Yaya, Aguero and Form

[Kippax Street 1880]

We seem to have stopped our movement off the ball that was causing teams so many problems. Barcelona aren't the best team in the world because they have the best players (although it helps) they are the best because they work their bollocks off for 90 minutes. The ball is on the other side of the pitch ? I'll make a run because even if the ball doesn't come to me I will pull the defender out of position. If I lose the ball me and two other teammates hassle the player in possession like a rabid dog. If I play a good pass I don't just stand and admire it but bust a gut to get the return ball. This is what bobby should be making sure all our players think whenever they step onto the pitch. Team's haven't worked us out, we have stopped doing this. If every players off the ball movement is at a top level and they have great technical ability to back it up it is simply impossible to defend against. Our front 5 need to be a lot more mobile in dragging their markers out of position because at the moment it seems only Sergio and David who are willing to do this !

 

[Andouble]

I think more importantly for Aguero is that Mario is coming back.

He seems to have better chemistry with Mario than he does with Dzeko, though I have no production statistic to back me up on that claim.

 

[HolisticJim]

I think the return of Mario, Yaya and vinny - together - will make a difference to how we play.

It's not a single player - it's almost a complete spine.

 

[Soulboy]

Isn't it a bit strange that we're two points clear at the top of the league, just 13 games left, and the manager's fundamental approach to playing is coming under such criticism?

Anyone that dared suggest that the manager didn't understand the "English game" was once roundly set upon with pitchforks and flaming torches!

So it's nice to see that a reasonable and mature debate can now be had over something as facsinating as this topic. Let's see how long it lasts...

 

[Puppet Master Silva]

I'm kind of in agreement that we need a little more pace on the wings and perhaps need to be more direct, I do however think we have what it take to see this season out. In the summer however I would love to see Lavezzi or even Hazard joining. I also wouldn't be too disheartened to see someone like Redmond from Birmingham signing. Barcelona's tactic does work very well but they also have a lot more time on the ball in Spain and have much more respect given to them from their opponents. Someone said the United way may be the route to go but I feel they play far too much down the wings and as we have shown in the 6-1 if your wingers track back you can take out they're main threat. IMO the best route would be to take parts from both teams methods because if we carry on playing this way, which at the moment seems quite toothless away from home, we could really struggle.

 

[KenTheLandlord]

I can't help but feel that we've got "England World Cup syndrome" in regards to Yaya Toure. We seem to believe that his return will herald a return of the City at the beginning of the year, that we will be carving open teams left, right and centre.

I do think that he's a big part of how we play, but his absence is not to blame for our recent drop in form. In fact, the last time that Yaya was in the team we got beaten by Sunderland, and drew with West Brom. We did beat Liverpool 3-0 but the scoreline didn't tend to reflect the game. His magical powers did not seem to extend to these games.

Our real downward turn started around Christmas Day after we beat Stoke and has continued whether or not Yaya and Kolo were in the team.

I think that our dodgy form is more down to Aguero's misfiring than Yaya's absence, and he seems almost a shadow of the player that we saw in that Swansea game. He has gone from a guy full of confidence who plays with his feathers up, to a frustrated striker who seems to get really annoyed with himself after he misses a chance. Possibly for this reason, he is much more greedy in possession than he was originally and the directness that he brought to us has been lost.

This City team remind me of Arsenal in 2006 and it's a happy coincidence that we've recently become the first team to hit 60 points in 25 games since them. They finished third that season, so I wouldn't start counting our chickens yet as there's a long way to go and that team represents a stark warning from history about what happens once Plan A is cracked.

Many people were upset with the Villa teamsheet but I was actually quite relived. Our style of play is far too narrow and focused on short passes that defences understand that if they pressure us hard and sit deep, we are somewhat out of options. Against Villa, we seemed to set up with a bit more width and as people in the match thread said, we kept "twatting the ball long". A more direct style was just what we needed and I thought that we played very well over the course of 90 minutes. I absolutely don't buy the hate against Zab nor Kolarov and obviously don't see what others do here. I'd be happy to have them line up for us in a Champions League Final without worrying about it.

Yet again though, we failed to score from open play away from home. Since 5th November at QPR, we've scored once from open play away from home. That's once in seven games. I don't care which way you spin it, that's a worrying statistic.

I personally think that we've been struggling to break teams down an awful lot longer than we realise. I think we can go all the way back to the Napoli and Fulham games in September to spot the warning signs of what was coming. This isn't a bad run of form, it's an endemic problem which we have failed to address.

There's no easy answer to why we fail to break teams down and like most things in football, it tends to be a combination of numerous different factors. We don't have any wide players really and the ones that we do are either full backs or cut inside often. Our manager is notorious for creating very narrow teams and believes in the universality of players to create goalscoring opportunities. Our main focal point in attack looks frustrated at the moment and is snatching at chances, a bit like Robinho was after his return from injury; to use an Englishism, he's "trying too hard" at the moment. We struggle to break down counter attacks from pacey players which necessitates playing defensively minded players in the centre. We do not respond well to organised pressing. Our off the ball movement at times is shockingly poor for a team that regularly has 60%+ possession in a match. We do not take enough risks whilst in possession and do have neither the width nor directness to compensate for this.
Numerous different problems that all add to up to our worrying play style away from home.

I think we will win the title, and I think that we will hit 90 points doing so. At home, we're almost invincible, the only crack appearing against United and Liverpool in the cup games that are admittedly not our main focus for the year. Our away games are Swansea, Norwich, Newcastle, Arsenal, Wolves and Stoke. All of those teams outside of Stoke will have a go at us and give us the space to play in.

Mancini is one of those oxymoronic managers where he's both young and experienced at the same time. The thing that I'm not sure that he has quite learnt yet about English football is that sometimes you need to surrender possession to open the game up and allow your team the opportunity to work in some space. Plain and simply, the Stokes of this world do not exist in Italian football. The very hard working, high pressing ruggedly defensive game is a very English phenomenon, at least out of the top European leagues.
I don't think Mancini has ever won at the Britannia, perhaps someone can correct me? It's certainly a bogey ground for his City team as is Goodison and Molineux, we never seem to play very well there. All high pressing ruggedly defensive strong English teams.

Sitting in front of them and playing possession based football is their bread and butter and we need to play more like we did against Villa when we go there. My kingdom for a wide left winger and all that.

He's adapted to foibles of England before and I'm sure he will again but it doesn't half put a strain on the heart. This period up until we play Chelsea (Blackburn/Bolton at home, Swansea away) are all winnable games that I'm not really concerned about. United have to go to a Spurs team with their tails up, and a few other potential slip ups like Norwich away and they historically struggle at Ewood. Plus of course they have to come to God's own.

I'm much more worried about our run up to the United game - Norwich away and Wolves away. Games in which the opposition will be desperate for a win and we struggle against their styles of play. Maybe Wolves will change now McCarthy isn't there, but I doubt it.

The point is, although we are top of the league, we haven't played well in almost two months now and sticking all of our hopes on a returning Yaya Toure will set us up for disappointment. This will be a scrap to the finish line and we need to keep our bottle throughout.

You can strengthern your agrument in that i feel you can add Napoli to that list and yes, we struggled against them.
Barcelona played a high tempo pressing game, maybe Mancini referrrd to this and teams of Bielsa are always hard working, pressing teams and his Chile team gave Spain the only test they had in the last WC.

 

[Kippax Street 1880]

You can strengthern your agrument in that i feel you can add Napoli to that list and yes, we struggled against them.
Barcelona played a high tempo pressing game, maybe Mancini referrrd to this and teams of Bielsa are always hard working, pressing teams and his Chile team gave Spain the only test they had in the last WC.

Being the pedantic twat I am I'll point out Spain lost to a Gelson Fernandes goal against Switzerland aswell as whatever struggles they had against Chile.

 

[Damocles]

Anyone that dared suggest that the manager didn't understand the "English game" was once roundly set upon with pitchforks and flaming torches!

Quite rightly so. I can understand mathematics without knowing what Graham's number is.

There's a very big difference between not understanding the English game and not understanding a particular trait of the English game. My problem with some on here is that they try to make arguments all or nothing, and it almost never is.

The English game is now so homogenised that there's really just "the European game" but this doesn't mean that it has been completely stripped of its whole identity and traits, it just means that its mostly stripped of it.

I do agree that it is a deeper problem than many on here would admit to. I seem to recall a thread on here over 12 months ago about which style would best be suited to wining the Premiership... most seemed to be of the view that copying Barcelona would be what we should aspire to, while others (myself included) argued that the style of the rags would be better to win league titles in England.

That's an interesting one. I don't think anybody in the world, including Spanish teams, could have major success trying to replicate the Barca system of play. Barca are a different club to many and their style of play emanates from La Masia and continues all of the way up. It's the only way in which they know HOW to play football. They have recently tried to veer away from their more traditional style of play and now find themselves 10 points behind Madrid.

Whilst playing the United way might be a successful way of playing, it isn't the only way. Chelsea had great success playing a system not too dissimilar to what we play now, albeit with much more width using Robben/Duff than we do currently.

It's hard to argue that our style can't be successful when we are in the position that we are in, but I would say that we certainly need to refine it to be the ultra dominant team that we know that we can be.

 

[Soulboy]

Anyone that dared suggest that the manager didn't understand the "English game" was once roundly set upon with pitchforks and flaming torches!

Quite rightly so. I can understand mathematics without knowing what Graham's number is.

There's a very big difference between not understanding the English game and not understanding a particular trait of the English game. My problem with some on here is that they try to make arguments all or nothing, and it almost never is.

The English game is now so homogenised that there's really just "the European game" but this doesn't mean that it has been completely stripped of its whole identity and traits, it just means that its mostly stripped of it.

I do agree that it is a deeper problem than many on here would admit to. I seem to recall a thread on here over 12 months ago about which style would best be suited to wining the Premiership... most seemed to be of the view that copying Barcelona would be what we should aspire to, while others (myself included) argued that the style of the rags would be better to win league titles in England.

That's an interesting one. I don't think anybody in the world, including Spanish teams, could have major success trying to replicate the Barca system of play. Barca are a different club to many and their style of play emanates from La Masia and continues all of the way up. It's the only way in which they know HOW to play football. They have recently tried to veer away from their more traditional style of play and now find themselves 10 points behind Madrid.

Whilst playing the United way might be a successful way of playing, it isn't the only way. Chelsea had great success playing a system not too dissimilar to what we play now, albeit with much more width using Robben/Duff than we do currently.

It's hard to argue that our style can't be successful when we are in the position that we are in, but I would say that we certainly need to refine it to be the ultra dominant team that we know that we can be.

I agree. It's a bit churlish to criticise the manager given our league position.

But to follow the old chestnut of a "trajectory" the facts suggest that we are clearly struggling to impress away from home. But what to do about it?

I think the recall of Tevez could have a huge impact, and it may be that the manager has already recognised the failing we currently have with our approach. We need someone who can score scruffy goals (ala Hernandes) and I can't think of many better than Tevez at this.

I trust that the manager learns from this season and adapts next season, with more pace and width in relevant areas. We've been crying out for that most of the season, but I do believe that Yaya and Balotelli will sort it out enough to see us over the line this term.

But we need a winger. With pace. And can be a "get out ball" for us at away games.

That is our priority signing for next summer.

As for the Chelsea comparison... I'm not so sure. They had pace on the flanks, they had a goalscorer in the middle of the park, they had a grittiness and drive that we still lack (other than Yaya).

The last team to play like us that seriously challenged for the title has been Arsenal, and their style of play is too easily overcome up against the physically strong, aggressive and high tempo teams like Stoke, Wolves and the likes. Just the same as us.

And, to be fair, we dropped Richards yesterday when he is usually a far better option away from home... pace, strength, attacking prowess. Just precisley what we were lacking yesterday. But the manager chose not to go with that, and that I find strange.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Hope you are well, soulboy.

Why is that we have a selection of talent returning - Ya Ya, Balotelli and Tevez - which should have our competitors quaking on their boots. Yet I can't shake the feeling that we're going to blow it?

And I agree about the selection of Zabaleta over Richards. Absolutely baffling.

Tevez could be just what we need to come off the bench in games like the Everton, Sunderland ones where we are running out of ideas. But he's a player who plays himself into form, so that could be a problem. He tends to get himself fit in matches and isn't a great trainer I believe.