What will work against us?

You can talk about fancy tactics all you want but, to my mind, there's clearly been voodoo at work for the last couple of years. Someone, probably Gill, has got one of those dolls you stick pins in to bring bad juju on your enemies.

If you were an opposition fan which of our players would you stick your pins in ? Kompany, obviously, because he's been the most influential figure as club captain and leader. Career over. Aguero ? Key goalscorer but goes off Injured for long spells at key moments. Silva ? Key midfielder but suffering from a long-standing ankle problem. DeBruyne? Currently the most influential City player, inoccuous injury turns into another 6 week lay-off following the usual City pattern of injuries.

The proof, for me, will be in the line-up for the Barca game. I fully expect to see Demichelis taking the field on an emergency loan.
 
City_Sean said:
I don't agree with this, we've got Gundogan feeling his way back from a serious injury, Silva, Fernandinho and even Delph. We've got plenty of cover in that position.
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In theory yes, but you can't deny stats:
6 league games lost in 2016: all without De Bruyne
--> so: no league games lost in 2016 with De Bruyne in the team
record this season all comps with De Bruyne: WWWWWWWWWW
record this season all comps w/o De Bruyne: DL

There should be plenty of back-up for him though, as you said, but for some reason it's just not happening! Even under Pep ...
 
KDBestplayerintheworld said:
In theory yes, but you can't deny stats:
6 league games lost in 2016: all without De Bruyne
--> so: no league games lost in 2016 with De Bruyne in the team
record this season all comps with De Bruyne: WWWWWWWWWW
record this season all comps w/o De Bruyne: DL

There should be plenty of back-up for him though, as you said, but for some reason it's just not happening! Even under Pep ...
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You need to put some context on them stats.

Take the 5 games we lost this year from last season. So that's, Spurs, Liverpool, Rags, Leicester and Southampton. In the reverse fixtures last season, of which DeBruyne played them all we won just one of them, drew 2 and lost 2.

Anyone's going to miss a player like DeBruyne when he's not there but there's too much emphasis being put on that particular statistic imo
 
Rolee said:
You need to put some context on them stats.

Take the 5 games we lost this year from last season. So that's, Spurs, Liverpool, Rags, Leicester and Southampton. In the reverse fixtures last season, of which DeBruyne played them all we won just one of them, drew 2 and lost 2.

Anyone's going to miss a player like DeBruyne when he's not there but there's too much emphasis being put on that particular statistic imo
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One can also argue that the KDB dependency wasn't there yet in the first part of last season, as he was still ramping up.

But as of second part last season, City are still to prove being able to win without De Bruyne, no matter what context you place it in.
 
KDBestplayerintheworld said:
One can also argue that the KDB dependency wasn't there yet in the first part of last season, as he was still ramping up.

But as of second part last season, City are still to prove being able to win without De Bruyne, no matter what context you place it in.
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Erm no, we won games when he was injured/out in the second part of last season.
 
I am sure someone actually produced stats on here last year to show we win more without debryune and that he wasn't worth his place. A whole thread dedicated to it I remember moaning on it
 
bobom said:
What tactics are going to work best against us? Probably the hardest challenge we've had so far was the second half at the swamp against a big, strong team hoofing it forward.

The options seem to be press like crazy (but leave space behind), park the bus (and counter attack), or try to play stylish football. I'm really looking forward to the Liverpool, Leicester and Arsenal matches for these reasons. What do you think well work best?
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I think that we'll struggle the most against teams that high press. Against Swansea, Celtic and Spurs we've had our toughest games.

Until our team as a whole contains players completely comfortable with Pep's system at every spot, I think that teams that high press will have the most success against us.

In two or three year's time I think that this will also be true - but, in the future we will be so much more skillful on the ball than just about any other team, that attempting to high press with a less skillful team will only result in us scoring a huge number of goals on the counter.... but we're not yet there.
 
KDBestplayerintheworld said:
yes, like 2 out of 12 or something ...
if you're trying to deny the negative trend whenever De Bruyne doesn't play, it's pretty pointless imo.
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No, 5 wins from 14 in all comps, 3 draws ( one of them draws was the LC final )

I'm not trying to deny anything, I'm just putting it into context because I don't like sensationalism on the back of stats.
 
Rolee said:
No, 5 wins from 14 in all comps, 3 draws ( one of them draws was the LC final )

I'm not trying to deny anything, I'm just putting it into context because I don't like sensationalism on the back of stats.
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In particular, the availability (or not) of KDB had nothing to do with our loss against Spurs. Watch Pep's post match interview and listen to what he had to say on the subject.

We lost against Spurs because our pivot in the first half was so awful that we could not build play from the back and because we had no defensive cover. Stones/Otters/Zabba/Kolarov were under huge pressure in the first half with no help from our pivot - each of these players made errors, big errors; two of those errors (Zabba for the first, Otters and Fernando for the 2nd), led to goals from the opposition. And several other dangerous situations arose as well due to extremely poor play from Fernando - we were bailed out by offsides or by very poor decision making on the part of the attacker three or more times more in the first half.
 
Terra Passenger said:
In particular, the availability (or not) of KDB had nothing to do with our loss against Spurs. Watch Pep's post match interview and listen to what he had to say on the subject.

We lost against Spurs because our pivot in the first half was so awful that we could not build play from the back and because we had no defensive cover. Stones/Otters/Zabba/Kolarov were under huge pressure in the first half with no help from our pivot - each of these players made errors, big errors; two of those errors (Zabba for the first, Otters and Fernando for the 2nd), led to goals from the opposition. And several other dangerous situations arose as well due to extremely poor play from Fernando - we were bailed out by offsides or by very poor decision making on the part of the attacker three or more times more in the first half.
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I think Marriner facilitated them too. On average ball is in play for around an hour every game, we had 58% possession, in other words we had the ball for 34/35 minutes in the game, when you consider Spurs 20 fouls that works out at a foul every 1minute 45 seconds. It's no wonder we couldn't find any rhythm when Marriner allowed them to constantly foul without caution.

This isn't a 'it was the ref's fault' post but I do feel that Marriner facilitating their bullying tactics helped them dominate us in the first half.
 
Rolee said:
I think Marriner facilitated them too. On average ball is in play for around an hour every game, we had 58% possession, in other words we had the ball for 34/35 minutes in the game, when you consider Spurs 20 fouls that works out at a foul every 1minute 45 seconds. It's no wonder we couldn't find any rhythm when Marriner allowed them to constantly foul without caution.

This isn't a 'it was the ref's fault' post but I do feel that Marriner facilitating their bullying tactics helped them dominate us in the first half.
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Perhaps so.

But even with a ref more prone to blow the whistle, I think that the Spur's high press would still have been extremely effective against a defense that featured Fernando as our pivot.
 
Terra Passenger said:
Perhaps so.

But even with a ref more prone to blow the whistle, I think that the Spur's high press would still have been extremely effective against a defense that featured Fernando as our pivot.
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Absolutely, that's why I'm saying that post wasn't a 'it's the ref's fault' post. It wasn't a reluctance to blow the whistle that I was getting at though, it was the reluctance to caution for constant fouling.
 
Isn't it obvious what works against us?
The high press with 6 or 7 players defending in our half.

One DM will probably work against most teams but against the best or against those who give it all for the whole 90 we will be pushed very close.
I still can't believe Pep thought Fernando, Kolarov and Zaba would work against Spurs as the fullbacks and the DM in is current 4-1-4-1 system.
 
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