I agree withThanks for the thoughtful reply.
I think Yaya has reached the point where he can't get around the pitch quickly enough to make his quality count and that affects his ability to impose himself on the game, and it also affects defensive players who have to spend more time closing the opposition down, and it affects offensive players because he is less able to get up in support of play and take men away from the man on the ball. That's what I was getting at with regards
to Silva. It's easier to shut Silva down
now because Yaya is pedestrian and City's build up play has slowed as a result.
It is easier to criticise the players out there when the results dip. Maybe there is no alternative, and Silva, De Bruyne and any other combination would fare no better, but I expected Yaya to struggle
this season, and I think Pellegrini should have anticipated this, and prepared for it. The man is a man mountain. Lampard was lean. He could go on and on. Yaya is at the other end of the scale. Once the engine goes, it's going to grind to a halt.
Sorry not got much to add that hasn't
already been said. Hopefully the Bournemouth game goes well. having won the League Cup, qualification for the Champions League and Champions League semi-finalists will be a good season, but it's in the balance. Toure has been the key to our success so for me it's natural that this topic gets so much attention.
When he dips City dip because we haven't
prepared for it.
There's few better sights in football than Yaya at full flight with opposition players bouncing off him.
To the point, if we never signed Yaya, we probably wouldn't have won a league title yet...Can't say that for any other player.
I agree with
most of what you say only that an outsider that reads your posts would get the impression that 85% of our troubles this season stems from Yaya being in the starting line-up and then various issues such as momentary loss of concentration and lack of leadership at the back without skippo, recurring injuries
suffered by skippo, limited crossing ability with our reliable FBs, Demi's form (don't get it twisted, he's proved his abilities for us in recent past), limited creativity with some of our CMs, Silva's struggles, ineffective Navas, Nasri
sidelined, Sterling awesome today and awful the next (this is allowed since he's
still growing, but the amounts of times he looses possession is surely a problem), even Aguero is not the 'hot' Aguero we all have come to know, this season. All these and more make up the other 15% perhaps. You see, I understand Silva is going through, perhaps, the hardest time in his city career. But to put it down on someone else is a little bit OTT, imo. I know Yaya could do more to help because Silva is often targeted by opposition but guess what, Yaya is also a major target for opposition. The same sentiment that you use to subscribe that Yaya could do more to help the attack is the same sentiment that another might use to require that Silva gets to the thick of things in the middle and make us more solid in the middle of the park. That's all I have to say fornow
I agree with
most of what you say only that an outsider that reads your posts would get the impression that 85% of our troubles this season stems from Yaya being in the starting line-up and then various issues such as momentary loss of concentration and lack of leadership at the back without skippo, recurring injuries
suffered by skippo, limited crossing ability with our reliable FBs, Demi's form (don't get it twisted, he's proved his abilities for us in recent past), limited creativity with some of our CMs, Silva's struggles, ineffective Navas, Nasri
sidelined, Sterling awesome today and awful the next (this is allowed since he's
still growing, but the amounts of times he looses possession is surely a problem), even Aguero is not the 'hot' Aguero we all have come to know, this season. All these and more make up the other 15% perhaps. You see, I understand Silva is going through, perhaps, the hardest time in his city career. But to put it down on someone else is a little bit OTT, imo. I know Yaya could do more to help because Silva is often targeted by opposition but guess what, Yaya is also a major target for opposition. The same sentiment that you use to subscribe that Yaya could do more to help the attack is the same sentiment that another might use to require that Silva gets to the thick of things in the middle and make us more solid in the middle of the park. That's all I have to say fornow
It's absolutely ridiculous that a team with our players can't put two back to back wins together. A big part of it comes down to the set up with Toure. He should have been dropped a long time ago
Our performances this season without Toure, suggest that dropping him wouldn't have been the right solution to our problems.