Roberto Mancini's Champions league: STATS

[burnagelane]

My concern is the team seems to be selected from a "Rubick's Cube".
Never see two teams that look the same. Regulars are Hart, Toure and Kompany, for the rest it's a raffle.
Even with a settled selection, I don't think City would beat this very busy, highly motivated and very highly skilled AJAX. I enjoyed their performance, I didn't enjoy the result.
The referee in this game was excellent, he didn't referee to the crowd like EPL refs.
Joe Hart should be made to pass the ball, he gives it away more than any other player on both teams.

 

[Lancet Fluke]

Anyone who says we are improving is blind.

"We will improve".
"Mancini will get it right."

It is not the first time when Mancini played CL. He had 4 years at Inter of it. He only lasted this much because he was winning the league. You can imagine they fire him earlier if he doesnt keep winning the title at least.
(He was lucky because his biggest rival in those years in Serie A was Spaletti's AS Roma, the one United beat 7-1 at Old Trafford around 2008).

He didnt improve after his first year at Inter, he didnt improve after his second, or third year. Then he came to City, had a run in the EL but didnt learn from his Inter mistakes and Dinamo Kijev didnt need a 200-300-400 m squad to make it matter.

Then with all the experience, past mistakes Mancini knew exactly what he has to do in a Bayern, Napoli, Villarreal group to advance, but he failed to do it.

Then Sporting in the EL. He had a lot of experience from knock-out rounds at Inter. But Sporting knew what they have to play, and rhey did it. After that maybe they lost to some weaker team they didnt reach the semis. (Just like Dinamo Kijev didnt reach the semis after they beat us. They was nowhere near to be the best teams in the EL.)

And then know this year, with all the past experience we show the signs of huge weakness, we are getting dominated every match, scared back to backpasses and hoofing.

Mancini is improving in Europe? What makes you say that? Clearly not the facts.

You know maybe we are learning and improving. After all we conceded a goal after about 3 minutes of going to three at the back against Dortmund whereas we held out for about 6 minutes against Ajax. Technically maybe we have got twice as good at playing with three at the back.

 

[bapi]

Can Mancini fanatics explain Malaga, PSG or BVB results in CL? With your logic these clubs should be fucked. And this Group of Death shit... Ryan Babel! Are you fucking kidding me?!

 

[sh249]

More worrying that the stats for me are the level of performances in Europe

Dynamo Kiev away....awful, and effin freezing
Dynamo Kiev home....not very good
Napoli home.............not very good
Bayern away............poor (except 1st 20 mins)
Viallreal home...........not very good, damn lucky to win in last minute
Villareal away...........very good
Napoli away.............not very good
Bayern Munich home..OK but it was versus their reserves if were honest
Porto away..............good
Porto home..............very good
Sporting Lisbon away.awful
Sporting Lisbon home.awful (except the last 10 mins)
Read Madrid away.....poor (2-1 lead flattered us)
Dortmund home........awful
Ajax away...............awful

Doesnt make great reading and I certainly wont be buying a DVD of our recent European adventures.
The only decent European night weve had of late has been Salzburg home, and half of that joy was provided by Alan.

I agree: for me it's the performances rather than the results that are frustrating. I'm honestly not that bothered about progression, as we do need time to get used to playing and - more importantly - winning in the CL especially, and we're still light years away from being able to genuinely compete to win it.

Most annoying thing is that so many of our problems have been avoidable against Dortmund and last night (leaving aside Madrid, as no-one really expected us to go there and get anything, and the performance wasn't bad), and Mancini has to take the brunt of the responsibility for bad tactical mistakes in both games (and his stubborness in sticking with the 3-5-2 is worrying). But we still had spells when we played well in both (especially against Dortmund in the first 35 mins, and even last night for the period between half-time and their second) and I don't really buy the 'we're not good enough' line - with the players we have, we should be performing better, even if this doesn't necessarily translate into qualifying from the group. The problem seems to me to be that we just don't look like we know how we want to play (or Mancini doesn't) and we haven't tried playing our normal game - the only times we have coincided with the two decent spells we had. Even last night in the first half we defended about 10 yards deeper than we do normally - was like a throwback to the early days of RM's reign. But at least then we were exclusively set up to be solid and break, last night we were neither, and it all seems to stem from him not knowing what he wants us to do (epitomised by the horror of seeing Aguero shoehorned in on the left, completely wasted in an attacking sense, and leaving us horribly exposed on that side).

Of course, that isn't to say there aren't other factors - the defending deep could also be due to a general lack of confidence, which would be understandable given the second half against Dortmund (might have been different if we'd been given Utd's draw and picked up a couple of early wins? Who knows.) And certain individual performances were so bad as to be not solely excused by any problems in the system - Barry being the obvious, Yaya was atrocious by his standards etc.

And all that being said, we still need to give RM time to sort it out. Whatever his European stats may be, his record here means he deserves full backing and a chance to get on track. The knee-jerking in the other thread is pretty embarrassing, to say the least.

 

[Бравый Дератизатор]

Mr Nothing

 

[Rinaka]

We don’t have enough experience in champions league mate that’s why I knew we was fucked once I seen the draw! Yes fair enough we have been smashed by Dortmund and Madrid but they are clearly better in Europe. On paper we should be mixing with the like of Dortmund and Madrid but football is not played on paper

Like I have said before we wasn’t good enough for top 4 in the premier 3 years ago and look at us now, even if you don’t think we are moving in the right direction but at least we are learning. If you want to succeed in champions league once we take the lead you don’t lose it!! sadly we have chucked 2 leads away

what do you mean by " we dont have enough experience in CL"? Every player from the starting 11 yesterday has played Champions League before, including Mancini who has managed CL teams . I dont quite understand why you mention Dortmund aswell ? Last year they played their first CL season in 15 years, how come they are doing well even though they lack as much "experience" as City ?

Average age of the City squad is 26.60 years, Ajax only 22.30 yet they still won even though they have more unexperienced players.

Experience has nothing to do with it.

 

[johnny crossan]

Mr Nothing

that's not very brave for an exterminator

 

[Deleted member 14625]

To be quite honest; right now, anything of note we do in the Champions Lg is like pulling some bird at the end of a night out...simply a bonus, nothing serious, really not overly arsed if it doesn't happen.

We have only finished in the top three of the Premier League twice, we've barely established ourselves domestically yet. Never mind on the European stage.

-- Thu Oct 25, 2012 3:32 pm --

We don’t have enough experience in champions league mate that’s why I knew we was fucked once I seen the draw! Yes fair enough we have been smashed by Dortmund and Madrid but they are clearly better in Europe. On paper we should be mixing with the like of Dortmund and Madrid but football is not played on paper

Like I have said before we wasn’t good enough for top 4 in the premier 3 years ago and look at us now, even if you don’t think we are moving in the right direction but at least we are learning. If you want to succeed in champions league once we take the lead you don’t lose it!! sadly we have chucked 2 leads away

what do you mean by " we dont have enough experience in CL"? Every player from the starting 11 yesterday has played Champions League before, including Mancini who has managed CL teams . I dont quite understand why you mention Dortmund aswell ? Last year they played their first CL season in 15 years, how come they are doing well even though they lack as much "experience" as City ?

Average age of the City squad is 26.60 years, Ajax only 22.30 yet they still won even though they have more unexperienced players.

Experience has nothing to do with it.

Simply; pace. They have no slow players. They close down and limit opposition to mere seconds on the ball, upsetting their passing rhythm. and they find space to be passed to and can do it at high tempo for 90 minutes...we can't do any of this, it's not the way we play.

 

[bapi]

Mancini must be on drugs: ''It is not important, the tactics. When you play this game you should have good spirit."

 

[Akira]

It's slightly disturbing that somehow, I'm not at all surprised we faltered in the CL again.