Sporting CP (A) | CL | Post Match Thread

I made myself re-watch the game this morning and despite being a little upset that we seemingly gave up after they scored the 3rd I can reflect a little better about our recent run.

The performance in the first half was really good - yes we should have had at least a 2 goal lead before they had a sniff of a chance and maybe with better finishing and more composure in the final third we could have been 3 or 4 up. But when you are short on confidence you find players snatching at chances. - Phil despite his great goal had another great chance but missed - like he did v Bournemouth. Similarly Bernardo and Savinho needed to calm themselves and make the keeper work more. Erling too hit a great chance straight to the keeper - these are the small margins and unfortunately we are on the wrong side of them at the moment.

Once they got their goal they upped their press and suddenly we were all over the place defensively - that is a team issue & all too familiar recently. I think Pep needs to revert to playing high energy players out wide who more importantly can keep control of the ball. Maybe fans will realise just how important Jack was when we were blowing teams away - at that time we had a choice of Bernardo or Phil on the right and they have both energy and ball control to stop counter attacks. Sadly Rico and Savinho don't do that to the same standard.

In the middle we need a fit Kev in there - his vision and ability to play Erling in much quicker is missed. Kova, Gundo, Lewis in the middle are so slow to play the ball to him. It's got to the point where even our Nordic meat shield is not bothering to make as many of those electric runs behind as he knows the ball will not come and by the time it does he's marked by 2 defenders.

I also don't like the trend of Manu waiting so long for teams to press him before making a pass - yes teams play deeper against us but any team that is well coached uses that extra time to ensure they are all in shape and that means we have to play back and sideways constantly without going anywhere - result is we have 72% possession but that does not relate into constant chances being created. Stop that Manu & Gundo!

Finally how many corners do we have that come to nothing - last night for example 11 to 1 yet apart from one header on target the other 10 lost us possession - same with throw ins we constantly lose the ball of throw it back to initiate a slow build up. When you have Doku, Savinho & Haaland up top they need the ball quicker to give them a chance to beat a single defender. Sounds easy but it actually is if you have a forward thinking mindset. Rico, Kyle and Josko need to work on that. Do the simple stuff well and then your extra talent can make the difference.

It's not all doom and gloom as maybe this will re-ignite Pep's passion. We all know the end of our current cycle is fast approaching and we need to go again - perhaps this is even the ideal time for the change to Hugo Viana who can put his stamp on recruitment. TB was largely amazing but I would say his recent transfer success rate was at best 60/40 - a more youthful director of football with new energy is what is needed right now.

If say we had managed to get 2 draws out of the last 3 matches many would have said - oh we are not needing any change and it's all the fault of too many games and injuries. Papering over stuff is dangerous and a club that stands still is ultimately one in decline - our club is so well run so I have to believe that this dip will actually turn out to be the best thing that has happened. We need a more balanced approach to recruiting midfielders in particular. We have 3 of our most important midfielders all north of 30 - where are the 24-26 year olds?

Apologies for such a lengthy post but sometimes I need to purge some thoughts to recover after an awful loss!

We will be back and last night may just lead to change of both the way we play and who we target so we will look back and be thankful for such an eye opening defeat. Keep the faith blues and have a good week.
 
Bit harsh. He was very good in the 1st half. Superb pass to Haaland who slashed it well wide. Penalty was stupid though. Not our worst player on the night by a long shot.

This is the problem though mate.

He does a good pass here, beats a man there, puts a good cross in here, nice little touch there and people are coming out with shit like “he’s improving”, “there’s a player in there somewhere” etc.

It doesn’t work like that here. You should be that good that the above are standard several times a match affairs that we hardly even notice as they’re just expected.

I can’t knock him for effort recently but he just doesn’t have the required level of ability and frequency of it to be good enough for this club.
 
Can we please stop saying Nunes is ok and making excuses for him.

The man is absolutely wank. How can there be so many of you who just won’t have it?.
I think he's played quite well in recent weeks, I know it's been against Southampton, Fulham and Sparta Prague but you can only face what your up against.

I'd like to see him been given an opportunity centrally especially with the amount of players we have missing, He's not a left winger but he's being asked to do a job for the team.

Give him his run of games in his natural position and take it from there, The thing is, Nunes is the last of our worries, We have bigger concerns on the pitch that need to be rectified.
 
My only problem last night was not the result or the horrible defending, just the way the team went about it. They looked out of fight, the press was awful. The only positive I'm taking from it is that they were worse against Bournemouth. Bricking it against Brighton now
 
The performance in the first half was really good - yes we should have had at least a 2 goal lead before they had a sniff of a chance and maybe with better finishing and more composure in the final third we could have been 3 or 4 up. But when you are short on confidence you find players snatching at chances. - Phil despite his great goal had another great chance but missed - like he did v Bournemouth. Similarly Bernardo and Savinho needed to calm themselves and make the keeper work more. Erling too hit a great chance straight to the keeper - these are the small margins and unfortunately we are on the wrong side of them at the moment.
If you remember when we put 5 past them it was because we took all our chances, it's these small margins in Europe. You can't account for us going to shit in the second half, there was no legitimate reason for it other than lacking a real leader. You concede an early goal, someone like Rodri or Dias has a word and we don't give up another simple change immediately. We managed to get it together somewhat, but the length of time shows there's nobody who was demanding it.
 
They really did make us pay for our missed chances last night, in the first half the 4.1 result looked way off.
Any club missing key players will struggle and City are no different, KDB Grealish Stones Walker Dias Rodri Ake Bobb all struggling, then we have players who are carrying knocks and need rest and recovery time.

We are Manchester City Champions 4 times in a row and 6 titles in 7 seasons for a reason, We go again at the weekend that is how we operate, one game at a time.
 
They really did make us pay for our missed chances last night, in the first half the 4.1 result looked way off.
Any club missing key players will struggle and City are no different, KDB Grealish Stones Walker Dias Rodri Ake Bobb all struggling, then we have players who are carrying knocks and need rest and recovery time.

We are Manchester City Champions 4 times in a row and 6 titles in 7 seasons for a reason, We go again at the weekend that is how we operate, one game at a time.
Ake and Walker didn't come off the bench so obviously still carrying injuries. I just think too many players were out and as you say the missed chances in the first half.
 

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