Spurs (H) | PL | Post Match Thread

[Eccles Blue]

Never open your curtains and it's one of those grey, miserable, depressing overcast days and just think to yourself "Wow, wouldn't a football kit the colour of outside be just lovely"?

That made me laugh out loud. I never thought of that. :-)

 

[JTFactsPlz]

think grealish would know 1 booking and miss villa game

You'd think Rodri would know the same. But I see you're not digging him out. In fact, as per usual (YAAAWWWWNNN), Grealish getting different treatment than other players in criticism here. It's beyond tedious and transparent.

Heaven forbid anyone point out that at least a few of Grealish's yellows were super soft cards from refs people could see were taking the piss out of City (except when it came to Grealish's cards, obviously, which must have been entirely fair, even if City fans would criticise everything else the ref did). *eye roll*

 

[Blu1]

Sickening watching this game back just like Chelsea & Liverpool. All 3 games should have been won comfortably.

Missing big chances is costing us more than midfield & defence tactics

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

It's not yet a crisis but there are causes for real concern. City have played a number of "top teams" in the recent past and our results have not been encouraging. Admittedly, the only defeat was at the Emirates but we did not win at Chelsea and we have drawn home games with Liverpool and, now, Spurs. We did beat Brighton and United (a top team?). In the games against Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs we led until late on but conceded very late on. At the Emirates it was in the 86th minute (the 101st in the community shield), at Chelsea it was in the 95th, against Liverpool the 80th and Spurs equalised in the 90th. In the defeat to Wolves their winner came relatively early (in the 66th) and Brighton scored in the 73rd after City had had a two gold lead for an hour. There seem to be two undesirable forces at work: City seem to have done enough to have won the game, relax thinking the job is done and then stop a sucker punch AND/OR we simply cannot defend a reasonably quick counter. At Molyneux both their goals resulted from quick breaks, Spurs capitalised on a counter when we gave the ball away in midfield and even Brighton broke when a City attack broke down and took advantage of out defensive disarray. There does seem to me to be a link between these two failings but we have to get both sorted - and quick. Then even a lousy referee couldn't stop us.

 

[citymad]

Your first line for me is so glaringly obvious at the moment. Our inability to control a game is hurting us so badly at the moment and teams just play through us easily. Rodri looks a shadow of himself and i put that down to him basically being abandoned in the middle. No suprise yesterday as soon as we brought Rico on in there to help him we gained some control back, but my god we need a fit John Stones back.

You're asking for a miracle there. Stonesy just cant get a run of games going. The intensity of games now makes that even harder.

 

[Xhavenjoe]

We have, contrary to popular belief, a small squad.

We are currently missing KDB and John Stones, both of whom are key players.

Everyone on this forum knows we have a small squad.
Pep wants a small squad to work with so a high number of suspensions and injuries affect us more than other teams.
The likes of Doyle, THB, Kabore, McAtee were all allowed out on loan and some of these could have been used as back up.

All teams are allowed the same number of squad players and backed up with younger home grown players.

 

[alexmcity]

We try to play a very aggressive game with Alvarez behind Haaland and two wingers, but we get tired in the 2nd half. Thus we got dominated by Liverpool and Spurs for significant periods in the 2nd halves, the energy from the 1st halves wasn't there.

I'm very optimistic, my only worry is about our energy levels and injuries. We may need to adopt a more pragmatic and energy saving approach, especially when the squad depth isn't there.

 

[stonerblue]

Wow great minds and all that!! I was just coming on to ask what on earth they were wearing and what colour it was supposed to be!! It was horrendous you are quite correct, in fact I’d go so far as to say it should be banned and the match either awarded to us or declared null and void!! ;-)





I’ve only just watched MOTD2 so only just seen it.

I thought it was brown but the wife says pink

 

[citymad]

I thought it was brown but the wife says pink

Interesting.

 

[stonerblue]

Not sure why he even should be last man. They are a countering team, we are susceptible on the counter, but we persistently have 9-10 players in the final third for set pieces

Bang on. Why the fuck leave one back on set pieces, especially against a team primed for the counter attack? Schoolboy error and Pep needs a bollocking

 

[willipp]

You're asking for a miracle there. Stonesy just cant get a run of games going. The intensity of games now makes that even harder.

Yeah i know, its such a big loss for us. Imagine if we'd had a fit Stones and Kev for most of this season, we'd be running away with it. Reality is, we are still in a decent position if we can get them both back for the second half of the season and get through this rocky spell which has been by far our toughest run of fixtures.

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

Yeah i know, its such a big loss for us. Imagine if we'd had a fit Stones and Kev for most of this season, we'd be running away with it. Reality is, we are still in a decent position if we can get them both back for the second half of the season and get through this rocky spell which has been by far our toughest run of fixtures.

Johnny Stones is getting a lot of praise for the way he "steps" into midfield. I wonder whether we should flip it round and learn from the way he steps back into defence.

 

[Pingu the Penguin]

When we have a corner Walker should stay back to cover any fast break

It seems so obvious but there’ll be a reason why not knowing Pep, but it’s not an infrequent thing

 

[Manncity]

Accommodating Alvarez has cost us, we need the extra midfielder.

 

[ercbkippax]

Another week of that stadium announcer being a complete embarrassment. How have we just accepted that shite at our ground?

 

[Damanino]

worst of this draw is how many players they missed.

Maddison had a fantastic start as a new signing scoring or assisting every game for them, out injured.
their strongest CB pair Romero-van De Ven both out. Sarr out. some subs like Bentacur, Perisic , Solomon, Sessegnon, Dier etc out. Richarlison just got fit enough to be a 5 minute sub.

they clearly paid for these many missing players after their great start having lost 3 games in a row.

Villa went to their place and came away with a win a week ago.

then they turn up at Etihad and we dont kill them off and let them come back in to on top of that. then top it off with Hooper blunder.

Spurs-WHU their next fixture, have a feeling dinosaur Moyes with a basic tactics will surprise them.

 

[Tab]

Accommodating Alvarez has cost us, we need the extra midfielder.

Not read through the thread I was to pissed off from yesterday and although no doubt there are other issues the complete lack of 2 supporting midfielders is the main one. Alvarez up top and Bernie all over the place leaves Rodri on his own and let’s be honest as brilliant as he is he’s slower than me.

 

[Don Karleone]

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Finally someone talking sense
Today's dropped points was down to poor finishing in the first half just as much as the defence or the referee.

Watch that first half again. We are downright good. We play our usual game, against a team that are no mugs these days (got to give credit to Spurs, who are playing differently to anything I've seen from them for years). We saw that they were going to play at a high tempo, so we upped our game to an even higher one. Haaland misses a chance that literally anybody on the pitch could have put in, and missed another clear chance that was not quite so easy, but the likes of which he was scoring in his sleep last season. Bar and post from others with the keeper completely beaten. That really could and should have been 4-1, even 5-1 at half-time, and game over. We wouldn't even have been debating anything about the second half.
What I am starting to find tiresome is a lack of discipline in the team, in terms of yellows and reds. And I'll stick my neck out and say the Haaland full time reaction and then the tweet were both pretty stupid, frankly. Yes, we were all angry. Older heads in the team need to have a word with him about that.
And Pep really needs to give the whole team a stern talking-to in the dressing room.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

They offered him the main man role, we offered him the Kalvin Phillips role

Spot on. He would have pushed his way into the team much more often, but still would have been playing second fiddle. Rightly so. He's not near Rodri. No-one is.