Well done Stoke

[whydelilah]

Gutted last night but pretty proud of the players this morning.

We were by far the better team with 11 and still matched you with 10. We should have won. The reason we didn’t wasn’t because of anything you did, it was just a pathetically poor decision by the ref.

That’s football though; you can’t let these things get at you.

Extremely proud of the effort and commitment of our lads last night.

If you had 50% of that passion with the quality you have throughout your squad you’d be on to a winner.

I hope you go on to break into the top 4, a lot of that is because I hate the Scousers, but you need to up your game to get that fourth spot.

I wouldn’t be happy if I was a Man City fan with what your players served up last night. Hundreds of millions spent and the likes of Rory Delap, Dean Whitehead, Danny Higginbotham, Mama Sidibe et al showing you up.

Something not right there, is there?

WD

 

[Mr.Red]

Fuller drops like a sack of shit everytime anybody goes near him.

Different Style to Adebayor then? Who orchestrates his diving very poorly by the way.

£25 large ones? Arsenal must have been laughing their tits off. He'd be outstanding if he had the same degree of honesty that our squad has.

 

[macmanson]

No. I'm a City fan. If I was a Stoke fan, I'd have a different perspective. Stoke are a team with limited resources, if they try to play fast, flowing all-out attacking football like Arsenal, they'd be beaten each week. Instead, they know what their strengths are and play to them.



It's most definitely a strength. It's the same strength that let them beat Arsenal in the cup, that's kept them unbeaten in now 9 games. We have to beat them by combating that and playing to our strengths and we didn't.



What? Because I respect that another team plays football differently and believe that it's up to City to beat a team that plays to their strengths instead of just turning up, I'm now less of a City fan? Laughable, really.

Like I said, if you love that style of play(?) and respect it so much, go and watch Stoke. I'll give you a couple of Stoke home games before you come banging at the door of COMS. Don't try and make excuses for Stoke when there isn't one. It's crap, it's dross and only you and Stoke City fans seem to think it's football. It isn't.

The only thing that is dross and crap at the moment is the Hughes outters who are defending the terrible run we've had under Mancini's formation. The utter shit we have put on display is no better than what Stoke is doing. We pass sideways and backwards and then hoof it up field. I could count on 1 hand the number of forward passes on the ground we made. Stoke just leave out the sideways and backwards passing. And shooting the balls to the corners for players to run on is for sure a tactic and a smart one at that. Keeping the ball in the air is a way to keep the pace of the game fast and unpredictable.

I've now watched the entire game for a 2nd time and I really don't see where us Man City fans can claim we dominated. We were a mess and were lucky not to have given up 3 or more goals in that game. I've watched the header goal at the end at least a dozen times now on PVR and it is clearly a goal, no doubt about it. Shawcross is well in the air long before Given even attempts to jump. The only foul on that play was on Given and the goal should have stood.

The fact of the matter is that we were outplayed in the first game against Stoke and then got outplayed again in the league game. This is the 3rd time that Mancini has faced Stoke this season, so he doesn't have any excuses for not being able to adjust tactically to playing them, yet the 3rd game was the worst of the 3 we've played so far and we have been slowly loosing possession every game to them. Here are our stats over the 2 games:


Feb 13: MAN CITY STOKE
Possession 54% 46%
Attempts on target 8 6
Attempts off target 6 7
Corners 10 4
Fouls 8 9

Feb 16: STOKE MAN CITY
Possession 48% 52%
Attempts on target 5 4
Attempts off target 3 5
Corners 3 3
Fouls 21 14

And here's the 2-0 win on December 26th for added comparison:

MAN CITY STOKE
Possession 57% 43%
Attempts on target 6 3
Attempts off target 6 4
Corners 7 6
Fouls 13 10

The fact of the matter is that Mancini's formation change his simply killed the flow of the team and the confidence with it. You could see that Roque and Ade weren't on the same page. At one point early in the half, there was a break where Ade was going up the middle and passed to to Roque on the right who just blasted it off the defender. You can clearly see Ade is ruffled that the opportunity was wasted to which you can clearly see Roque reply "What the fuck do you want?". Mancini has taken a team that went from a high flying attacking team with the players enjoying themselves to an overly slow defensive team with the players at each other's throats at every wasted opportunity.

 

[bluevengence]

Fuller drops like a sack of shit everytime anybody goes near him.

Different Style to Adebayor then? Who orchestrates his diving very poorly by the way.

£25 large ones? Arsenal must have been laughing their tits off. He'd be outstanding if he had the same degree of honesty that our squad has.

sorry me six fingered freak but i cannot see fuller anywhere on this list....actually i can`t see any stoke player on this list

Barclays Premier League Top Scorers

Rooney Man Utd 21
Drogba Chelsea 17
Bent Sunderland 15
Defoe Tottenham 15
Saha Everton 13
Tevez Man City 13
Torres Liverpool 12
Fabregas Arsenal 11
Agbonlahor Aston Villa 10
Lampard Chelsea 10
Adebayor Man City 9
Kuyt Liverpool 9
Anelka Chelsea 8
Berbatov Man Utd 8
Cole West Ham 8

 

[whydelilah]

Like I said, if you love that style of play(?) and respect it so much, go and watch Stoke. I'll give you a couple of Stoke home games before you come banging at the door of COMS. Don't try and make excuses for Stoke when there isn't one. It's crap, it's dross and only you and Stoke City fans seem to think it's football. It isn't.

The only thing that is dross and crap at the moment is the Hughes outters who are defending the terrible run we've had under Mancini's formation. The utter shit we have put on display is no better than what Stoke is doing. We pass sideways and backwards and then hoof it up field. I could count on 1 hand the number of forward passes on the ground we made. Stoke just leave out the sideways and backwards passing. And shooting the balls to the corners for players to run on is for sure a tactic and a smart one at that. Keeping the ball in the air is a way to keep the pace of the game fast and unpredictable.

I've now watched the entire game for a 2nd time and I really don't see where us Man City fans can claim we dominated. We were a mess and were lucky not to have given up 3 or more goals in that game. I've watched the header goal at the end at least a dozen times now on PVR and it is clearly a goal, no doubt about it. Shawcross is well in the air long before Given even attempts to jump. The only foul on that play was on Given and the goal should have stood.

The fact of the matter is that we were outplayed in the first game against Stoke and then got outplayed again in the league game. This is the 3rd time that Mancini has faced Stoke this season, so he doesn't have any excuses for not being able to adjust tactically to playing them, yet the 3rd game was the worst of the 3 we've played so far and we have been slowly loosing possession every game to them. Here are our stats over the 2 games:


Feb 13: MAN CITY STOKE
Possession 54% 46%
Attempts on target 8 6
Attempts off target 6 7
Corners 10 4
Fouls 8 9

Feb 16: STOKE MAN CITY
Possession 48% 52%
Attempts on target 5 4
Attempts off target 3 5
Corners 3 3
Fouls 21 14

And here's the 2-0 win on December 26th for added comparison:

MAN CITY STOKE
Possession 57% 43%
Attempts on target 6 3
Attempts off target 6 4
Corners 7 6
Fouls 13 10

The fact of the matter is that Mancini's formation change his simply killed the flow of the team and the confidence with it. You could see that Rocque and Ade weren't on the same page. At one point early in the half, there was a break where Ade was going up the middle and passed to to Rocque on the right who just blasted it off the defender. You can clearly see Ade is ruffled that the opportunity was wasted to which you can clearly see Rocque reply "What the fuck do you want?". Mancini has taken a team that went from a high flying attacking team with the players enjoying themselves to an overly slow defensive team with the players at each other's throats at every wasted opportunity.

Amen brother ;-)

 

[alera]

Well its not football. They have made it the smallest worst quality pitch in the league, decent rugby sides would complain about playing on that surface.

Basically their game is kick the crap out of the opposition, kick and rush. Play for free kicks and especially thrown ins and throw the long ball in there.

THey are the modern day Wimbeldon, horrible to watch everything that is anti football.

THat said the system works and they were more than a match for us yesterday and not for the first time.

Our team had no bottle, no effort, no work rate, no fight for the most part as they were at Hull as they have been against every poor side we have played this season pretty much. We were very very lucky yesterday it was a minor miracle we came out of that game with anything.

They are good at what they do and it keeps them in the league, its all they are bothered about and all they aspire for. Good luck I say as long as it works There entire squad cost less than Robinho puts it in perspective.

We have to play much better than that against Liverpool or we will loose, they will come for the draw and we need to make sure they get no more than that or its game over. If they win it would leave us 2 points behind with a game in hand and Scum, Spuds, Villa and Everton still to play at home plus Chelski and Arsenal away in our remaining 12 games and thats by far the hardest run in of the sides challenging for the top 4 spot.

 

[MCFC87]

You've totally missed the point... Whether it's good to watch or not isn't the issue; it's how effective it is. I'm not making excuses for Stoke, I clearly don't need to - we neither beat them tonight nor on Saturday.

If it wasn't football, it would be against the rules. What they do is allowed and it's up to us to stop them. We didn't. It's very sanctimonious to proclaim that we are better than Stoke because they play for set pieces.

We don't have a God given right to win at teams that are lower in the league than ourselves and have lower aspirations and we have to earn those results as much as we have to earn points at any team above us or with bigger aspirations.

Great post, if only a few others could see it, its not us being bad, its just a game being hard/competetive, why should anyone roll over for us (or anyone else). Its actually what makes the Premier League the so called 'best in the world' its not even close technically for me, but for competition I've no doubt it is, on any given day the worst can (and do) beat the best, and that is what makes it 'the best' especially for the likes of Andy Gray, I prefer to see the more technical side than the aggressive side of the game, and I don't like the game Stoke play, but you have to hand it to them, they play well to their strengths, and we don't.

Both posts are fucking spot on.

 

[warpig]

weve played stoke twice and have played shite. they have have thrown everything at us and could only muster a draw.not too bothered about the replay tbh. concentration and the return of a couple of key players and wel go through no probs.

 

[Richard]

Noticed this on Saturday, but the thing that annoys me with Stoke the most is the hypocroisy of their fans, manager, and players. Stoke can give it out fine, a small tap on one of there players though and they are down for years. Same with their fans, Im fairly sure Fuller could pull out a double barrelled shotgun, shoot one of our players and the crowd would approve. A feather touches Fuller and its everyone against Stoke. Theres supporting your team and then theres that.

 

[stoke city fc]

To me if a team has strenths you play to them you don't play a diffrent style of football just to please poeple.we play ugly football but get the job done the only reason we didn't last night was because alan wiley is wank he is supposed to be 1 of the best refs in the prem and he gave a decision like that.