Why is Mancini so defensive minded? Tactics and Transfers

I dont think you have cottoned on to just how poor a squad he`s been left with, nor that midfield is where any attacking piviots.

Numpty bought badly with reguards to any balance, so for a defencive midfield we have only De Jong and Barry who can cut the mustard at the top level, creative leaves us with one, and SI is still a lightweight who needs a playmaker alongside.

Rightback is still a problem area, as is the left where Bridge has yet to come good when not injured, and we are playing a kiddy in central defence.

All the attacking players in the world need service, we can manage up the sides, but untill we get the middle sorted out we can not dominate games.

Nor does Mancini play defencive football, he likes fast attacking teams, but he knows what he has at the moment needs building up.
 
skybluekings said:
Project said:
1. He's Italian
2. We have serious injury problems
3. Defensively we've been a joke this season.

The latter is the most important. Simply stopping the leaks means that you can then build on sound foundations. We have plenty of attacking talent when everyone is fit on which to build on the sound defence. His immediate job was to make us solid, as the players we have should mean that the rest comes naturally.

That said we have scored 12 goals in his 6 games. Or 9 in his 4 league games. Averaged out in a season that comes to 86 goals.

In short, why are we complaining?
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Good point. Didn't look at it that way. Have to say though that it isn't the most attractive football.
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Winning's pretty damn attractive to me...
 
attacking football isn't everything... starting from the backline is key, if you dont concede goals then you only need 1 goal to get all 3 points... I dont care how defensive we play as long as we get the required results... under Hughes we were scoring lots of goals but conceding lots too, which is why we were drawing games and not winning them... look at Chelsea under Mourinho, they were boring at times, but they got the points needed to win the league... Arsenal have been playing some of the most attractive football ever seen in the premiership, but always dropped costly points when sometimes they just needed to grind out the points with an unattractive performance...

his italian style will take some getting used to, but if it delivers the results then i'm sure we'll all be very happy...
 
blueonblue said:
I dont think you have cottoned on to just how poor a squad he`s been left with, nor that midfield is where any attacking piviots.

Numpty bought badly with reguards to any balance, so for a defencive midfield we have only De Jong and Barry who can cut the mustard at the top level, creative leaves us with one, and SI is still a lightweight who needs a playmaker alongside.

Rightback is still a problem area, as is the left where Bridge has yet to come good when not injured, and we are playing a kiddy in central defence.

All the attacking players in the world need service, we can manage up the sides, but untill we get the middle sorted out we can not dominate games.

Nor does Mancini play defencive football, he likes fast attacking teams, but he knows what he has at the moment needs building up.
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to be fair, hughes didn't buy that many dud players in his 2 cash rich windows (january 2009 and summer 2009). it's just that we needed to bring so many players in at once. it's hardly surprising that it needs tweaking regarding balance. most managers look to at least tweak their squads every window.

so despite the squad, in your perfectly reasonable opinion, being poor i'd say that in terms of quality the squad of September 1st 2008 had nowhere near the quality of September 1st 2009.
 
A complete lack in key area`s is a bit more than a tweek, though your right on the improvment of quality overall, but the game against the red sh*te shown how thin we are in vital area`s dispite the money spent, and the tactics Roberto had to play were the result.

That he pulled it off shows we have the right guy in the job now, and his shopping list reflects he has spotted the gaps we need to fill, we have been unlucky with injuries but I maintain that little thought went in to the spending under numpty.

Its not all doom an gloom, as you say we have improved overall and I am more than happy with the way we are going now, with I am sure a lot more to come.
 
skybluekings said:
Project said:
1. He's Italian
2. We have serious injury problems
3. Defensively we've been a joke this season.

The latter is the most important. Simply stopping the leaks means that you can then build on sound foundations. We have plenty of attacking talent when everyone is fit on which to build on the sound defence. His immediate job was to make us solid, as the players we have should mean that the rest comes naturally.

That said we have scored 12 goals in his 6 games. Or 9 in his 4 league games. Averaged out in a season that comes to 86 goals.

In short, why are we complaining?
Click to expand...

Good point. Didn't look at it that way. Have to say though that it isn't the most attractive football.
Click to expand...

I feel the same way but I also think it may need time to develop into something attractive. It was obvious in the Everton game that the gameplan was to build from the back as Shay was simply dumping short passes to the back 4 who would try to pass it across the line looking to find a mid-field outlet, which unfortunately Everton took away from us with a solid mid field performance. Once the team are able to master building up from the back, I think you will see him revert to the 4-3-1-2 formation he's generally used where I can see Ireland being that AM threat.

I think Robinho and Ireland are definitely missing their partnership. Ireland finished with 9 goals and 9 assists last season, while Robinho had 14 and 5 respectively. The beauty assist to Robinho on the left in the video below is absolute money.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HRph2r9wqI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HRph2r9wqI</a>

This year after 21 games, Robinho has no goals and 2 assists while Ireland has only 2 goals and 1 assist which came in the first 4 games. Bellamy is on pace to better his goal total from last year, along with Tevez but what is most interesting is that the players who lead in assists this year are forwards and wingers:

2009/2010

Bellamy - 7A (6G)
SWP - 6A (3G)
Tevez - 5A (9G)
Barry - 4A (1G)
Adebayor - 3A (6G)
Petrov - 2A (4G)
Richards - 2A (2G)
Robinho - 2A
Ireland - 1A (2G)
Kompany - 1A
Lescott - 1A (1G)
RSC - 0A (2G)
Garrido - 0A (1G)
Toure - 0A (1G)

2008/2009

Ireland - 9A (9G)
SWP - 6A (5G)
Robinho - 5A (14G)
Elano - 4A (6G)
Garrido - 2A (1G)
Sturridge - 2A (1G)
Zabaleta - 2A (1G)
Ball - 1A
Bellamy - 1A (8G)
Bojinov - 1G, 1A (1G)
De Jong - 1A
Evans - 1A (1G)
Given - 1A
Johnson - 1A
Kompany - 1A (1G)
Benjani - 1A (1G)
Onuoha - 1A (1G)
Richards - 1A (1G)
Vassell - 1A
Caceido 0A (5G)
Dunne - 0A (1G)
Fernandes - 0A (1G)

The play doesn't seem to be driven from the mid-field as much anymore which might account for why Ireland hasn't produced the points he did last year although I still find him the best at moving the ball forward for us. After we acquired Adebayor and RSC to play up front, the direction of our attack under Hughes seemed to be down the flanks to get it to the target guy who they would then play off, which the wingers and Tevez have done quite well. Once we have some of our more quality players back you will see how effective this formation can be at counter attacking as the build up will be a little more crisp than it was in the Everton and Man Utd games and the mid-field should be able to contribute a little more to the goal scoring.
 
skybluekings said:
Robinho.
He took criticism beyond criticism when he joined City. Even the great Pele blasted him as a fool to come here.
Imagine how that must have felt for him that his idol and his country's icon calls him a fool for moving to City. But he came here and has never said a bad word about the club. Every interview he has spoken highly of City as if we were already a top 4 club. Yes he is struggling, but he believed in this club. Shouldn't we also believe in him?

Robinho and Ireland ran riot last season and now its seems like a DM fest at City. What in the world is Mancini thinking?
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how quickly we forget....
 
I'm pretty happy not having a heart attack every time we take a lead cause we can't hold it...come on people...so every game it's a 4-4 thriller...I'll take 4-1/3-1/2-1 or 1-0 over 4-4 anyday.
 
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