Posted after Liverpool-Chelsea, obviously. But what I say at the end applies here: I'm beyond worrying what others do now. It's what City — and only City — does that concerns me at the point we're at
Ok, a few days have passed, and we’ve all had time to digest what happened the other night.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I felt humiliated by those two results against Newcastle and CSKA, in a way that I did not about the other three defeats.
At the time, Stoke felt like an annoying blip, a series of bad mistakes by three players culminating in a goal, in a game that we had clearly dominated, albeit in a sterile kind of way. Bayern? Well, Bayern are Bayern. Enough said. No shame there. West Ham, when we played them, were on a roll and are still playing the best football they’ve played for several seasons. Fair dos.
But against Newcastle, where we played nearly our strongest team against a bunch of kids, and against the not very terrifying CSKA, let’s be frank, we were abject. This is supposed to be Fortress Etihad. Well, that’s out the window.
A third of the season has now gone. We’re not playing at all well. Nothing is settled, but I do find myself wondering if this is going to be a trophyless year like 2012-13. Several players have lost form and/or confidence at the same time, to disastrous effect. Merlin’s out, and by God we’re missing him, but that in itself is worrying. We shouldn’t have to depend on a player to that extent. He was injured for two lengthy spells last season, and we managed without him pretty decently, in fact.
There are no miracle solutions (sacking Pellegrini here and now is certainly not one of them, unless you can get Pep Guardiola or José Mourinho, who is a gobshite, but a hell of a coach, to come to Manchester at the drop of a hat — point taken?) but two or three things stand out, and surely it’s time for Pellegrini to be more flexible. It’s all very well to say “I train teams to play attacking football” but there’s more than one way of playing attacking football.
Anyone can see that Yaya’s not delivering, at all, and that furthermore he’s making mistakes that are costing the entire team. The problem with a player like Yaya is that they can play a pretty shit game, and then deliver, in thirty seconds, something that maybe two or three other players in the world can deliver. The Villa game this season was a case in point. That was a terrific goal, a genuine “Yaya” goal. He did virtually nothing else of note. So there’s always a temptation to keep him on. But I think the time has come for Pellegrini to have the balls to put him on the bench. Not as a punishment, but he should just take him aside, or call him into his office on the Monday, and have a quiet talk with him. Yaya just needs to sit on the bench, look, learn, reflect, get his heart and mind right again. He may not ever get back to the level he was at last year, but he can surely play better than this, and as I say, it’s unsettling the whole team.
Our best midfield configuration for the time being, it seems to me, is therefore Milner, Fernando, Fernandinho, in front of the back four. Or Milner, Fernando, Nasri. Because it’s true that Fernandinho also is not playing at anything like the level he was delivering last season. Neither solution is ideal — Nasri is not a box to box midfielder and never will be, so that leaves a lot on the shoulders of Jimmy Milner. Fernando obviously stays back and covers. He’s not been perfect recently, but then, who has? That’s his job, that’s what he was brought in to do.
Up front I would ask Merlin, when he comes back, to play a genuine number 10 role behind Sergio. That’s it. That’s where he destroys defences. He should not be out wide. Ever.
Neither Jovetic nor Edin deserve to start at the moment. But then neither does Navas. I suppose you’ve got to pick one of those three, just to make up the eleventh man, although they’re obviously very different kinds of players. All of them have gone badly off the boil. Jovetic particularly disappoints me. I really thought that he was going to be to our first half of this season what Beast was to the first half of last. That’s what it looked like for the first couple of games, before the injury. He may still come good. He works hard, but he’s certainly not scoring, and he’s not really creating. Edin is going through one of his “I’m not here periods”. It kills me how the man can do what he did in the last two months of last season and then revert to this. What can we say about him that hasn’t already been said?
And what’s going on with Navas? He almost never seems to go wide of his man and get down to the by-line these days. He did it many times last season and it caused chaos. It was exactly what we needed. Instead, he constantly cuts inside, getting into sterile exchanges with Yaya or whoever, slowing the whole attack down. Has he lost a yard of pace, have the full backs become cute about him? Just don’t understand it.
The back four’s not great, but it’ll get better ¬ — Vinny and Zab are not up to their usual level, they’ll get back there, I’m certain. The best member of that back line is Martin Demichelis at present. But we have a left back problem, and unless you can find a world class left back to buy in January (or next summer), we’ve got to live with it.
Meagre consolations? Joe’s playing pretty well, goals are going in because he’s exposed by the midfield and back four. He’s stopped plenty this last month. Only three players have been delivering at anything like their normal level, for about a month: him, Merlin, Sergio. And of course James Milner.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, our problems are as nothing compared to the rags. Seriously doubt they’ll get top four. But I couldn’t honestly give much of a toss about that. It’s City that concerns me. We are champions, we are City. Where’s that pride?
