Poll: How do you feel about our performance tonight?

[mcfc1632]

I said before the game that we might again see frailties without Nigel - unfortunately that proved to be true - but that fucking ref clearly has some issue with CITY - to win when he is the ref we will always have to be a few goals better than the opposition

[brite blu sky]

That was seriously fucling frustrating. Watching the game it was obvious that Everton were putting more effort in and were sharper right form the off. So if anything it was more that we appeared to want to play at a certain tempo and couldn't pick it up. Everton got stuck in and continually broke up our play, they did a good hatchet job and worked hard at getting back in numbers while slowing us down. Imo that then made us indecisive adding to the problem of getting the ball forward quickly. When we got on top of them completely it was always going to be difficult with so many players in the area.

Put simply our performance was stuttering, but you have to give credit to Everton for stopping the fluidity. They seem to have their best performances of the season against us, fuclers.

As mentioned by some we have to deal with this at home, if teams give us any chance to break with any one or two of Silva, Tevez, AJ, Yaya, Balotelli it can easily end in a goal, so the way to prevent that is to cut out the supply. Everton did a good job of not letting anyone have any time when moving forward. The few times they did allow more space we put some good through balls in and were close to scoring.
I is unlikely that other teams will do as an effective job as Everton did, and we wont be that little bit off the pace either in most games, but teams will study this as a lesson in the way to stop us playing. I dont think we have too much to worry about though as most teams are not as well organised as Everton and wont put that level of effort in and even though they did a good job we still should have scored another one or two goals.

it was a total pisser, but we will learn from it.

[Ted Hughes]

We've already had Blackburn & Birmingham do the same thing. Everton didn't do anything especially different to either of them defensively in fact, if anything, Birmingham did it better. Basically we've played 3 teams at home who are known bus parkers & we didn't beat any of them. The only sides we've beaten at home are ones who tried to come & play us or ones who aren't very good.

[brite blu sky]

We've already had Blackburn & Birmingham do the same thing. Everton didn't do anything especially different to either of them defensively in fact, if anything, Birmingham did it better. Basically we've played 3 teams at home who are known bus parkers & we didn't beat any of them. The only sides we've beaten at home are ones who tried to come & play us or ones who aren't very good.

Thats true but i would say that Everton did more than those teams as we have got better since those games. If we met Blackburn now i would be more confident we would beat them. There is a definite pattern and 'the problem' needs sorting. Imo it is all about the speed of moving the ball forward when teams have a more defensive set up. The only solution to that i think is more time playing together. The only other clear option is having more attempts for individual players to run with the ball through the final 3rd. Ultimately it is all about catching the opposition out of shape or pulling them out of shape. Speed and numbers.

[Martinez]

I think we did everything right after those two, extremely costly, f**kups in the first 20. I missed NdJ but even without him I thought we battled quite well, Everton are always super- aggressive when we play them for some reason. Offensively, there's not much to say, we should have put at least one more of our chances away, and let's face it, had we been Chelsea at Stamford Bridge or Rags at the Swamp we would have got at least one pen, I guess we're not quite there, yet

How can we have done evrything right if we only scored one goal and lost the game? And that goal was a rebound own goal!

I replied with the alternatives given by the OP in mind, I thought we were the better team and should have won.
If your view is that the team that scores the most goals is the better one, I respect that.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

I think we did everything right after those two, extremely costly, f**kups in the first 20. I missed NdJ but even without him I thought we battled quite well, Everton are always super- aggressive when we play them for some reason. Offensively, there's not much to say, we should have put at least one more of our chances away, and let's face it, had we been Chelsea at Stamford Bridge or Rags at the Swamp we would have got at least one pen, I guess we're not quite there, yet

How can we have done evrything right if we only scored one goal and lost the game? And that goal was a rebound own goal!

I replied with the alternatives given by the OP in mind, I thought we were the better team and should have won.
If your view is that the team that scores the most goals is the better one, I respect that.

Cant beat a little bit of sarcky :)

"We were the better team" It's possible to look at the game and think that but equally as Everton came with a defensive plan , to frustrate City a nick a goal or two it seems their plan worked and maybe they were the better side as a result. I don't think you will have heard many "neutrals" saying City were the better side.

I said before the game that I would happily have a shocking game and win 1 nil as i feared that Everton are just the sort of side we struggle against. i.e organised ,strong and defensive.Currently we don't have a good answer to that sort of a team.

[carolina-blue]

Its all my fault due to work , This Is the 1st game I have been able to watch "live" So sorry about that I wont watch another one , And to compound matters I watched It with a Spud , Red scouse and a Blue scouse :( , But I thought we were shocking at the back But in the end unlucky not to have got at least 1pt Bring on the Geordies . ( Iam working its gonna be ok )

[Martinez]

I think we did everything right after those two, extremely costly, f**kups in the first 20. I missed NdJ but even without him I thought we battled quite well, Everton are always super- aggressive when we play them for some reason. Offensively, there's not much to say, we should have put at least one more of our chances away, and let's face it, had we been Chelsea at Stamford Bridge or Rags at the Swamp we would have got at least one pen, I guess we're not quite there, yet

How can we have done evrything right if we only scored one goal and lost the game? And that goal was a rebound own goal!

I replied with the alternatives given by the OP in mind, I thought we were the better team and should have won.
If your view is that the team that scores the most goals is the better one, I respect that.

Cant beat a little bit of sarcky :)

"We were the better team" It's possible to look at the game and think that but equally as Everton came with a defensive plan , to frustrate City a nick a goal or two it seems their plan worked and maybe they were the better side as a result. I don't think you will have heard many "neutrals" saying City were the better side.

I said before the game that I would happily have a shocking game and win 1 nil as i feared that Everton are just the sort of side we struggle against. i.e organised ,strong and defensive.Currently we don't have a good answer to that sort of a team.

I totally agree to this, I predicted goalless or 1- nil, but two things were surprising; the first obviously being that our rock solid defence conceded two goals in the first 20 mins against, in fairness, an offensively weak Everton side. The second was the amount of chances we actually created when we stepped up a gear. You often hear that the other team were "comfortable sitting back and soaking up pressure", but they never really looked comfortable to me, it was no way near as frustrating to watch as the Birmingham game. I genuinely thought it was exciting right until the end and that the performance on any other day would have brought us the 3 points, even after conceding two sloppy goals.

[sandman]

We had 5 shots on target, I forget the off target and the blocked shots because they were not on target.

That is not good enough, far too much passing the book instead of taking ownership.

[Duckman]

Tried to watch extended highlights on mcfc.co.uk but couldn't do it. too painful.