Stoke Vs City Post Match Discussion Thread

[Anonymous]

I think you have to understand though is that we have had the easiest start of any of the top teams - and only team we easily beat was a woeful 10 man Newcastle. Hopefully it improves buts it's not good enough far. Lack of energy and passion on the pitch - same off it too.

There is no easy in this league. Particularly this season, which is going to be much more competitive than last season was because not just the top 4, the entire league is much stronger. I don't think we lacked energy or passion, we lacked a killer instinct today. However as I said, we've got injuries to key players, a new manager trying to implement a new system, and the harsh reality is that this isn't done overnight.

As someone earlier in the thread posted, Pellegrini's Malaga and Villareal teams played with a tempo which we aren't doing yet. This is down to the players having played at half speed for three years under Mancini. You can't unlearn that overnight.

It's interesting that even though the rags won today, by all accounts they were rubbish and created very little.

 

[WyongBlue]

Disappointing result should have done better............

 

[wattle]

We're definately going nown. Definately! No shaddow of a doubt. Not a decent player in the team. Worst team City have ever had!!! No excuses that we were missing our best defender, best creative midfielder, new centre back, left back and best forward for most of the game. No excuses at all. Yeh, deffo going down. Oh well - Championship next season. All our NEW fans are right. We are rubbish. Should have got Rafa/Davie in. Defence is awful. Two clean sheets in a row means nothing. As nor does top scorers in the league. Every top team beats Stoke at their ground. Im not supporting them anymore. Come on Chelsea!!!!!

 

[kunaguero10]

Is it just me, or does a combination of Kolarov-Nasri-Garcia tend to coincide with poor performances? Not just coincidence is it?

 

[2sheikhs]

Hart, our best player today
Zabba, steady but quality of crossing was poor
Kolarov, overhit passes too much
Nastasic, decent game
Garcia, headless chicken
Yaya and Rodwell, struggled to hold stoke midfield
Nasri, just like last season
Jovetic, had our best chances but couldn't get on the ball.
milner, helped zabba with Etherington but didn't offer anything going forward
Negredo, no service but a handful for stoke defense

very worrying that we aren't holding the ball as we used to, yaya is not looking so imposing this season and Garcia is all over the place at centre half. It looks like champions league is the number one priority this season and we just have to hope that the team are just struggling to adapt to a new style of play.

I agree with all of this post.

 

[voltaire]

Hi folks.

Not a City fan, per se, but I do follow a few players on your team. My quick thoughts on the game:

- Your midfield was non-functional. Toure is a marauding attacking midfielder, at his best, galloping past defensive mids and creating space for other attacking players and taking on shots himself. Here he was a cone to be galloped around, or was otherwise laying off a simple diagonal pass to the fullbacks/wide players. The issue is the role he plays in this particular formation. This, coupled with the fact that Rodwell was invisible for large stretches of the game (I barely noticed him contest for the ball or make a creative pass), meant that City's midfield was badly outplayed (and by that I mean that they too often did not contest balls coming through the centre of the pitch), which meant that most of City's penetration came down the flanks.

- This flank-oriented approach suited Stoke fine, as they were set up to defend crosses. The small size of the Stoke ground means that there's not a lot of room to work with when trying to pull off a cross, and that crossers are closed down quickly as a result. This meant that a lot of City (and Stoke) crosses were hitting either the covering FB, or the near post CB. Otherwise, they were sailing straight past the box, with no one able to reach them quickly enough before being closed down.

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

Oh dear. I had a bet the other week that we would finish in the top two. With each game my confidence I'll win that bet diminishes. Totally disjointed team and can somebody please ask Pellers not to play Garcia as a center back. Heart in mouth defending.

Garcia was very good today. Stop listening to the biased commentator. He read every play well and intercepted 3 balls. Was quick to harras the forward, and gave up a professional foul before anything developed.

Rather than complimenting these intelligent decisions, the dumb commentary guy kept whinning about him not being comfortable, and acting like a midfielder. Total bullshit. Had 3 solid interceptions, and closed down his man quickly. Made a mistake after correctly reading a pass and intercepting it, but tried to clear a ball under his foot quickly and bubbled it. Only mistake of the game. Yet, the commentator whined all game, and so did many on here.


He is a solid player.

Would agree with most of that. It was Paul Walsh I think, he'd decided before the game he didn't like Garcia and set about ignoring anything good he did. Typical shithouse commentator.

Garcia did ok today, not great but not bad either.

Tony Gayle

 

[sh249]

Need to play 3 in the middle. Playing 2 away from home just means you get overrun.

Totally agree. Even at home we will get over run.

This is the main problem that MP has to sort for me.

Me too. Said that repeatedly after the Hull home game but was told that we hadn't changed formation

I don't think it's that we necessarily need to play with any kind of orthodox 3 in the middle - for me that's just one of those platitudes that get bandied around when teams don't play well. Was the same in Europe last year, everyone insisting that you have to play 3 in midfield to have a chance - except we did, changing from the way we usually played under Mancini, and were shit.

When we won the league we played Barry and Yaya in midfield, as a two, in probably 90% of matches. The difference was that we had both Silva and Nasri playing narrow, so we often ended up with 4 players in the central area and dominated because of it. Of course the flip side to that is that we lacked width.

At the moment, I think the problem is that the whole thing is disjointed. As much as we haven't yet seen any sign of a major change in style, it still seems clear to me that the way Pellegrini wants us to play (and presumably Txiki and Sorriano) is very, very different to the way we played last year. In particular, it relies on the whole team being very compact - at the moment, the gaps between attack - midfield - defence are huge, and it makes it difficult for us to move the ball quickly and attack cohesively, and makes it easy for teams to play 'between the lines' against us.

It was always likely to take time to make that kind of change effectively - on the evidence of the last 3 games, it looks like it might take longer than anyone thought. But I still have faith that it will click at some point. And if/when it does, I think we'll be excellent. The only question is how soon is soon enough. Of course, it's tempting to call for us to go back to the way we played under Mancini, but then it's a case of weighing up short-term gain against long-term development. For me, we just have to grit our teeth and get through it, as frustrating as it is (and I've been going mad watching the last few matches) and even if we do end up getting a twatting from someone, and hope we will reap the benefits in the long-run. Bit like Spurs - plenty of people baying for AVB's blood after half a dozen matches last season, saying he was trying to change too much etc. But they're now far better than they ever were under Redknapp.

 

[LongLang]

Weve gone backwards.
Im not into these manager bashing posts. Its not my style. But, i dont think anyone can disagree that after the 4 games we have played, and 90ish million spent, we have improved on last season.
For me it looks like we have regressed.
Hopefully im wrong, and vinny coming back could change all that, but i fail to see how a centre half can change a lethargic, toothless midfield and an attacking line up who seem to be playing like strangers.
Im thinking that possibly kompany can come back, giving the midfield more confidence that they are looked after at the back and will be able to push on a little more. Yaya in particular should be playing as an attacking mid rather than holding.
Its frustrating, because we have arguably the best squad of players in the prem.
We need to absolutely destroy soneone in the next few games to take the pressure off. Next week would be a great time to start!!!

 

[blue ranger]

Got to admit I've not really been blown away by our start under MP, if anything bit alarmed but there is over reaction from some too.

It's still early days, I thought we'd hit the ground running but we are clearly adapting to playing differently, we've had injuries and I genuinely only see us getting better as the season goes on, but to stick up for those complaining we have been pretty ordinary to say the least.

Next 8 days are crucial, two wins & we are well placed in Europe & at home, two defeats & we're already playing catch up. I do think we are only 1 good performance & a good win away from finding form, but it has been a mixed start, the good news is we're well in touch, we'll get better & we've only scratched the surface of the season.

Out of interest mate what is this style of play we are trying to adapt too? For me it looks like a simple 4-4-2 and we are a man short in midfield. Yaya should be playing further up the pitch.