When did it all start to go wrong?

A lot of decent views on this thread here and I think we can all reflect on the summer of 2012 as a lost opportunity in terms of recruitment.

However, when discussing the recent issues, I think the problems can be traced back to Barcelona at home. The biggest night of the season, a chance to put right the wrongs of last year and a fully fit Sergio ready to go... I was cautiously optimistic we might get something and very excited. I would imagine the players were too.
Until...

I heard the line up. To go 442 against Barca (with the untried 2 in cen mid being Milner and Fernando - even though Fernandinho and the vastly experienced and previous champs league winner Lampard were available) was nothing short of footballing suicide. Imagine being a player; huge game, two legs, ride our luck and we have a decent chance.... and you go out to face the fluid 433 - 451 Barcelona playing 442!! With that I think he lost the trust of the players and his own credibility as a tactician. Players have since stopped playing for him as they do not trust / understand his tactics or decisions. They think they know better and we can see that in the lack of team cohesion - they are playing off the cuff at the moment - I've never seen Aguero keep the ball for so long as he is unsure of where the players around him should be. This is team cohesion - Silva should receive the ball and have an idea of where players are moving to so he doesn't need 3-4 touches and his head up. These things are learned through hours and hours on the training pitch.

This was summed up in the derby for me. At the start, we had a lot of possession, we played high and had Milner on Carrick making them surrender possession almost at will. United were lost until an incredible fortuitous combination of events led to a goal. Then we made a huge mistake. We dropped deep, well the defence did, but the top line still tried to close their defence high up the pitch- we made the pitch enormous! Yaya and Fernandinho were left with a third of the pitch to cover! Instead of us letting Smalling and Jones have the ball - (what could they do with it?), we lost discipline. Yaya and Dinho were preoccupied with Herrera and Fellaini and Milner, instead of sticking to Carrick was helping Sergio close own the centre halves. This resulted in the defence being able to play around Milner and Aguero with ease and then feed Carrick who began to dictate the play by moving it about and in turn, creating space for others, in much the same way as Barry did for us. For me, you either press high as a team which will then shorten the pitch and enable Yaya and Dinho to be close enough to Carrick not to afford him time to read the game and get his head up, or you live with the fact that Smalling and Jones can have it in their half. You can't do both in my opinion. Now I am sure that Pellegrini's tactical know-how is much better than mine and he could dissect my tactics with great ease but the point is, if the players have lost faith in your ideas or credibility, then it won't work.
There's been a few games where players seemingly lack of understanding of the tactics or failure to deploy them have been apparent, but for me, Barcelona was THE shift - the game when it all started to unravel. Since then, we've seen players arguing, petty kick outs (Nasri), reckless challenges and there no longer seems to be a pattern to our play. Keep possession, keep possession give it Silva or Aguero and hope. They're not tactics!
I would get Vieira in now for the remainder of the season. He gains instant respect - the players love him. He is the injection we need right now to secure top 3.
 
chanceathefarpost said:
A lot of decent views on this thread here and I think we can all reflect on the summer of 2012 as a lost opportunity in terms of recruitment.

However, when discussing the recent issues, I think the problems can be traced back to Barcelona at home. The biggest night of the season, a chance to put right the wrongs of last year and a fully fit Sergio ready to go... I was cautiously optimistic we might get something and very excited. I would imagine the players were too.
Until...

I heard the line up. To go 442 against Barca (with the untried 2 in cen mid being Milner and Fernando - even though Fernandinho and the vastly experienced and previous champs league winner Lampard were available) was nothing short of footballing suicide. Imagine being a player; huge game, two legs, ride our luck and we have a decent chance.... and you go out to face the fluid 433 - 451 Barcelona playing 442!! With that I think he lost the trust of the players and his own credibility as a tactician. Players have since stopped playing for him as they do not trust / understand his tactics or decisions. They think they know better and we can see that in the lack of team cohesion - they are playing off the cuff at the moment - I've never seen Aguero keep the ball for so long as he is unsure of where the players around him should be. This is team cohesion - Silva should receive the ball and have an idea of where players are moving to so he doesn't need 3-4 touches and his head up. These things are learned through hours and hours on the training pitch.

This was summed up in the derby for me. At the start, we had a lot of possession, we played high and had Milner on Carrick making them surrender possession almost at will. United were lost until an incredible fortuitous combination of events led to a goal. Then we made a huge mistake. We dropped deep, well the defence did, but the top line still tried to close their defence high up the pitch- we made the pitch enormous! Yaya and Fernandinho were left with a third of the pitch to cover! Instead of us letting Smalling and Jones have the ball - (what could they do with it?), we lost discipline. Yaya and Dinho were preoccupied with Herrera and Fellaini and Milner, instead of sticking to Carrick was helping Sergio close own the centre halves. This resulted in the defence being able to play around Milner and Aguero with ease and then feed Carrick who began to dictate the play by moving it about and in turn, creating space for others, in much the same way as Barry did for us. For me, you either press high as a team which will then shorten the pitch and enable Yaya and Dinho to be close enough to Carrick not to afford him time to read the game and get his head up, or you live with the fact that Smalling and Jones can have it in their half. You can't do both in my opinion. Now I am sure that Pellegrini's tactical know-how is much better than mine and he could dissect my tactics with great ease but the point is, if the players have lost faith in your ideas or credibility, then it won't work.
There's been a few games where players seemingly lack of understanding of the tactics or failure to deploy them have been apparent, but for me, Barcelona was THE shift - the game when it all started to unravel. Since then, we've seen players arguing, petty kick outs (Nasri), reckless challenges and there no longer seems to be a pattern to our play. Keep possession, keep possession give it Silva or Aguero and hope. They're not tactics!
I would get Vieira in now for the remainder of the season. He gains instant respect - the players love him. He is the injection we need right now to secure top 3.
Click to expand...


Cannot argue with any of that.
 
chanceathefarpost said:
A lot of decent views on this thread here and I think we can all reflect on the summer of 2012 as a lost opportunity in terms of recruitment.

However, when discussing the recent issues, I think the problems can be traced back to Barcelona at home. The biggest night of the season, a chance to put right the wrongs of last year and a fully fit Sergio ready to go... I was cautiously optimistic we might get something and very excited. I would imagine the players were too.
Until...

I heard the line up. To go 442 against Barca (with the untried 2 in cen mid being Milner and Fernando - even though Fernandinho and the vastly experienced and previous champs league winner Lampard were available) was nothing short of footballing suicide. Imagine being a player; huge game, two legs, ride our luck and we have a decent chance.... and you go out to face the fluid 433 - 451 Barcelona playing 442!! With that I think he lost the trust of the players and his own credibility as a tactician. Players have since stopped playing for him as they do not trust / understand his tactics or decisions. They think they know better and we can see that in the lack of team cohesion - they are playing off the cuff at the moment - I've never seen Aguero keep the ball for so long as he is unsure of where the players around him should be. This is team cohesion - Silva should receive the ball and have an idea of where players are moving to so he doesn't need 3-4 touches and his head up. These things are learned through hours and hours on the training pitch.

This was summed up in the derby for me. At the start, we had a lot of possession, we played high and had Milner on Carrick making them surrender possession almost at will. United were lost until an incredible fortuitous combination of events led to a goal. Then we made a huge mistake. We dropped deep, well the defence did, but the top line still tried to close their defence high up the pitch- we made the pitch enormous! Yaya and Fernandinho were left with a third of the pitch to cover! Instead of us letting Smalling and Jones have the ball - (what could they do with it?), we lost discipline. Yaya and Dinho were preoccupied with Herrera and Fellaini and Milner, instead of sticking to Carrick was helping Sergio close own the centre halves. This resulted in the defence being able to play around Milner and Aguero with ease and then feed Carrick who began to dictate the play by moving it about and in turn, creating space for others, in much the same way as Barry did for us. For me, you either press high as a team which will then shorten the pitch and enable Yaya and Dinho to be close enough to Carrick not to afford him time to read the game and get his head up, or you live with the fact that Smalling and Jones can have it in their half. You can't do both in my opinion. Now I am sure that Pellegrini's tactical know-how is much better than mine and he could dissect my tactics with great ease but the point is, if the players have lost faith in your ideas or credibility, then it won't work.
There's been a few games where players seemingly lack of understanding of the tactics or failure to deploy them have been apparent, but for me, Barcelona was THE shift - the game when it all started to unravel. Since then, we've seen players arguing, petty kick outs (Nasri), reckless challenges and there no longer seems to be a pattern to our play. Keep possession, keep possession give it Silva or Aguero and hope. They're not tactics!
I would get Vieira in now for the remainder of the season. He gains instant respect - the players love him. He is the injection we need right now to secure top 3.
Click to expand...
It was a disappointing night of course but far worse for me were the defeats against teams we should have been beating

I'm not that bothered about tactics overall. I can't really say that City have any conviction about our current style of play. I don't think the players have any real idea of what they are expected to do, and that's especially so when we lose the ball.

We were told that Pellegrini came with a reputation for playing a high pressing attacking style of football.

I don't see that he's changed anything at all. He's ust give the layers free reign and for a while it worked. Now he is being found out as a poor coach.
 
I think we're still not clear what it is exactly that has gone wrong, let alone when it all began. I haven't read too much of this thread but my obsession at the moment is transition, a problem I thought we had solved but clearly haven't. I watched the Madrid derby on Tuesday and Barca and PSG last night. Three of the four teams adopt their defensive formation very quickly and smoothly when they lose the ball; PSG don't and it cost them 3 goals. Against Barca we were passed to death, outplayed and out thought and our shape was never what was required. This was the case last Sunday, which shows, as do other displays against the likes of Burnley, Stoke and Hull that we perfprm poorly when we lose the ball, even against much more modest sides.. This, I guess, is what the Sky pundits mean when they go on endlessly about City not working hard enough when not in possession. It was a problem at the start of last season as those early away defeatsshow, but it was in evidence in the home game to Everton, when they took the lead. It is almost an ever present now as other sides run the ball a long way and then get at an isolated back four. We are consequently too stretched to switch to attack if/when we get the ball back. For too much of Sunday's game our shape made any constructive play possible.
 
BluessinceHydeRoad said:
I think we're still not clear what it is exactly that has gone wrong, let alone when it all began. I haven't read too much of this thread but my obsession at the moment is transition, a problem I thought we had solved but clearly haven't. I watched the Madrid derby on Tuesday and Barca and PSG last night. Three of the four teams adopt their defensive formation very quickly and smoothly when they lose the ball; PSG don't and it cost them 3 goals. Against Barca we were passed to death, outplayed and out thought and our shape was never what was required. This was the case last Sunday, which shows, as do other displays against the likes of Burnley, Stoke and Hull that we perfprm poorly when we lose the ball, even against much more modest sides.. This, I guess, is what the Sky pundits mean when they go on endlessly about City not working hard enough when not in possession. It was a problem at the start of last season as those early away defeatsshow, but it was in evidence in the home game to Everton, when they took the lead. It is almost an ever present now as other sides run the ball a long way and then get at an isolated back four. We are consequently too stretched to switch to attack if/when we get the ball back. For too much of Sunday's game our shape made any constructive play possible.
Click to expand...
There's no discipline or coherence to our team at all.

I just wish Pellegrini would walk away from the job. He'd be doing everyone a favour
 
I'm not going to quote it but that's a cracking post BluesinceHydeRoad and it's helped me define what I see as the problem.

The pundits say we aren't working hard enough but I just don't think the players know what "work" they're supposed to be doing. If that's the case then it's a damning indictment of Pellegrini. If he's telling the players to do something and they aren't doing it, then it's on them. From what I can see, it's the former. There's little evidence of detailed preparation in our play, including at set pieces.

I read a great article in The Blizzard about Guardiola's methods and without going into it in detail, there was a plan when they had the ball, with every player knowing where they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to and also where their team mates were going to be and what they were going to do. But they also had a detailed set of routines when they didn't have the ball. If they couldn't win it back within 5 seconds, they'd change their shape to a more defensive one. If an opponent attacked them with the ball, someone would close them down whole the other defenders would cover in case they got past the first defender.

Obviously it helps when you have a player like Messi but mainly you need players who have the ability to execute the drills they're expected to carry out.

Baconface was so successful because he had a set of drills that, more often than not, a largely average group of players executed flawlessly.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
I'm not going to quote it but that's a cracking post BluesinceHydeRoad and it's helped me define what I see as the problem.

The pundits say we aren't working hard enough but I just don't think the players know what "work" they're supposed to be doing. If that's the case then it's a damning indictment of Pellegrini. If he's telling the players to do something and they aren't doing it, then it's on them. From what I can see, it's the former. There's little evidence of detailed preparation in our play, including at set pieces.

I read a great article in The Blizzard about Guardiola's methods and without going into it in detail, there was a plan when they had the ball, with every player knowing where they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to and also where their team mates were going to be and what they were going to do. But they also had a detailed set of routines when they didn't have the ball. If they couldn't win it back within 5 seconds, they'd change their shape to a more defensive one. If an opponent attacked them with the ball, someone would close them down whole the other defenders would cover in case they got past the first defender.

Obviously it helps when you have a player like Messi but mainly you need players who have the ability to execute the drills they're expected to carry out.

Baconface was so successful because he had a set of drills that, more often than not, a largely average group of players executed flawlessly.
Click to expand...

I think you both make an excellent point. So are our players incapable or unwilling to perform the drills expected of them? Or are the drills themselves insufficient (or lacking altogether)?
 
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