Sunderland Post Match

Dribble said:
What I saw was a predictable pattern which has characterised the last 2-3 seasons. Yaya in a midfield 2, Silva marooned on the left and the left back left exposed. Fat Sam predicted it beforehand and my Dipper mate was amazed I was able to predict our line up and formation to within one player as would most City fans.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, but there's no need really as I already know how many games we've played recently, who's injured etc. To illustrate this we brought on extra muscle in the midfield to help out a beleaguered Yaya and Fernandinho. It was obvious to me before a ball was kicked that we needed we needed to be strong in midfield and down the flanks because as you say, it was a midweek match in windy conditions away from home against a team desperate to avoid relegation.

If this was just a one off then fine, but this season especially its become the rule rather than the exception. We just seem to be making harder work of it than necessary and last night perfectly illustrated why. The Premier League has always been strong, none more so than this season so I don't expect any easy games, what I will say though is that with the talent available to us would you say that we have been performing to an expected level and if so where and when?
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And yet we won. Did you predict that as well to your Dipper friend? Than l can see why he is impressed with your glass bowl.
 
eversince 76 said:
And yet we won. Did you predict that as well to your Dipper friend? Than l can see why he is impressed with your glass bowl.
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No I didn't predict anything as I wasn't sure or the outcome as opposed to Saturday. When I saw the line up versus Villa, I just knew we'd win not because we had all our best players available, but because we played the players picked in their strongest positions. It's simple really.

Also you didn't answer the question I posed, I'd be interested in hearing your views.
 
Poor performance. Very disappointing seen as we've looked like we'd turned the corner recently but manager and players making the same mistakes again, but we got the win (mostly down to Otamendi and Hart) so all eyes on Saturday now
 
Thought we worked very hard and battled and defended well, but we should of known what to expect from Sunderland and we had no answer to their work-rate and aggression. Thought Sunderland played well and that's exactly what they need to do every single game if they want a chance of staying up. As for us, we need to be able to control games better when we play against teams like that. Our passing goes to utter shit when we are pressed hard on the ball and i couldn't believe the amount of times we gave the ball away and dropped deeper and deeper.

Cracking 3 points and sets us up for Saturday.
 
Kinkys Left Foot said:
3 games in 7 days and we looked tired and didn't play to our optimum against a team who haven't played competitively for 10 days in the shittest weather away from home against a team scrapping for their lives you say. Why would that be then....

This game will be forgotten if we win the title never mind the performance. All about the points tonight and we grabbed all 3.
Well done boys.
Some clueless fannies on here tonight as usual.
City fans my arse some of them!
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Absolutely spot on. Let's not forget three players making their first team debut and a ref seemingly determined to help the mackems anyway he could.

How on earth defoe didn't get carded for one of those two elbows is beyond me. Dangerous and disgusting challenges. He had no way of winning those headers but instead decides to throw his elbow across the faces of our two defenders. Thank God they didn't suffer any other serious injury.

If refs in our games continue to turn a blind eye to such challenges it's only a matter of time before one of our players suffer a horrific injury. In fact it's already happened with us losing de bruyne as funes mori's challenge went completely unpunished - had he not dragged de bruyne back he would never have gone over on his leg.

Getting mightily sick of this biased refereeing.
 
Sunderland were all out to save their PL lives.
We looked tired, nervous, and worried about injuries (as you'd expect).

When you combine the two, you get last night's performance. But a win is a win and we've lost similar games before now.
 
Dribble said:
What I saw was a predictable pattern which has characterised the last 2-3 seasons. Yaya in a midfield 2, Silva marooned on the left and the left back left exposed. Fat Sam predicted it beforehand and my Dipper mate was amazed I was able to predict our line up and formation to within one player as would most City fans.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, but there's no need really as I already know how many games we've played recently, who's injured etc. To illustrate this we brought on extra muscle in the midfield to help out a beleaguered Yaya and Fernandinho. It was obvious to me before a ball was kicked that we needed we needed to be strong in midfield and down the flanks because as you say, it was a midweek match in windy conditions away from home against a team desperate to avoid relegation.

If this was just a one off then fine, but this season especially its become the rule rather than the exception. We just seem to be making harder work of it than necessary and last night perfectly illustrated why. The Premier League has always been strong, none more so than this season so I don't expect any easy games, what I will say though is that with the talent available to us would you say that we have been performing to an expected level and if so where and when?
Click to expand...

The number of times we've had to make a substitution at half time this season to compensate for the inadequacies of the initial set up, speaks volumes. Pellers has shown himself to be a top bloke, but from a footballing point of view I can't wait til Pep gets here and lights a few fires under a few arses
 
Three games in six days versus a rested team fighting for their PL lives. It is no surprise we were outplayed throughout the second half!

We've seen how Stoke and Liverpool have faltered since the League Cup semi final but somehow we are not allowed to be tired or injured lol!

If we are there or there abouts when Nasri and De Bruyne return, last night could out to be the most important three points of the season.
 
Exeter Blue I am here said:
The number of times we've had to make a substitution at half time this season to compensate for the inadequacies of the initial set up, speaks volumes. Pellers has shown himself to be a top bloke, but from a footballing point of view I can't wait til Pep gets here and lights a few fires under a few arses
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Agreed. I guess injuries requires rotations but no matter what, Yaya needs to not be in the midfield two. Declining strength and pace. He's been amazing for us and still has stuff left in the tank and needs to be played to his remaining strengths, not used in a way that exposes his weaknesses.
 
I thought we were incredibly unbalanced throughout the game. Silva 'out wide' on the left doesn't work with 2 strikers playing ahead of him - there were far too many bodies in the middle of the park and Sunderland (particularly Kirchhoff and Kone) were able to just get in the way to break play up. I think Sterling should have come on at half time for either Silva or Nacho.

Bit lucky as Sunderland can definitely claim they deserved something from the game, but some fantastic defending at times from Hart, Otamendi and Demichelis. You can't expect to play beautiful stuff every week so it's good to pick up the points when we offer so little.
 
The Fat el Hombre said:
Poor performance. Very disappointing seen as we've looked like we'd turned the corner recently but manager and players making the same mistakes again, but we got the win (mostly down to Otamendi and Hart) so all eyes on Saturday now
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Normally I would agree. Take the three points and move on. But the issues that turned a bright opening 20 min performance into a desperately hanging on last 20 mins are recurring and will sabotage our season if they're not addressed. It wasn't a case of us having an off night but getting a win, a sign of champions. It was a case of a hard working but very limited team putting us under the cosh because they knew what our weaknesses are.

I was just glad that we were playing Sunderland and not Stoke or West Ham. If Sunderland had just one player with the quality of a Payet we would have dropped points yesterday.
 
The Fat el Hombre said:
Poor performance. Very disappointing seen as we've looked like we'd turned the corner recently but manager and players making the same mistakes again, but we got the win (mostly down to Otamendi and Hart) so all eyes on Saturday now
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Results are all that matters at the moment, before Christmas we would have drawn or lost that game. Glad the two centre halves and Hart dug in and stood up to the onslaught from Sunderland. Two up top was asking for trouble there was so much room in the middle of the park for the game to open up for the other team.

Space of 7 days we've sorted a couple final, moved another round of the fa cup and edged forward past the team that is seen as our biggest threat in Arsenal. Pellegrini needs to get it right on Saturday as Leicester don't seem to be going away at the moment.
 
Bad display as had been said already. Dave does not seem to be able to get his form back and was basically a liability last night (my fav player).
YaYa looks spent. He either needs a rest or to be played behind Kun with the 2 ferns or Delph behind.
Think we got kicked off the park which did not help as every tackle we made seemed to be a foul! Defoe was a bit lucky not to get 2 yellows as well.
The game on Saturday is huge, if we do not win its going to be hard to win the title, Spurs and Leicester are in form and playing well
 
3 dogged points - excellent tackles from Otamendi and Dimichelis some were truly world class - and as for Joe's saves they were 'out of this world'.
Yes Dave maybe a little short - his movement is good but passing has slipped below his amazing standards but we are in the hunt , the others will drop more points and we need to win all our home games from now on.
Bring on Leicester- they were not impressive at theirs and I felt with a sharper Kun we could have won that so let's show them on Saturday and roar them home!
Time for every player to show their class- we are due one!
 
Put things into perspective shall we. Third game in seven days whereas Sunderland had had a longer rest period. They had introduced new players which, along with a home crowd, galvanised the players. Had we scored a second I think we would have knocked the stuffing out of them and gone on to score more but at 1-0 they were always in with a chance hence they kept on pushing. We have key players injured and we weren't as balanced as we should have been. Yaya cannot play in a two man midfield with Silva on the left as we are too easily exposed on the left. At the end of the day we won the points, kept a clean sheet and gained two points on Arsenal. Win our next two games and we will be sitting pretty although the down side is if we lose or draw. Spurs are on a roll and as well as playing us they also have three relatively easy home fixtures coming up (Watford, Palace and Swansea) which I would expect them to win. They are a huge threat and possibly more so than Arsenal at the moment. Let's take the points on offer and move on. Desperately need some players back from injury to be able to rotate the squad and keep players fresh.
 
I don't understand the negativity to last night.

In some respects we weren't on top of our game but in other respects I thought we were magnificent.

Third game in a week, injuries, freezing, gale force wind, shite pitch, away at a fat sam Sunderland who put in every ounce of effort they could.

I'm more confident of winning the league after last night than I have been at any other point this season.
 
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