My point is very simple! you blame his tactics when you dont know the reasons for him to imply them, or if the players are up for it, ready to execute them.GStar said:zeven said:yes, maybe Mancini felt we werent good enough or ready to play with different tactics than we did.
Mancinis philosofy? did you follow Inter? i doubt you did.
Again, quote me where i demanded a win.
I'm a City fan, i follow City... We're not Inter. Different league, differnet demands. What's your point?
zeven said:yes, maybe Mancini felt we werent good enough or ready to play with different tactics than we did.GStar said:It appears you read my posts, and then make something completely new up.
"Quote me where i have demanded we should have won at Spurs yesterday, and maybe i'll take your anti GStar BS seriously"
I've questioned our tactics and philosophies. Nothing more.
Mancinis philosofy? did you follow Inter? i doubt you did.
GStar said:moomba said:Had we approached the game differently we might also have left ourselves exposed and lost the game. It's fun to make presumptions based on things that can never be proven.
I suspect that if this game was played in a couple of months time we would approach things very differently. But we need to remember that playing with a more attacking mentality can't be done without the risk of being hurt the other way.
-- Sun Aug 15, 2010 4:11 pm --
You are wrong IMO. No top 4 club approaches a game against another top side the same way that they approach a game against the also rans.
There are countless examples, and not just United v Chelsea.
People are taking what i've said and are making presumptions about me advokating over the top attacking football.
I think perhaps top 4 teams will be more disciplined, buth they'll comit a number of bodies forward and continue in their same formation.
I don't think had the game been played in a few months we'd have been any different. It was a carbon copy of Arsenal away last year for me.
Damocles said:GStar said:Err... of course i can compare the two. Forget the opposition and look at the teams set up, build up, passing, move ment etc.
How am I supposed to examine the setup but ignore the opposition? Each team is setup to play a particular opposition, surely?
Tevez wouldn't have played up front on his own if we were playing Arsenal, for example, as we don't have to pack the midfield against them and can get stuck in/play around them. If we were playing Stoke, we would have put 3 up front and played a far wider game to exploit their narrowness.
The team was setup entirely around Spurs' team, which is what all good managers do. We played two defensive wide midfielders in Barry and SWP to help out our fullbacks against their wingers. We put four mids in the centre in De Jong, Toure, Silva and Tevez with the hope that they would cancel any threat from Modric and Huddlestone, then possibly use the pace of the team to break.
We did a good job of cancelling out their centre mids, and it was unfortunate that Richards had such a poor game as most of their threat was coming from Bale. At the start, we had Silva on the left but he wasn't doing enough to help Kolarov and Lennon was breaking through far too much. Due to this, we first tried swapping him to the right and bringing the far better SWP to the left. This didn't work as then Bale was doing us consistently.
In the second half, Barry moved across to the left, SWP went on the right and Silva was left to roam the centre, and advance past Tevez to sort of play up front. This succeeded in greatly reducing their threat from the wings, and we already had them in the centre.
The midfield was pretty packed and as they had blew themselves out a bit in the first half and not scored, we started to control the game and put a little bit of fluidity together. Slow paced, possession football was the name of the game and that's what we did to force Spurs to drop their tempo. When the tempo did drop, we picked it up a little to exploit their tiredness and they looked completely fucked up front until they made the double sub.
Zab came on and did a very good job, and when Ade came on it was a clear sign that we were happy to then try and nick a goal using his aerial threat rather than packing the midfield. This was actually quite clever when you think about it. They knackered themselves playing top paced football for the first half an hour whilst we sat back and absorbed the pressure (I'm not saying us absorbing it was a deliberate ploy). Once we started to contol the game, we played possession football and took advantage of the fact that they were pressing us, to further tire them out whilst we nicely passed the ball around ourselves, especially between our packed midfield. At the end of the game, we could open up a bit because they were fucked and we'd been taking 5 seconds for each pass. Thus, Adebayor came on as a target man (and earlier AJ to exploit the now tired Assou Ekotto who had been frantically charging up and down the pitch after Bale half of the game) as Tevez's midfield skills were no longer needed, Silva dropped in behind him, and the fullbacks started to advance down the wings more.
When you have a team that's unfit like ours, playing slow paced football whilst the other team frantically charges around will level the playing field and Mancini obviously thought that we were ready with ten minutes to go. He wanted us to then go out and nick a goal.
My point in all of this, is that platitudes don't work in football and this is a trap that journalists have introduced to the game. We didn't particularly play to not get beat, we set out to counter their threat in the midfield (particularly in the centre against two top players who tore us last time) whilst leaving us a few attacking options in Silva's creativity, Yaya's drive forward and Tevez's ability to bring other players into the game, such as SWP and Barry.
I do see your point, that we setup to stop their threats rather than concentrating on our own, but some teams you have to do this against. Our threats come from our wings mainly, and there's just no way that a brand new Silva could be trusted to instantly create against a very good right back in Corluka who hasn't had the World Cup that he has. You could have played Johnson there, but then you are putting the entire pressure of Lennon on Kolarov who is another who is used to a far slower league as Johnson isn't great defensively). Putting him against one of the Prem's fastest players on his own is asking for trouble.
You can't just ignore the other team when you setup your formation and layout, even if you're Barcelona and you are playing Wolves. You have to balance the realities of your team on the day versus the realities of their and weigh this up against the result overall. To say "well, we should have setup to win the game" is wrong simply because we did setup to win the game by countering their threats and exploiting our own. It's the balance of these two things that you seem to disagree with.
That's fair enough, some people enjoy Hughes' gung-ho type of football that he played on occasion. I'd prefer us to win every game 1-0 than lose every game 4-3. In fact, I'd prefer us to draw every game 0-0 than lose 4-3. Points on the board is what matters at this stage, and the realities of the two squads on the day meant that they were stronger so we must first stop their threat before presenting ours.
zeven said:My point is very simple! you blame his tactics when you dont know the reasons for him to imply them, or if the players are up for it, ready to execute them.
What you do, is watching the game, you dont like what you see, and blame the tactics. if that was the only thing needed to be taken into account EVERY TEAM would have played super aggresive and EVERY TEAM would have won their games.
Damocles said:GStar said:Err... of course i can compare the two. Forget the opposition and look at the teams set up, build up, passing, move ment etc.
How am I supposed to examine the setup but ignore the opposition? Each team is setup to play a particular opposition, surely?
Tevez wouldn't have played up front on his own if we were playing Arsenal, for example, as we don't have to pack the midfield against them and can get stuck in/play around them. If we were playing Stoke, we would have put 3 up front and played a far wider game to exploit their narrowness.
The team was setup entirely around Spurs' team, which is what all good managers do. We played two defensive wide midfielders in Barry and SWP to help out our fullbacks against their wingers. We put four mids in the centre in De Jong, Toure, Silva and Tevez with the hope that they would cancel any threat from Modric and Huddlestone, then possibly use the pace of the team to break.
We did a good job of cancelling out their centre mids, and it was unfortunate that Richards had such a poor game as most of their threat was coming from Bale. At the start, we had Silva on the left but he wasn't doing enough to help Kolarov and Lennon was breaking through far too much. Due to this, we first tried swapping him to the right and bringing the far better SWP to the left. This didn't work as then Bale was doing us consistently.
In the second half, Barry moved across to the left, SWP went on the right and Silva was left to roam the centre, and advance past Tevez to sort of play up front. This succeeded in greatly reducing their threat from the wings, and we already had them in the centre.
The midfield was pretty packed and as they had blew themselves out a bit in the first half and not scored, we started to control the game and put a little bit of fluidity together. Slow paced, possession football was the name of the game and that's what we did to force Spurs to drop their tempo. When the tempo did drop, we picked it up a little to exploit their tiredness and they looked completely fucked up front until they made the double sub.
Zab came on and did a very good job, and when Ade came on it was a clear sign that we were happy to then try and nick a goal using his aerial threat rather than packing the midfield. This was actually quite clever when you think about it. They knackered themselves playing top paced football for the first half an hour whilst we sat back and absorbed the pressure (I'm not saying us absorbing it was a deliberate ploy). Once we started to contol the game, we played possession football and took advantage of the fact that they were pressing us, to further tire them out whilst we nicely passed the ball around ourselves, especially between our packed midfield. At the end of the game, we could open up a bit because they were fucked and we'd been taking 5 seconds for each pass. Thus, Adebayor came on as a target man (and earlier AJ to exploit the now tired Assou Ekotto who had been frantically charging up and down the pitch after Bale half of the game) as Tevez's midfield skills were no longer needed, Silva dropped in behind him, and the fullbacks started to advance down the wings more.
When you have a team that's unfit like ours, playing slow paced football whilst the other team frantically charges around will level the playing field and Mancini obviously thought that we were ready with ten minutes to go. He wanted us to then go out and nick a goal.
My point in all of this, is that platitudes don't work in football and this is a trap that journalists have introduced to the game. We didn't particularly play to not get beat, we set out to counter their threat in the midfield (particularly in the centre against two top players who tore us last time) whilst leaving us a few attacking options in Silva's creativity, Yaya's drive forward and Tevez's ability to bring other players into the game, such as SWP and Barry.
I do see your point, that we setup to stop their threats rather than concentrating on our own, but some teams you have to do this against. Our threats come from our wings mainly, and there's just no way that a brand new Silva could be trusted to instantly create against a very good right back in Corluka who hasn't had the World Cup that he has. You could have played Johnson there, but then you are putting the entire pressure of Lennon on Kolarov who is another who is used to a far slower league as Johnson isn't great defensively). Putting him against one of the Prem's fastest players on his own is asking for trouble.
You can't just ignore the other team when you setup your formation and layout, even if you're Barcelona and you are playing Wolves. You have to balance the realities of your team on the day versus the realities of their and weigh this up against the result overall. To say "well, we should have setup to win the game" is wrong simply because we did setup to win the game by countering their threats and exploiting our own. It's the balance of these two things that you seem to disagree with.
That's fair enough, some people enjoy Hughes' gung-ho type of football that he played on occasion. I'd prefer us to win every game 1-0 than lose every game 4-3. In fact, I'd prefer us to draw every game 0-0 than lose 4-3. Points on the board is what matters at this stage, and the realities of the two squads on the day meant that they were stronger so we must first stop their threat before presenting ours.
really no point becaus i disagree?GStar said:zeven said:My point is very simple! you blame his tactics when you dont know the reasons for him to imply them, or if the players are up for it, ready to execute them.
What you do, is watching the game, you dont like what you see, and blame the tactics. if that was the only thing needed to be taken into account EVERY TEAM would have played super aggresive and EVERY TEAM would have won their games.
Again, your putting words in my mouth i've never said.
I'm guessing in Sweden you don't get to many City games, which is fine, yet i doubt you'd have seen a lot of our off the ball movement yesterday, how often the ball went wide and we had no one with 20 yards of the box.
Anyway, there's no point replying to me... i've tried to a point across and people seem happy to put words in mouth.
I'm fine with people disagreeing, i'm not saying im right its just an opinion, but people like you... there really is no point.
BillyShears said:Damocles said:How am I supposed to examine the setup but ignore the opposition? Each team is setup to play a particular opposition, surely?
Tevez wouldn't have played up front on his own if we were playing Arsenal, for example, as we don't have to pack the midfield against them and can get stuck in/play around them. If we were playing Stoke, we would have put 3 up front and played a far wider game to exploit their narrowness.
The team was setup entirely around Spurs' team, which is what all good managers do. We played two defensive wide midfielders in Barry and SWP to help out our fullbacks against their wingers. We put four mids in the centre in De Jong, Toure, Silva and Tevez with the hope that they would cancel any threat from Modric and Huddlestone, then possibly use the pace of the team to break.
We did a good job of cancelling out their centre mids, and it was unfortunate that Richards had such a poor game as most of their threat was coming from Bale. At the start, we had Silva on the left but he wasn't doing enough to help Kolarov and Lennon was breaking through far too much. Due to this, we first tried swapping him to the right and bringing the far better SWP to the left. This didn't work as then Bale was doing us consistently.
In the second half, Barry moved across to the left, SWP went on the right and Silva was left to roam the centre, and advance past Tevez to sort of play up front. This succeeded in greatly reducing their threat from the wings, and we already had them in the centre.
The midfield was pretty packed and as they had blew themselves out a bit in the first half and not scored, we started to control the game and put a little bit of fluidity together. Slow paced, possession football was the name of the game and that's what we did to force Spurs to drop their tempo. When the tempo did drop, we picked it up a little to exploit their tiredness and they looked completely fucked up front until they made the double sub.
Zab came on and did a very good job, and when Ade came on it was a clear sign that we were happy to then try and nick a goal using his aerial threat rather than packing the midfield. This was actually quite clever when you think about it. They knackered themselves playing top paced football for the first half an hour whilst we sat back and absorbed the pressure (I'm not saying us absorbing it was a deliberate ploy). Once we started to contol the game, we played possession football and took advantage of the fact that they were pressing us, to further tire them out whilst we nicely passed the ball around ourselves, especially between our packed midfield. At the end of the game, we could open up a bit because they were fucked and we'd been taking 5 seconds for each pass. Thus, Adebayor came on as a target man (and earlier AJ to exploit the now tired Assou Ekotto who had been frantically charging up and down the pitch after Bale half of the game) as Tevez's midfield skills were no longer needed, Silva dropped in behind him, and the fullbacks started to advance down the wings more.
When you have a team that's unfit like ours, playing slow paced football whilst the other team frantically charges around will level the playing field and Mancini obviously thought that we were ready with ten minutes to go. He wanted us to then go out and nick a goal.
My point in all of this, is that platitudes don't work in football and this is a trap that journalists have introduced to the game. We didn't particularly play to not get beat, we set out to counter their threat in the midfield (particularly in the centre against two top players who tore us last time) whilst leaving us a few attacking options in Silva's creativity, Yaya's drive forward and Tevez's ability to bring other players into the game, such as SWP and Barry.
I do see your point, that we setup to stop their threats rather than concentrating on our own, but some teams you have to do this against. Our threats come from our wings mainly, and there's just no way that a brand new Silva could be trusted to instantly create against a very good right back in Corluka who hasn't had the World Cup that he has. You could have played Johnson there, but then you are putting the entire pressure of Lennon on Kolarov who is another who is used to a far slower league as Johnson isn't great defensively). Putting him against one of the Prem's fastest players on his own is asking for trouble.
You can't just ignore the other team when you setup your formation and layout, even if you're Barcelona and you are playing Wolves. You have to balance the realities of your team on the day versus the realities of their and weigh this up against the result overall. To say "well, we should have setup to win the game" is wrong simply because we did setup to win the game by countering their threats and exploiting our own. It's the balance of these two things that you seem to disagree with.
That's fair enough, some people enjoy Hughes' gung-ho type of football that he played on occasion. I'd prefer us to win every game 1-0 than lose every game 4-3. In fact, I'd prefer us to draw every game 0-0 than lose 4-3. Points on the board is what matters at this stage, and the realities of the two squads on the day meant that they were stronger so we must first stop their threat before presenting ours.
Fuck me, that's a totally one eyed post. I can't be arsed going through it point by point, but whatever the game plan was for Mancini, it went tits up in the first half and Joe Hart saved us from a hiding. Now some may say, "oh, he's a great manager, because he saw it wasn't working and changed it in the second half". The alternative view is to employ a manager who can go into a game against a team like Spurs, and dominate them the way they dominated us (twice last season and again yesterday). The alternative view is to have a manager with the nous to outwit Rednapp and actually get three points rather than clinging on for one (albeit it's an improvement on the poor performance at home at the end of last season)...
Anyway, it's a pointless exercise this discussion. Bluemoon will go back to being much more interesting when people can be objective about Mancini rather than so insecure about him they need to defend every decision he makes...
BillyShears said:Fuck me, that's a totally one eyed post. I can't be arsed going through it point by point, but whatever the game plan was for Mancini, it went tits up in the first half and Joe Hart saved us from a hiding. Now some may say, "oh, he's a great manager, because he saw it wasn't working and changed it in the second half". The alternative view is to employ a manager who can go into a game against a team like Spurs, and dominate them the way they dominated us (twice last season and again yesterday). The alternative view is to have a manager with the nous to outwit Rednapp and actually get three points rather than clinging on for one (albeit it's an improvement on the poor performance at home at the end of last season)...
Anyway, it's a pointless exercise this discussion. Bluemoon will go back to being much more interesting when people can be objective about Mancini rather than so insecure about him they need to defend every decision he makes...
samharris said:Quote; It was a carbon copy of Arsenal away last year for me.
We were desperate not to lose in that game cos of our race with spuds for champs league. we went with a plan and it succeeded we got a point..
Bob went with a plan at spuds to not lose and we didnt ..a team lacking in confidence due to the new players and hardly any training together is not going to get owt at spuds so why try ?? Passing practice against the spuds is a start tbh.
BillyShears said:Fuck me, that's a totally one eyed post. I can't be arsed going through it point by point, but whatever the game plan was for Mancini, it went tits up in the first half and Joe Hart saved us from a hiding. Now some may say, "oh, he's a great manager, because he saw it wasn't working and changed it in the second half". The alternative view is to employ a manager who can go into a game against a team like Spurs, and dominate them the way they dominated us (twice last season and again yesterday). The alternative view is to have a manager with the nous to outwit Rednapp and actually get three points rather than clinging on for one (albeit it's an improvement on the poor performance at home at the end of last season)...
Anyway, it's a pointless exercise this discussion. Bluemoon will go back to being much more interesting when people can be objective about Mancini rather than so insecure about him they need to defend every decision he makes...
GStar said:BillyShears said:Fuck me, that's a totally one eyed post. I can't be arsed going through it point by point, but whatever the game plan was for Mancini, it went tits up in the first half and Joe Hart saved us from a hiding. Now some may say, "oh, he's a great manager, because he saw it wasn't working and changed it in the second half". The alternative view is to employ a manager who can go into a game against a team like Spurs, and dominate them the way they dominated us (twice last season and again yesterday). The alternative view is to have a manager with the nous to outwit Rednapp and actually get three points rather than clinging on for one (albeit it's an improvement on the poor performance at home at the end of last season)...
Anyway, it's a pointless exercise this discussion. Bluemoon will go back to being much more interesting when people can be objective about Mancini rather than so insecure about him they need to defend every decision he makes...
I'm trying to be objective mate, Manicni isn't a god yet his record shows he's no slouch.
I've pointed out areas we seem to continually fail in (imo) and yet i'm now "anti Mancini" i "don't watch football" and a simple opinion of parts of our set up have been twisted into extreme views.
I shouldn't be surprised, BM has never been great for people to actually listen to others.
GStar said:BillyShears said:Fuck me, that's a totally one eyed post. I can't be arsed going through it point by point, but whatever the game plan was for Mancini, it went tits up in the first half and Joe Hart saved us from a hiding. Now some may say, "oh, he's a great manager, because he saw it wasn't working and changed it in the second half". The alternative view is to employ a manager who can go into a game against a team like Spurs, and dominate them the way they dominated us (twice last season and again yesterday). The alternative view is to have a manager with the nous to outwit Rednapp and actually get three points rather than clinging on for one (albeit it's an improvement on the poor performance at home at the end of last season)...
Anyway, it's a pointless exercise this discussion. Bluemoon will go back to being much more interesting when people can be objective about Mancini rather than so insecure about him they need to defend every decision he makes...
I'm trying to be objective mate, Manicni isn't a god yet his record shows he's no slouch.
I've pointed out areas we seem to continually fail in (imo) and yet i'm now "anti Mancini" i "don't watch football" and a simple opinion of parts of our set up have been twisted into extreme views.
I shouldn't be surprised, BM has never been great for people to actually listen to others.
BillyShears said:GStar said:I'm trying to be objective mate, Manicni isn't a god yet his record shows he's no slouch.
I've pointed out areas we seem to continually fail in (imo) and yet i'm now "anti Mancini" i "don't watch football" and a simple opinion of parts of our set up have been twisted into extreme views.
I shouldn't be surprised, BM has never been great for people to actually listen to others.
I totally agree with a lot of what you've said in this thread. I actually think the "gelling" thing which everyone is going on about won't be that big a deal. Once everyone's match fit, which I suspect most of them aren't - everything will be fine on that front.
Roberto so far has had the excuse that they're not his players (last season), and the new players need to gel and get match fit (this season) - but come October/November those excuses will be gone and we'll see just how cautious he is.
I think a couple of years ago if someone had said to me "would you be happy to win things whilst playing safety first football" I'd have said yes. However with the investment we've made in the squad, and the calibre of players which we have at our disposal, I'm just not sure...I'll probably get a lot of stick for that but so be it.
BillyShears said:GStar said:I'm trying to be objective mate, Manicni isn't a god yet his record shows he's no slouch.
I've pointed out areas we seem to continually fail in (imo) and yet i'm now "anti Mancini" i "don't watch football" and a simple opinion of parts of our set up have been twisted into extreme views.
I shouldn't be surprised, BM has never been great for people to actually listen to others.
I totally agree with a lot of what you've said in this thread. I actually think the "gelling" thing which everyone is going on about won't be that big a deal. Once everyone's match fit, which I suspect most of them aren't - everything will be fine on that front.
Roberto so far has had the excuse that they're not his players (last season), and the new players need to gel and get match fit (this season) - but come October/November those excuses will be gone and we'll see just how cautious he is.
I think a couple of years ago if someone had said to me "would you be happy to win things whilst playing safety first football" I'd have said yes. However with the investment we've made in the squad, and the calibre of players which we have at our disposal, I'm just not sure...I'll probably get a lot of stick for that but so be it.
GStar said:Damo mate, the 'ignoring the opposition' was meant in refernece, as i said, to those teams ability to pass and move and set up with little 'gel time'.
And i don't see Chelsea/Utd/Liverpool/Arsenal/Everton/Villa/Spurs set up around the opposition, they all play their own formation, similar personal and similar style.
Villa being the most rigid of the lot.
4-3-3 Big man up top, pacy wide men.
Damocles said:BillyShears said:Fuck me, that's a totally one eyed post. I can't be arsed going through it point by point, but whatever the game plan was for Mancini, it went tits up in the first half and Joe Hart saved us from a hiding. Now some may say, "oh, he's a great manager, because he saw it wasn't working and changed it in the second half". The alternative view is to employ a manager who can go into a game against a team like Spurs, and dominate them the way they dominated us (twice last season and again yesterday). The alternative view is to have a manager with the nous to outwit Rednapp and actually get three points rather than clinging on for one (albeit it's an improvement on the poor performance at home at the end of last season)...
Anyway, it's a pointless exercise this discussion. Bluemoon will go back to being much more interesting when people can be objective about Mancini rather than so insecure about him they need to defend every decision he makes...
I think you read something into that that wasn't there, or at least I came across incorrectly.
My point is that Mancini made several mistakes in his initial setup that he then had to rectify during the game due either to his initial selection, or player's form. As far as I can recall, his mistakes were:
Initially playing Silva on the left and Barry in the centre.
Instead of swapping SWP and Silva, he should have immediately moved Barry to the left when Lennon was tearing us apart.
Snookering himself in regards to Silva, who was poor on the left, and was crowded out in the centre until Tevez went off which left space for him to work within.
Taking 80 minutes to setup to nick a goal, which should have being done ten minutes earlier.
Not subbing Richards for Zab at half time when it was clear that he was having a torrid time (though his hand was forced with the Kolarov knock).
Having Jo on the bench for absolutely no reason that I can fathom. I can't envisage a single scenario whereby Jo would have been needed against Spurs when Ade was on the bench.
My point is that he made some mistakes but he reacted to them well. It would have been nice if he tactically outclassed Redknapp, but I don't see him doing that at this stage of the season. Also, I'd much prefer us to cling on for one point, than try to play around them and get twatted like we did under Hughes there last season.
buzzer1 said:Understatement of the decade that mate. Its not about people having differing views as to me that is what its all about, and not some of the aggression shown by some for merely having a differing take on things.