Firstly I am going to apologise for the length of this Swiss Tony proportions thread.
The main point is that after watching last night and over a dozen of the other 40+ games that this fella has been in charge of this club at, it was exposed in glaring style last night AGAIN that he is so out of his depth as a top flight manager, that it isn't even funny anymore and the club are drowning because of it.
The players at the club are amongst the best "squad wise" that I think City have had since they were winning trophies under Tony Book, but they are being held back time and again by a man without a plan, if Plan A fails (not that it has had chance to do so too often as we don't even have a plan) then we are left with nothing, there is never a plan B.
A managers job is more than just buying and selling players at a club and writing down 11 names plus x amount of subs on a piece of paper and handing to the referee, if that is all it took to be a manager then why do you have to go to get a coaches badge etc?, as listening to some excuses of people on here within other threads, you would think that is all a manager did, and the players were to blame for anything after that, which even to someone who knows nothing about the game, that is complete hogwash......you can pick any team you like, but if they are not coached to play together then they will never work or look good enough, and that is what we get every week, a great team on paper (names) but not on the pitch, it is time the manager started earning his money, but hopefully he has already started the clearout of his office space, as with any luck he won't be using it next season.
Hamburg within their squad do not posses as many individually talented players as we do within ours (I don't think I am being biased saying that), it is debateable whether they actually possess ANY what you would call outstandingly talented footballers, we do (Robinho, SWP, Zab and Ireland to name a few), but you could tell watching them yesterday that they were ORGANISED, TRAINED and WELL DRILLED in the art of performing as a team and a unit, that comes from the coach/manager, he does the work on the training ground all week, and you could tell they had done that basic stuff, whereas we again looked lost and like a team of strangers packed together 10 mins before kick-off, there is no cohesion to this "team" now (in April) anymore than there was in August, nothing has changed or even shown signs of change.
We are still conceding far too easy a goal from a set-piece, who was marking the scorer for their first?, matter of fact who was marking anybody all game?, everytime they had a corner or free-kick around the box, I had a feeling we would need Given to perform more miracles than Jesus Christ, he saved us from a beating of the Lisbon type, but in terms of play we were obliterated all game from 40 secs on.....it could have been 6-1 after 10 minutes.
Hamburg had obviously done their homework on us, as they knew EXACTLY where to hit us in order to harm the team the most, down the flanks, as neither full-back picked can defend, neither of them can or do tackle, and so you have all day to gather yourself and get a cross in, also they bomb on forward far too much and too needlessly, I never saw the Hamburg full backs ram-raiding down the touchline that much, their main task is to defend and until they do that, then they should forget about attacking and leaving huge gaps, that Dunne and Nedum had to cover for all game, between Ned, Dunne and Given they didn't deserve to lose, the rest were pathetic....it even got to the point that Zabaleta had to show Bridge how to do his job, and SWP doing Micah's job for him, that was a sign of a shambles to me, and there is only one person who has created that shambles and he stands there with his arms folded in a smart suit each week, doing nothing.
This defence of ours last season and even the seasons before that was solid enough to withstand pressure, as the players were coached and it showed on match-day, the difference was, the lack of quality of the players to work with in SP's case, whereas under Sven we were sweeping all before us, he had less time to get them organised and he did do, they played as a team and neither full back was bombing forward and jogging backwards all game, they do now.....Sven was told after we lost to Everton at the end of February that he was being sacked at the end of the season in the media, which the then chairman never once denied, or gave his firm backing to the manager, which told me and obviously Sven one thing, he was doomed, it was common knowledge as we even had the "Save our Sven" campaign in the MUEN....so why should he have bothered from there on with getting positive results for a club that were making him jobless.....if you were told that in 2 months you would be losing your job by your boss, would you bust a gut for them last two months to make sure his business was well looked after when you left, or would you think..."stuff you" and just go through the motions?.....Sven took choice 2, and I bet everybody else would have done the same also.
Hamburg were up and at us all game playing at a fast tempo, with the ball zipping about the turf from one touch passes whereas the passing between the City players was slow, lethargic, telegraphed and under-hit the majority of the time, if you play against a side that chase everything as Hamburg did and do (that wouldn't have just been a "for City" performance, as otherwise they would have tired near the end, due to not being used to that high tempo, but they didn't), then the easiest way to combat that is to play quick, decisive one touch football yourself, with the ball zipping about the pitch and firmly hit to the target, and also not passing to the bloke stood next to you 5 yards away or in silly little triangles, that just puts added pressure onto yourself as their chasing is then "in your face".....we chased the ball, but got nowhere near it when they passed it about.....that is coaching pure and simple.
Hamburg and many other sides have done their "homework" on us and gone for our weak spots.....the full backs...(when Zab isn't selected there, as then it is the LB (weak spot)) rather than try to pass through the middle as between Dunne and Onouha they are fast, strong and can head a ball, as well as the main focus of their job...DEFEND, so chances of getting success their are slim, chances of getting in behind the defence by attacking the full backs is a virtual guarantee, thus you create a massive hole in the middle that was exposed for 90 mins last night to devastating effect.....we were losing 3-1 needed a goal and so he took of an attacker and put on a defender.....and some wonder why others want him out?.
Lastly the fact that he chose to select Sturridge at all during the contest last night, shown his complete disregard for this football club in my eyes, Sturridge is a player who is still learning and one who couldn't give two shits about the club or the future of it, he isn't and wasn't at all arsed last night whether we won, drew or lost, if he was that interested in the club, he would have signed his contract long before now and committed himself to the cause, so right away we were playing with 10 men, there is obviously no coaching or planning that goes into this club or it's games from the manager, as otherwise we would see a sign of some improvement by now (40+ games into the campaign), whereas it is the same now as it has always been under him, and on SSN the day before you saw them throwing the ball to one another in a "Rugby" style game.....how is that going to help them overcome the task of beating Hamburg.....it is obvious that Richards thought that was to be used, as he showed what the training was for early in the 2nd half, I thought this game was played with the feet, seems our manager hasn't quite grasped that yet, mind you it has only been a year, maybe he needs longer to learn.
That was our ONLY chance to qualify for Europe again next season and I pray that we can turn this round
