Yaya Toure

[OB1]

Yeah I do, but I didnt suggest that, not sure what you are talking about tbh

I was being sarcastic!

 

[Viridian]

I've read some complete and utter lies to try and protect Yaya from criticism but trying to make out he's a leader and a team player is just fucking hilarious.

What constitutes a leader in your book?

Someone who has directly contributed to five major honours - more than any player in our squad - in as many years?
Someone who links up play effortlessly and acts as the linchpin in our side?
Someone who is always fit and always ready for selection when he is fit?

Not all leaders scream bloody murder and lunge into tackles just because they've got the armband on. I know we once had Stuart Pearce as manager and I know our captains have predominantly been defenders for a decade (with the exception of Tevez), so I understand why you'd be confused - but English football fans need to get away from basing their view of what a captain "should be" on Bobby Moore because it's fucked us up royally for half a century and set our game back an entire generation. We've idolised players like Terry, Beckham and Gerrard when we should have been busy analysing the likes of Makelele, Vieira and Scholes (who, as it happens, was forced to retire from international football at the age of 28 because Sven shifted him over to the right wing to accommodate Gerrard).

Do you see Phillip Lahm behaving like Stuart Pearce did? Do you see Iniesta "getting stuck in"? No, you don't. You see them being fucking good footballers and winning trophies a hell of a lot.

 

[Zin 'messiah' Zimmer]

I was being sarcastic!

A wonderful thing, Alec

A leader should be your Paul dickov type, forget the variables to his game, if he can shout and run around like he's on crystal Trev then we've got our replacement..

Fuck me, the level of football intellect is dying a death on here (:

 

[ojeme]

We can't defend as a team because we have a player less, Yaya. Trying to bring Silva into this is like bringing Maureen from No.36 up the road into it, completely irrelevant.

I'd like to know what you think about Silva s season and it's impact on the team. It's lazy to blame one man for our woes when there are other points willfully/ignorantly left out. Have you asked yourself why we look a more reasonable defensive unit when Kompany is around? Of course that's a small issue compared to Yaya playing.

 

[ojeme]

The odd game here and there without Yaya is a fallacy, players need a run of games together to form effective partnerships so it's irrelevant saying we're just as shit without him. You don't know because Pellegrini is a complete fuckwit who hasn't got the balls to drop Yaya to give it a try.

In my opinion it should always be
Fernandinho and Delph, obviously you would have to change the style of play as it wouldn't be as possession orientated and would be more high pressing/counter
attack orientated but it surely couldn't be any worse than the slow, dull, ponderous shit we're watching every week with Yaya in the team.

players indeed need a run of games to form veritable partnerships but when a player is in the treatment room for much of the time, then I'm afraid giving them a run of games might not be possible.

 

[fatbloke]

What constitutes a leader in your book?

Someone who has directly contributed to five major honours - more than any player in our squad - in as many years?
Someone who links up play effortlessly and acts as the linchpin in our side?
Someone who is always fit and always ready for selection when he is fit?

Not all leaders scream bloody murder and lunge into tackles just because they've got the armband on. I know we once had Stuart Pearce as manager and I know our captains have predominantly been defenders for a decade (with the exception of Tevez), so I understand why you'd be confused - but English football fans need to get away from basing their view of what a captain "should be" on Bobby Moore because it's fucked us up royally for half a century and set our game back an entire generation. We've idolised players like Terry, Beckham and Gerrard when we should have been busy analysing the likes of Makelele, Vieira and Scholes (who, as it happens, was forced to retire from international football at the age of 28 because Sven shifted him over to the right wing to accommodate Gerrard).

Do you see Phillip Lahm behaving like Stuart Pearce did? Do you see Iniesta "getting stuck in"? No, you don't. You see them being fucking good footballers and winning trophies a hell of a lot.

You like to talk a lot, especially when you're basing your opinion on assumption.

Yaya is a perfect leader if you want a leader to be someone who spits his dummy out if he doesn't get his own way, threatens to leave the club/team every transfer window, lies about the club not granting him compassionate leave, slags "African" people off for disrespecting him because he didn't win the African Player of the Year award for the 4th consecutive year, slags everybody else off for not giving him respect because he's a black African and only plays when he can be arsed.

Leaders have to be honest and respectable, there's different ways of leading but those attributes are fundamental.

 

[Paul Lake's Left Knee]

A wonderful thing, Alec

A leader should be your Paul dickov type, forget the variables to his game, if he can shout and run around like he's on crystal Trev then we've got our replacement..

Fuck me, the level of football intellect is dying a death on here (:

That would suggest it was once alive

 

[fatbloke]

I'd like to know what you think about Silva s season and it's impact on the team. It's lazy to blame one man for our woes when there are other points willfully/ignorantly left out. Have you asked yourself why we look a more reasonable defensive unit when Kompany is around? Of course that's a small issue compared to Yaya playing.

Different player, different role - completely irrelevant to this thread.

 

[Walking on the blue moon]

Yaya is simply incredible! His goals and surging runs used to make my day, still do of course:) Personally I believe Yaya is a very good leader in that other players respect him a lot and tend to listen to him. HIs motivational speeches seem pretty inspiring too. I remembered one player has said (forgot if it had been Sterling or not) that our dramatic 4-2 win vs. Borussia Monchengladbach was partly down to Yaya's speech at half-time. So it seems to me that Yaya is a player with a confident and outspoken personality suitable for a good leader, albeit a bit narcissistic sometimes (cakegate and his comments on this year's African footballer of the Year came to mind). But all that are forgiven. Even if Yaya's agent told City to go to hell tomorrow, Yaya would still be a legend for me, simply because of what he has contributed over the years.

But "best player by a mile"? That would be an exaggeration. Like some in the previous posts, I can't decide between our spine who the best player is objectively. If "big moments" is the major criteria, then Kun scored a lot of important goals too. Remember the one that won us the first title in 40 years? And the three against Bayern last season that propelled us to the last 16?

And then there are the "smaller moments". Granted goals are the ultimate decider of a match, but most matches cannot be won without good build-up first. A good build-up instills fear in opponents and helps create more chances. Also, you can't win a title if you only win the big matches but not the smaller ones. In this area Silva played a role as important as Yaya, if not more influential. Both of them are the top passers of our final 5 passes, if I remember correctly. And when either is off-form or not playing, our attacking play suffers. Indeed, a large part of our problems in attack last season and this season are due to the form of Yaya and Silva respectively. One could call this an over-reliance, but it also shows how good these two are.

Someone should champion for the defenders too. Although attack is often the focus of football, defence is as important. A good defence lays a calm foundation for attack. In return, a good attack relieve the pressure on defence. Defenders rarely get the highest level of recognition, but that doesn't mean it should be the same on Bluemoon too. Kompany deserves his place amongst the best to play for City. For all the money we spend on defenders, it seems that no one but Kompany can organise the backline consistently. And that is without mentioning how good a leader and ambassador for the club he is. I couldn't express how honoured I am to have him as our captain.

But if by "best" you mean "personal favourite", then David Silva without a doubt.

Btw, isn't this post about Yaya and the best city player of this generation? Why did I see someone discussing whether David Silva would merit a place in Pep's team??? This is ridiculous!

 

[ojeme]

But that's not good. Gerrard remained Liverpool's most important player in his final season even when his legs had gone

De Bruyne, Nasri and Silva are outstanding technical players. Delph and Fernandinho (and Fernando) are very strong physical players. Navas, Sterling were available for long tracts of the season. Out of that pool we had a top quality midfield. And yet Pellegrini opted for a player who can't sprint over these
players. It was a massive decision and it's
the single biggest reason for our poor season. It could yet be rescued but Pellegrini has already nailed his colours to the wall. He isn't going to move now.

The Premiership is the most physically demanding league in the world. You can't carry anyone, and physically Toure is at
times miles off the pace, and to make him semi-effective we have to make compromises that damage the effectiveness of other players. Physicality matters. Quality cannot survive without it, otherwise players like Ronaldinho, and Kaka would play on forever. Toure's game, because of the
sheer size of the man, fell off a cliff as soon as his engine failed, and the manager was too weak to deal with it hence the endless Toure topic. Every City fan knows just how important he has been to MCFC over the years. I am convinced we wont progress until we
move on. I seems we have to wait for
Guardiola.

sorry sire to disturb your sleep but you seem to pretend as if old legs is the only issue the team is grappling with. Nasri is injured, Silva is not firing at the moment (this means that our creative outlets will be further reduced if you remove Yaya from the starting lineup), Sterling and KDB sometimes loose the ball far more than we can afford, Fern does a great job sitting back and helping the defence, so does nando at times and Delph but their game is limited in that there's be a great dearth in creativity if Yaya is benched especially with KDB out recently. In short, every body has one issue or the other and these collectively has ensured that we are where we are this season. What I criticize you about is that you try to make Yaya the scapegoat.