Garry.Cook
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 30 Jun 2009
- Messages
- 1,812
Right, i'm probably going to take a fair bit of stick for this thread but try and bear with me as I attempt to get my thoughts down in as concise a way as I can.
After watching us fail to break down another side and geting an away 0-0 in the Europa lge against Aris, I switched over to watch Spurs. Like 99% of the posters on here tonight I watched them win and thought "fuck, we're leagues behind".
When I tried to rationalise it I came to the conclusion that we are definitely not inferior to Spurs and, if anything, if we were in opposite positions now (ie. us in Champs league and them in Europa) we would be doing at least as well as they are...
Reasons:
1) City now have a worldwide reputation due to our wealth and spending and, as such, when we play clubs such as Notts County, Aris, Blackburn etc we would be a massive scalp. This, as we have seen, means the majority of sides who play us stick 11 men behind the ball and run themselves into the ground for 90 minutes which greatly limits our ability to win big, if at all (for now!)
2) Due to the unfortunate finish last season we find ourselves playing in the Europa against (no disrespect intended) smaller clubs who think they can't beat us. Spurs are in the champs league against great footballing sides who want to go out and play football and always think they can win.
3) As we have witnessed this season, when a team comes onto the pitch to play football with us (Arsenal aside) we generally dominate and go on to win very convincingly, the most recent exception being rags away where granny shagger snatched it with a one in a million goal.
Those points considered, it leads me to think that we are suffering at the minute because of our reputation and the subsequent performances of the clubs we're finding ourselves against.
Give us a year and (hopefully) champions league where teams will be out to play us (ala Blackpool!) and we will look like the City we all know are waiting to express themselves.
After watching us fail to break down another side and geting an away 0-0 in the Europa lge against Aris, I switched over to watch Spurs. Like 99% of the posters on here tonight I watched them win and thought "fuck, we're leagues behind".
When I tried to rationalise it I came to the conclusion that we are definitely not inferior to Spurs and, if anything, if we were in opposite positions now (ie. us in Champs league and them in Europa) we would be doing at least as well as they are...
Reasons:
1) City now have a worldwide reputation due to our wealth and spending and, as such, when we play clubs such as Notts County, Aris, Blackburn etc we would be a massive scalp. This, as we have seen, means the majority of sides who play us stick 11 men behind the ball and run themselves into the ground for 90 minutes which greatly limits our ability to win big, if at all (for now!)
2) Due to the unfortunate finish last season we find ourselves playing in the Europa against (no disrespect intended) smaller clubs who think they can't beat us. Spurs are in the champs league against great footballing sides who want to go out and play football and always think they can win.
3) As we have witnessed this season, when a team comes onto the pitch to play football with us (Arsenal aside) we generally dominate and go on to win very convincingly, the most recent exception being rags away where granny shagger snatched it with a one in a million goal.
Those points considered, it leads me to think that we are suffering at the minute because of our reputation and the subsequent performances of the clubs we're finding ourselves against.
Give us a year and (hopefully) champions league where teams will be out to play us (ala Blackpool!) and we will look like the City we all know are waiting to express themselves.