Sunderland post match thread

[MC ID]

there's an old saying.

"be careful what you wish for"

well bobby haters both players and fans alike, you must be delirious.

Indeed. Players got what they wanted and now will more than likely end up with their nice manager being sacked.

It's time to show some of these players where their place is.

exactly. been saying since bob was hoofed.

It pisses me off that you are correct, I like our players but clearly some of them are simply wrong for what is required. They have the talent but like fuck are they going to show it unless it's all plain sailing. It goes to show that mentality is huge part of a winning squad. I don't blame Pellers for any of this nor do I blame Mancini, both of them are victims of shitehawks.

 

[Mat01706]

there's an old saying.

"be careful what you wish for"

well bobby haters both players and fans alike, you must be delirious.

Indeed. Players got what they wanted and now will more than likely end up with their nice manager being sacked.

It's time to show some of these players where their place is.

exactly. been saying since bob was hoofed.

Be careful what you wish for? At least for the best part of the season it's been entertaining, lets face it Manini never beat Liverpool away and struggled against Sunderland so I don't get your point...

 

[scousemanc]

I work away from home during the week but I was arsed enough to break up my week, leave work early, drive back up the M fucking 6, and miss my tea to watch the game.

The players on the other hand were not in the least bit arsed.
Not arsed about passing the ball forward, or pressing to kill off the game, not arsed about winning the league, or earning their wages. Just. Not. Arsed.

Not one single player looked good tonight.

I admit that for the first time ever, I was that annoying bloke that moans and groans throughout the game. That's what they did to me.

And one last thing. Can Pellegrini show a bit of passion and imagination please. A bit of a spark. Some savvy. You know, like premier league managers are supposed to.

We didn't lose the league on Sunday. We lost it tonight.

 

[Falastur]

I agree the season's dead now but nip over to the official club site( mcfc.co)and read Pelligrini's after match comments they beggar belief. Apparently Sunderland are a difficult team to play after the Liverpool game and the players aren't physically tired they're mentally tired --thank fuck they've not got to go to work in the morning the poor darlings aaaarrrrggghhhh !

Yep, those players are pathetic. I mean, to think that someone who has hundreds of millions of people watching his every move, knowing that if he plays even a single ball out of place the fans will turn on him, not knowing if he'll be harassed in the street as he tries to live his regular life, unable to so much as go to an ATM for some cash without paparazzos stalking him and taking pictures of every last detail so that they can criticise it in a tabloid distributed around a country of 65 million people, getting home to find 20,000 people on Twitter have sent him insulting or even downright life-threatening messages over his performance, not knowing whether come the summer he's going to be told "you're not good enough for this team" and end up in a career slump which will see him playing for a mid-table German side or FC who-on-earth-even-knows-how-to-pronounce-their-name-let-alone-learn-the-language of Whereveria, getting into fist-fights with his teammates on the training ground because of a mistimed challenge because drunken hooligans yelled abuse outside his hotel window until 4am, reading every day his own national papers that he's either his country's one chance of rescuing their honour at the World Cup or he's the worst player to pull on their shirt in three generations, to think that he might be mentally tired?!? Thank goodness he doesn't do my regular 9-5 job, because I'm pretty sure that he simply couldn't cope with the stress of knowing that he's got a permanent contract for a company he's worked at for 7 years and knows he would have to screw up badly to be fired from, working in a literally zero-pressure environment with a grand total of three people who rely on his productivity and quality of work in order to get their own jobs done, coming home to a good three or four hours in front of the TV. My word, but he simply wouldn't be able to stand it!

 

[Blue Is the Opposite of Blue]

Out of curiosity, since Silva was left out of the squad due to injury, how exactly would you have explained to the player that you want him to play despite not being fit? How exactly was Pellegrini meant to handle that differently?

Not exactly bailing MP out of some serious fallibility from today's game, but playing god and healing the wounded certainly aren't part of my expectations for him.

I didn't know Silva was injured at all. I've been away from most communications for the last 48 hours so it must have slipped by me. I saw Stuart Brennan say Silva was simply "left out" and nothing more before I went to the game but assumed it was just a case of resting him.

In that case, I'll retract that entire paragraph apart from the last line. Why do our players suddenly lose their ability to play confident link-up play when Silva isn't around? Nasri, Aguero and Milner are all skillful players in their own right, and yet it seems they were all blindfolded before tonight's game. Until Jovetic came on not one player was interested in picking the ball up from deep and moving towards Sunderland's goal. Why wasn't Nasri eager to drop deep and support the obviously knackered Fernandinho? The amount of times that Javi Garcia ended up isolated with three Sunderland players was down to Fernandinho pushing forward, and yet nobody felt like filling in. The way our entire midfield falls apart when Silva isn't there to hold their hand is mindblowing. They're grown men and professional footballers, for god's sake.

Fair play, and fully agreed... I'm hard pressed to think of a single team that suffers a greater dip in performance without a player than we do without Silva. I had hoped Nasri would take the chance to step up, and he seems to have divided a few opinions here today, but for me it was a shocking missed opportunity from him. Went hiding instead of filling the boots. Jovetic seems to be the only one with the skill to find a pass like Spanish Dave, but just doesn't cover the same ground or know the team as well. Would like to see Jovetic start taking that role in cup games next season and see if he can't lead the B team between cameo roles for the prominent starting 11.

I think Chelsea tend to suffer when Hazard doesn't play, it's just that we've rarely seen it this season because Hazard has always been fit. What I would give to go back in time and make sure he signed for us.

I've been saying that about Nasri in other threads but I've been shouted down. He's had his fair share of big moments - but he seems to be only able to take advantage of momentum, rather than change its direction. If we're winning 3-0, or on a good run of form, or if the crowd are behind the team then Nasri's your guy. If we're a goal down or hurting from a defeat like Sunday then Nasri's not really your best option. I've stood by that opinion since he was at Arsenal.

I feel sorry for Jovetic really. If he doesn't start on Monday after Negredo's performance tonight I wouldn't blame him if he had his bags packed and a transfer request drafted and ready for handing in. He was, once again, the brightest spark in a dull team tonight and looks like he'll be fantastic next season. A very handy and useful player.

 

[jayblue]

I wish people would fuck off blaming the crowd. that " team " and I mean that loosely should have the quality to beat relegation fodder behind closed doors. don't blame the precious gutless ones on the pitch. if they cant be arsed showing up then why the fuck should I ? remember we aren't the ones being payed millions to play like tarts.

 

[Bovril]

Just got back, rinsed so bare with me.... this is exactly why I love City, nothing is ever straight forward. Shite tonight just like the 80's, 90's and so on, I do not expect us to win every game even now, Silverware this season plus Champions league so if you think about it... not too shabby ???? CTID.

 

[East Level 2]

Sunderland gave Liverpool a game a few week ago. the difference being Liverpool found a way to win

The difference was liverpool had 2 goals before sunderland started playing

That's a coincidence; on Sunday they had 2 goals before we started playing.

 

[Mr HJ]

Garcia was our best player tonight, that says it all

I actually thought MDM was our best player tonight by the fact he tried to play forward with pace whereas Javi was tidy a lot was sideways or backwards. He also looked a lot more of a leader than Vinny. Too many of our players playing with one eye on the world cup and not wishing to get injured. When you lose just a few % of intensity you don't win titles, fact. The other worrying factor is when a team like Sunderland, who have been useless since the cup final, suddenly raise their game - we couldn't handle them physically and kept looking to an inept ref for help. We should be better than that.

Anyway you never know, I can't believe we will play that poorly in the final 5 games. Reality check on a few of our squad players yet again and I also didn't appreciate Kolarov reacting to a crowd call to speed up throw ins when we were 2-1 down. Not being arsed Alex is very contagious. Finally us as fans need to work out how to improve the atmosphere, I say look to the likes of Dortmond where the crowd are fantastic and intimidating, since the Poznan died a death we just seem to sit back and expect something to happen. It will show how much character we have if we simply give up in the next month and I am looking for Manuel to spell out that some are playing for their very futures.

 

[cheddar404]

I don't know where to start with that. We had 6 matches to give it our all. Only 6 matches and that performance looked like we weren't arsed at all. No urgency, no fight and Sunderland were unlucky not to have won. Defensively we were wide open and we were ponderous going forward. Zabaleta, fernandinho and Garcia played alright. The rest were varying levels of poor. We looked like a team that has major problems a bit like we did against Wigan in the cup final last year. Mentally, we don't seem strong enough to mix it at the absolute top.