This Stoke defeat?

Didsbury Dave said:
Train said:
Didsbury Dave said:
I'm afraid Nasri is still on the naughty step for me, too. He hasn't played well since he returned from injury last spring.

Same old Nasri, foot on the ball, look backwards, too many touches, in the main. I've said it before, my guess is that the manager knows he's a confidence player and is waiting for him to play himself back to form. I'll bet you Navas isn't happy about it, though.
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Except, from the point of his return from injury to the end of season game against West Ham last season, he scored 7 goals and made 5 assists with multiple games of 7 key passes or more in the last few weeks. That would suggest to me that he was okay and was quite influential in some of his games.

Unless i'm misunderstanding you, and your point is that he hasn't been playing well since his return from his recent injury in pre-season. If that is your point, then i can kind of understand. However, we are only three games in. And Nasri has played okay in the first, performed well in the second and looked just as bad as our other creative players in the third, so even then, its a stretch for me to come out and say i fully understand your point, because to me, you're being unreasonable, and a bit of a dick.
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I'm not bothered about the stats, mate. I'm giving an opinion from watching him. He came back last Februaryish from an injury, after having the first run of proper form since he arrived in the first third of last season. He actually came back quite well and scored a couple of times in the first couple of games but then for the rest of the year his form was inconsistant at best, poor at worst. He's started this season the same.

There have only been three months in his entire City career when he's played at the top of his form, so he can do it, and does it in little fits and starts. But not often enough again, just like his first two years. If he doesn't get back to consstency again soon he may have to be dropped. In my opinion of course.
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He's no further down on form at the moment than Silva and he has made more key passes than Silva this season.
 
Saturday was a Groundhog Day match, same as every match facing a lower to middle tier premier league club. Only difference was we didn't score. Stoke worked hard, were very well organised, got lucky with poor keeping on the goal and the penalty shout, plus if you were to pick a ref best suited for an upset with Stoke you'd pick Lee Mason. He's a pretty terrible ref, misses loads and allows teams rough is up more than most. Hopefully we won't see him for a while.

Short term the defeat may have implications for our supporters more than the team. The only concern is whether the players were a little complacent so Saturday should be more than enough of a wake up call. I expect is to improve gradually and really hit our straps in a few weeks. It's a pity that the fixtures have come out as they have as I think we won't be near to out best until Chelsea at the very earliest at which stage the flappers may well have started self-immolation.
 
Teams all have an off day, but this display was a bad one, Sagna never went beyond Nasri in the entire first half, an off the ball, we did no put preesure on them, our closeing down was slow often laboured, YaYa did not drive forward and we did not have any shots from range, a bad day at the office, is it time to rest YaYa and give Lampard a go ? at least we would have had shots from range, does he offer something no one else does ? there again if Stoke had been award a penalty in the first half when Kolorov messed up ( was it Kolorov not quite sure) Soke would if they had gone 1 up at that point tried to defend the lead, and I think we would have turned it around, all if's and but's
 
Mister Appointment said:
inbetween said:
We can't win it every year we have to get that into our heads sooner rather than later. United used to win it every year because they had no competition. Now quite literally 1 out of a list of teams could win it. Who would of thought we'd be being pushed by Liverpool of all teams right to the end at the start of last season. The Premier League is so much more exciting now but the cost of that is if we are to concentrate on other competitions, the Premier League might suffer.

If anyone is expecting to walk the Premier League at any point in the next 10 years, you are very wrong. It doesn't matter how much we spend, it is statistically more unlikely that you will win it the more times you do. We won it last year because we scored a ridiculous amount of goals and that set a precedent which might not necessarily be repeated. Also with the World Cup, general fitness is lower and there is more of an unlikeliness of being fired up to concentrate on a trophy that is still fresh in the minds of players.

If we got to the final/semi final of the Champions League, won a cup and came 2nd in the league, that is still a really fantastic season.

Real Madrid won the Champions League last year but finished 3rd in their league. Some would call that a failure having spent A LOT more money than Atletico who got to the final of the Champions League but also won La Liga. Chelsea won the Champions League a couple of years ago but when did they last win the league? Football just doesn't work the way you expect it to so we need to slow down the expectations and just enjoy the fact that we are even in with a chance of these competitions.

Personally I don't think we will win the league because of the competition but I really do think we'll set the Champions League on fire this year, it could be our year and I would gladly take 2nd/3rd if it meant winning it. Especially to piss on UEFA's parade when we are being sanctioned.
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One of the best posts I've read this season. Good stuff.
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Totally agree, shame we didn't enter the big time during the rags monopoly of the premier league. We just have to face it we'll be in the mix from now on but the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and the Rags have all gone up a gear and are now serious title contenders. The minimum goal every year from should be champs league qualification.
 
Hoping the early season form of nasri/yaya/silva is just down to match fitness/sharpness. It was always gonna be a miracle for yaya to get up to last years standards and to be fair to him he started dominating the game against stoke and really trying after they score (shame he didn't before they scored). As for nasri he never seems to turn up for these physical games! Something pellers surely needs to address in future by playing milner. As for merlin form is temporary class is PERMANENT! so know worries there. What really worried me on saturday and a few times last season was out reluctance to run in behind there back 4 games need to be stretched when teams defend with 10 behind the ball. And finally the amount of times we get picked off on the counter attack from our own corners!
 
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