Why So Blue?

I'm well chuffed with last night's result. Seville were the better team but we won the game. I thought we should have won against Juve but the did a job on us.

As for Sunday, United or not as good as Seville so I'm confident we can go there and win.
 
robbieh said:
As usual the defensive side of the game was a shambles but it would be wrong to pick out defenders only. You start a match against a competent spanish side with 5 attack minded players and they are going to be a threat on the counter. It is the same old debate. In the PL the level of passing is poor and thus we get away with it more often than not. In Europe we don't.

However I thought the manager's substitution of Bony was excellent. It wasn't a negative move as some thought. It gave us a solid platform and enabled KdB and Yaya space to push forward and ultimately win the game, so a big well done to MP there.
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I was delighted with the win but we were more than a little fortunate to get it. The substitution was certainly a game-changer but why does Pellegrini persist in thinking that starting a 2-man central midfield including Yaya is going to work against the better opponents when all the evidence of the last two seasons is to the contrary? It invariably ends up with the opposition having the ball for long periods and putting our defence under unnecessary pressure.
 
tonea2003 said:
billy what is your thoughts on yaya in a midfield two ala last night?
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Toure's the best central midfield player we have but he isn't a number 10 so the best place to play him is in a midfield duo behind four attackers.

What he doesn't give us defensively he more than makes up for with what he brings to the table in an attacking sense. He played a crucial part in both goals last night.
 
meeesh said:
When did they become fucking world beaters then ???? A few fucking Europa league wins and now they are the new Barca or Madrid,fucking grow up ffs

You see it's that attitude that will probably never leave someone like you,you have seen so many bad times like me over the years,but the fear of God is with you every match,thinking oh shit we gonna lose today,you will probably think it next week v Palace in league cup as well.

It's about time you started to feel more positive on match days,you started this thread by saying how you cannot believe what's being said,it's probably down to the fact that they don't have the fear of God in them anymore
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They've won 4 of the last 10 Europa League titles, which is a proven track record in Europe, and they are regular finisher in the top 10 in La Liga, a league which is most definitely NOT a tinpot league.

Last 10 years for Sevilla:-

2005-06 - 5th
2006-07 - 3rd
2007-08 - 5th
2008-09 - 3rd
2009-10 - 4th
2010-11 - 5th
2011-12 - 9th
2012-13 - 9th
2013-14 - 5th
2014-15 - 5th

That's fairly consistent, and when you consider a side like Sevilla is always going to be adrift of the "big 2" of Real and Barca, and will have the likes of Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao etc to fight with, then they've been doing pretty well. Saying we should be "brushing aside" Sevilla is like saying we should be "brushing aside" Liverpool, or Tottenham. Yes, we beat them, and on occasion we batter them, but you don't go into a game against Spurs or Liverpool thinking "we'll murder this lot".
 
Fans on here tend to view things in black and white far too much. It's a game of football and it's not a science. The best teams in the world don't tend to stay at the top forever. Someone else comes along and beats them. Bayern have battered Barca and vice versa. Real have thrashed Bayern. We've run all three teams close but lacked conviction to win. We've played well and lost against Juve and then played poorly and won.

What that tells me is our mentality has improved and we're starting to become a bit wiser. The Juve defeat was a good learning curve. We've got to make sure we are hard to beat. As much as our defence may have been poor can people please remember Clichy hasn't turned out for us this season. Kolarov was recently injured and Zabba is only recently back from a long term injury too. We played a right back at left back and had out captain injured as well. We've got a relatively new centre back pairing and as a back 4 it was only the second time they've played together.

We were also playing one of the best sides in Europe, albeit usually on a lower level. How well do English teams do in the Europa?! Sevilla are an excellent side and experienced in Europe. They worked their socks off and paid the price in the last ten minutes when we started to expose them. To win that game without Silva, Kompany and Aguero is an excellent result. Bony and Sterling have little CL experience and that was De Bruyne's first CL goal... we're still a young side in Europe when Silva and Aguero are missing.

As much as people think we're a great team, we're not on the European stage and so the last two wins are helping transform the confidence around the club. If we can win the group we have an excellent chance of making it further than we have before. We'll also have an away leg first which means we can play a more defensive setup and then look to win the game at home.

It's exciting to be going into the final three group games in a good position. Sevilla have to try and beat us now and we can counter attack them as we're in a strong position. We're also capable of taking points from Juve away.
 
Matty said:
They've won 4 of the last 10 Europa League titles, which is a proven track record in Europe, and they are regular finisher in the top 10 in La Liga, a league which is most definitely NOT a tinpot league.

Last 10 years for Sevilla:-

2005-06 - 5th
2006-07 - 3rd
2007-08 - 5th
2008-09 - 3rd
2009-10 - 4th
2010-11 - 5th
2011-12 - 9th
2012-13 - 9th
2013-14 - 5th
2014-15 - 5th

That's fairly consistent, and when you consider a side like Sevilla is always going to be adrift of the "big 2" of Real and Barca, and will have the likes of Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao etc to fight with, then they've been doing pretty well. Saying we should be "brushing aside" Sevilla is like saying we should be "brushing aside" Liverpool, or Tottenham. Yes, we beat them, and on occasion we batter them, but you don't go into a game against Spurs or Liverpool thinking "we'll murder this lot".
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Fair play for you digging up and taking the time to do your analysis,probably half hour of your life wasted,but I get the drift.

We are Manchester City,think about that for 1 minute,fuck what others have said or done,it's a new era,I will go into a game say against Spurs,and do think we will murder um,just like I did at WHL a few weeks back,I was wrong unfortunately,but many others would have thought the same as me when we went 1 up
 
We did what we had to do and won - the Chavs & RAGs have actually won the Champs League playing shit - Luck is also needed

Though the 2 subs of Kolarov and Fernando swung the game in our favour - hopefully MP takes note. The defence is not a shambles but they are just not being protected enough
 
meeesh said:
Fair play for you digging up and taking the time to do your analysis,probably half hour of your life wasted,but I get the drift.

We are Manchester City,think about that for 1 minute,fuck what others have said or done,it's a new era,I will go into a game say against Spurs,and do think we will murder um,just like I did at WHL a few weeks back,I was wrong unfortunately,but many others would have thought the same as me when we went 1 up
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If you honestly go into games against Spurs and Liverpool and expect us to murder them then there's really no point in carrying on this conversation. Your expectations are so out of kilter with reality it's not worth the bother of trying to discuss that matter. You go into games against the likes of Bournemouth, Norwich, Watford etc with a realistic expectation that we'll be able to score a hatful and "murder them". You don't go into games against sides that regularly finish in the top half, and challenge for European qualification places with an expectation that we'll "batter them". I expect to win, as we're a better side, but expecting to batter very good sides such as Spurs and Liverpool is completely unrealistic. Yes, on occasion, we have bettered them, but those aren't results we should be expecting going into the games.
 
Anyway whilst the chat is now about how good a team Seville are,lets see what happens in their remaining games in CL this season,home to us,away in Germany,then may need something v Juventus at home,it's cup football,but don't be surprised now to see them finish bottom of our group with no more Euro football for them this season,and a hard slog to finish in their domestic top 4 with the start they have had
 
BillyShears said:
Toure's the best central midfield player we have but he isn't a number 10 so the best place to play him is in a midfield duo behind four attackers.

What he doesn't give us defensively he more than makes up for with what he brings to the table in an attacking sense. He played a crucial part in both goals last night.
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we will have to agree to disagree then, these days his defensive effectiveness has and will cost us, make no bones about it he is brilliant going forward but tracking midfield runners forget it.
its a problem if we persist with it.
last night we were too open playing like that and its no good for my heart.
but hey we got the result and that was down to yaya doing what he does best and not what he doesn't do well.
 
tonea2003 said:
we will have to agree to disagree then, these days his defensive effectiveness has and will cost us, make no bones about it he is brilliant going forward but tracking midfield runners forget it.
its a problem if we persist with it.
last night we were too open playing like that and its no good for my heart.
but hey we got the result and that was down to yaya doing what he does best and not what he doesn't do well.
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I think when you have a player with the natural talent of Toure you have to make allowances for the things they don't do. Don't get me wrong, he can frustrate the fuck out of me too, and a couple of times he let his man run off him and get into a good goal scoring position in our box. However it's allowing that runner to go which then gives him the space to go in the other direction on the break.
 
Result = great.
Performance = poor.
Mood this morning = happy.

I still don't see why we shouldn't discuss the performance, and be able to say it was poor, when it was in fact poor.

Analyse it.

Sevilla got behind our defence far too often (fullbacks often caught forward), occasionally they ran straight through the middle of it too, luckily they weren't that good upfront, so had no real end product. We had little or no midfield, Fernandhino cannot play 1 against 3, and fill in for both fullbacks too, he's good but not a miracle worker. KdB was, for much of the game, off the pace, though I can't deny he kept on trying, and was rewarded at the end, atoning for his pass for their goal. Up front we were completely toothless, Sterling didn't seem to know what he was doing, or where he was meant to be playing, and Bony's best attribute of the night was his defensive headers. In the second half MP said we didn't create a chance for 20 minutes, the reason was, we barely got out of our own half for those 20 minutes. Finally, once Bony had gone off, and KdB had gone more central, we had a go, and upped the pace of our game (ponderous until then), and we finally started to press them higher up the pitch, rather than standing off, and we scored a great winner. The brightest spark of the night was Navas, who was head and shoulders our best player.
 
cleavers said:
Result = great.
Performance = poor.
Mood this morning = happy.

I still don't see why we shouldn't discuss the performance, and be able to say it was poor, when it was in fact poor.

Analyse it.

Sevilla got behind our defence far too often (fullbacks often caught forward), occasionally they ran straight through the middle of it too, luckily they weren't that good upfront, so had no real end product. We had little or no midfield, Fernandhino cannot play 1 against 3, and fill in for both fullbacks too, he's good but not a miracle worker. KdB was, for much of the game, off the pace, though I can't deny he kept on trying, and was rewarded at the end, atoning for his pass for their goal. Up front we were completely toothless, Sterling didn't seem to know what he was doing, or where he was meant to be playing, and Bony's best attribute of the night was his defensive headers. In the second half MP said we didn't create a chance for 20 minutes, the reason was, we barely got out of our own half for those 20 minutes. Finally, once Bony had gone off, and KdB had gone more central, we had a go, and upped the pace of our game (ponderous until then), and we finally started to press them higher up the pitch, rather than standing off, and we scored a great winner. The brightest spark of the night was Navas, who was head and shoulders our best player.
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I'm not trying to censor anyone's right to discuss or analyse the performance. But there seems to be an awful lot of hysteria surrounding what was in fact a huge win considering the result in Turin.

I've read several sides of the analysis from last night. Those who think we defended badly, those who think the full backs were rubbish, those who think we were shit because of Toure, those who think we were shit because it's Europe and we just can't play in the competition. The truth as ever is probably a little bit of all of those things, but the truth is also that whilst being 'shit' for much of the match we created more (especially in the first half) than people are acknowledging, and also there seems to be a lot of talking down to Seville. They're a good side and they showed it.

One of things which frustrates me is when people generalise about European performances - football matches are by their nature unique. The reason we won last night isn't the same reason we won in Roma last season and equally the reason we lost to Juve isn't the same reason we lost to CSKA at home last season. I feel like we often lose a little bit of context - not to make excuses - but to understand certain performances. Last night we played without arguably our three most influential players of the last five years. We played with one 1/2 fit full back and one full back playing on his wrong side. We also have a group of players who came off the back of tiring international trips, played on Saturday, again last night, and have the derby on Sunday. I don't expect sparkling performances post International breaks when the squad can't be rotated because of injuries. We got the result and that's all that mattered.
 
aguero93:20 said:
Eh, yes we were.
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It's about opinions,did you expect us to thump the current champions so easily,then to see how bad they have been since,did you think that of Chelsea ? Did you ?

Your a proper football guru if you thought they would be as bad as they have been this season,put it this way I bet it's only you who thought that,so whose the yes we were brigade ?
 
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