.

In the league you can argue that we went on to win the league anyway so it wasn't an issue last season, but in the CL we struggled to break down Real Madrid and were eliminated because of it and with a similar game against Inter following the start of the new season.

Clearly this is far from disastrous, but I guess I just wondered why our home form might have just dropped off a little bit compared to the years before. Are we as creative as we used to be? Are the attacking wide players scoring enough goals? Have we got so good that the very best of the rest now resort to all out defence against us?
 
Last edited:
HelloCity said:
Is our home record against the 'big 6' and the top sides in Europe an issue or could it be one in future?

1-1 Liverpool
3-3 Spurs
1-1 Chelsea
3-1 United
0-0 Arsenal
1-1 Real Madrid
0-0 Inter
2-2 Arsenal

1 home win since the start of last season against the 'big 6' and 2 draws against the top pot CL sides we've faced - that's 1 win in 8.

In the league you can argue that we went on to win the league anyway so it wasn't an issue last season, but in the CL we struggled to break down Real Madrid and were eliminated because of it and with a similar game against Inter following the start of the new season.

Clearly this is far from disastrous, but I guess I just wondered why our home form might have just dropped off a little bit compared to the years before. Are we as creative as we used to be? Are the attacking wide players scoring enough goals?
Click to expand...
Always difficult when the away side camp all their players in and around their own box for 90 minutes which most of those teams did. We do struggle to break that down currently. Not sure how the Rags count as one of the big 6?? Finished 8th last season!!
 
I think we've missed De Bruyne in the majority of those games and he's a key player in the big games. You rely on moments of quality and he produces them more often than not. All that possession he would have made something happen in several of them.

I also think as a crowd we're probably not as hostile as we were before the treble. That season the atmosphere was off the scale at times. Arsenal at home and Real Madrid were bear pits. I think we all took a collective sigh of relief when we got over the line and the players did incredibly well to win the league again last season despite pretty average atmospheres in a lot of the big games.

We concede sloppy goals and we don't make enough of our dominance of the ball. Maybe we try to find Haaland too often and don't collectively try to score. Gundo's return will also help as he's excellent at finding the space in and around Haaland to get goals.

Foden was player of the year last season and was on the bench against Arsenal. De Bruyne missing. Rodri went off injured. The fact we're still so hard to beat is a positive. And I'm sure Pep and his staff will be aware we need to improve that record.
 
We have missed big players but I also think pep sets us up to stop them more than just being us. Not fear but I think we show a bit too much respect to them
 
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