What's the problem(s)?

[FantasyIreland]

At the moment, the biggest issue seems to be fitness & confidence. Pep wants them to press and they can't do it effectively for a whole game. As the press is ineffective, it's easy to bypass the midfield.

A nasty fucker up front would help enormously with that.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Similar "wait and see" comments were made by posters after last seasons indifferent start. Fans are sceptical at the moment and rightly so. That drubbing from Leicester was shocking, and that's putting it mildly. The teams mindset of 2 seasons ago needs to return. If not, goodbye PL title.

The PL title was never realistic this season for me. I think we’ve declined too far to compete. Nothing I’ve seen this season makes me think anything will be any different to last season.

It’s not like last season was long ago, it was the other week! This season is literally just a continuation from last season, and we’re playing like it.

I think we’ll be miles behind Liverpool this season. Maybe 12 points, maybe more.

I think the wave of players leaving or coming to their end, to players coming in, over the last few years has left the general quality of our squad at a noticeably lower level than it was from 2017 to 2019.

Our poor finishing, inability to win the ball back up high and too many slow players in midfield is crippling us!

 

[Gray]

We desperately need a good left back, a fast aggressive defensive midfielder and an out and out consistent goalscorer.

Mendy has been a disaster, Rodri not mobile enough, Jesus & Aguero injured and Sterling misses far too many good chances.

 

[hilts]

The main two problems are:

1. No natural finishers up top when Agüero is out. We miss FAR too many chances, FAR too many sitters and FAR too many 1v1s

2. We’ve started (in the last 12 months) sloppily giving the ball away up high FAR too often and the determination to win the ball back is none existent.

The problem isn’t Pep and that he’s been “found out”, because we create the most chances in Europe. We’re creating as many chances as Vilanova’s Barça did, only thing is they put their chances away and outscore this City by a good 20 goals a season and their front three were scoring 35, 35 and 53.

We start getting excited because Sterling scored 30 goals in all comps last season. We should all, and so should he, be extremely disappointed with that! He plays the most minutes in the team and gets the most chances. In a team that creates what we do with the minutes Sterling plays, 30 goals is inadequate. And the big chances he misses (absolute sitter right in front of goal to get us back in the FAC semi against Arsenal, mis-hit wide; open net to make it 2-2 against Lyon, dinked over the bar because he used his wrong foot; 1v1 with the ’keeper to win the game for us yesterday, I can recall one goal he’s scored 1v1 with a ’keeper... to name but a few recent ones) are unforgivable.

You could replace all of our forwards (bar Agüero) with better players and they’d score a fucking shit load for us!

Jesus scuffs every other shot he ever hits, some of the scuffs go in, far too many don’t.

Plus the meek way Mahrez loses the ball is infuriating. I’ve seen slugs with more energy than him.

The problem is not the defence. I repeat; the problem is NOT the defence!

We could play the greatest back four in the history of football but when our front players give the ball away and prance about pretending to make an effort to win it back like they’ve started doing in the last year, any defenders you could name will be left isolated or have balls played in behind them like ours do now, and be shown up.

Let’s say you are right with those 2 points. I’m not sure how Pep isn’t at least partially to blame but let’s say he isn’t. Who is? Or is it more just a shrug and a hey what you gonna do kind of attitude.

Professional sport usually follows a set procedure, the owner will have expectations for a season in terms of performances and achievements. If these are not met he will ask questions.

Those questions probably to Khaldoon initially will be what happened last year, what’s the problem in Europe? Those losses in the league are not really acceptable with the money invested and the standard of opposition. The Arsenal and Lyon games were very disappointing what gives? Is Pep staying? Are his ideas still working? Are these players we have purchased good enough?

I hope he doesn’t blame Covid and pre season after the fact and bad luck. You can work your way up or down the chain but the answer will be with one or more of them

 

[Ajm1985]

A nasty fucker up front would help enormously with that.

Agree with this!

I'm not sure what our strategy is for a fair bit of the game. Last night we had false 9 but it's not Mahrez's cup of tea. Torres works best when people are making runs into the box. It feels a bit more like hoping for magic at the moment

 

[alexmcity]

I wonder how people manage to calculate so confidently the extent to which our difficulties are NOT related to injuries, covid, etc. but to deep structural problems ranging from Pep becoming old and inadequate to Rodri and Jesus being hopeless to not having a LB.

My guess is they shouldn't be so confident. Why think that the situation now is completely different in a bad way to 16/17 (which was followed by 17/18)?

 

[wattle]

The main two problems are:

1. No natural finishers up top when Agüero is out. We miss FAR too many chances, FAR too many sitters and FAR too many 1v1s

2. We’ve started (in the last 12 months) sloppily giving the ball away up high FAR too often and the determination to win the ball back is none existent

3. We’ve got too many slow midfielders.

The problem isn’t Pep and that he’s been “found out”, because we create the most chances in Europe. We’re creating as many chances as Vilanova’s Barça did, only thing is they put their chances away and outscore this City by a good 20 goals a season and their front three were scoring 35, 35 and 53.

We start getting excited because Sterling scored 30 goals in all comps last season. We should all, and so should he, be extremely disappointed with that! He plays the most minutes in the team and gets the most chances. In a team that creates what we do with the minutes Sterling plays, 30 goals is inadequate. And the big chances he misses (absolute sitter right in front of goal to get us back in the FAC semi against Arsenal, mis-hit wide; open net to make it 2-2 against Lyon, dinked over the bar because he used his wrong foot; 1v1 with the ’keeper to win the game for us yesterday, I can recall one goal he’s scored 1v1 with a ’keeper... to name but a few recent ones) are unforgivable.

You could replace all of our forwards (bar Agüero) with better players and they’d score a fucking shit load for us!

Jesus scuffs every other shot he ever hits, some of the scuffs go in, far too many don’t.

Plus the meek way Mahrez loses the ball is infuriating. I’ve seen slugs with more energy than him.

The problem is not the defence. I repeat; the problem is NOT the defence!

We could play the greatest back four in the history of football but when our front players give the ball away and prance about pretending to make an effort to win it back like they’ve started doing in the last year, as well as the opposition then easily being able to play past or around or bypass Rodri or Gundogan or both of them because they’re so slow; any defenders you could name will be left isolated or have balls played in behind them like ours do now, and be shown up.

All of our problems are ahead of the defence.

We start getting excited because Sterling scored 30 goals in all comps last season. We should all, and so should he, be extremely disappointed with that!

I think I know what your trying to say and agree with some/most of it but bloody hell, you can’t blame a winger who scored 30 plus goals a season. This lads get criticised whatever he does

 

[wattle]

We desperately need a good left back, a fast aggressive defensive midfielder and an out and out consistent goalscorer.

Mendy has been a disaster, Rodri not mobile enough, Jesus & Aguero injured and Sterling misses far too many good chances.

Blue moon bingo complete

 

[FantasyIreland]

Agree with this!

I'm not sure what our strategy is for a fair bit of the game. Last night we had false 9 but it's not Mahrez's cup of tea. Torres works best when people are making runs into the box. It feels a bit more like hoping for magic at the moment

Mahrez or Sterling are not centre forwards,they are too lightweight/poncey and can't hold the ball up.We play with wide men but rarely utilise their abilities,as we don't get bodies in the box,or we piss around with the ball so much that on many occasions we lose possession or the move breaks down.

Football is a simple game,why complicate it?

 

[Eoiyflem]

Leicester currently getting schooled by West ham, ffs