Just got home.
A lot of thoughts still running through my head but that has to be the most crushing result of recent times. I honestly felt that even after Liverpool we could regroup and still snatch this title but tonight confirmed that it has certainly left our grip and even the players simply know it and probably already have their eyes on the World Cup.
I'm sick of hearing about this need to fight, show bottle and whatnot, these guys know more than anyone what is at stake. This result is not surprising, we have been playing pretty average at home ever since we lost to Chelsea, look at the Wigan result... The mentality was gone some time ago..... I think everyone can see that this result was coming, most of the last couple of home games we have been completely lacklustre and it was as though we just expect to turn up and win but to be frank it has usually happened thanks to moments of brilliance or a helping hand. At the moment I just don't think the belief or confidence is there that you would see in a title winning side. Negredo's performance tonight summed up what is going on... Just total frustration, mediocrity and without some world class creativity in Silva, we are lost.
Let's face facts, we weren't far off being rumbled at Arsenal, we were thereabouts at Liverpool but lost and we have taken 0 points from Chelsea all season. We have spent 14 days at the top of the league this year, okay that is because we have so many games in hand but tonight was THE chance to get right up Liverpool's arse and put some pressure on them going into this weekend but we were abysmal.
With respect to Sunderland I thought they played some decent football and did not look like a side that is sat rock bottom of the Premier League. At times they could well and easily of scored several goals but you just felt we weren't going to score any and that Sunderland were always comfortable. Unfortunately you just need that piece of quality to win you games like that but it didn't exist. We have some really good players but none of them are in form, none of them have confidence and only one of them seems to be fit.
Negredo is on his longest scoring draught probably in his career, Yaya is currently our top scorer for god sake. There is a serious confidence issue going on at City and I don't really understand why because it seems to of been lost around the time we played West Ham in the cup. We have some real world class players but they just aren't quite knitted together yet as a team and the rotation of strikers and juggling injuries has certainly damaged momentum.
With this in mind I'm afraid we do not deserve the title this year and whilst our consistency hasn't been bad we have thrown away the big chances to take a grip on this league. We could of won at Arsenal and really afforded any result at Liverpool but no we drew, a point therefore at Liverpool would of been good enough but we threw that away. I'm afraid at this level it is simply not good enough and the poor performance at home to Chelsea and the way we chucked away a point at Stamford Bridge all amounts to us being a 3rd place team this year I'm afraid.
