Mancini's Ability To Change The Game Using Subs (aka Plan B)

[Im_Spartacus]

The stat KK posted does not reflect the games we were already winning when the substitution took place.

In contrast to the OP in fact, most of the games that we won were already won before we made the substitiutions, and that in fact we dropped more points in the 2nd half than we won as someone has already pointed out, which would fly directly in the face of the OP.

The suggestion that he can change a game is not borne out by the facts.

[Dameerto]

Just out of interest, are there any stats for the other 43 matches we played during the season?

[Lev Bronstein]

Whilst it's rubbish to say statistics are useless, or that you can prove anything with statistics you do have to be very careful, especially with the questions you ask.

For example, to say that Bobby Manc's substitutions don't change a game you have to look at those games that needed changing and ignore those that didn't.

I'm more impressed with the stats that point to a low return after we fell behind. But then again, the numbers have to be compared with the rest of the clubs for it to be meaningful. Also, it depends when we fell behind, does it make sense to include game where we lost in the last minutes of a game (eg Sunderland) and had no chance to make a substitution that could change the game - we don't get Fergie time.

How much weight can you give the home defeat by Arsenal where we were down to 10 men from the early minutes?

How far can you discount games where we were riddled with injuries?

It's alright saying that we've spent £300mill on players, but, would have needed to spend less if we'd been able to offer CL football when the Sheikh bought us? Let's face it, we were miles behind the top four and large sums had to be spent. We'll still have to spenr if we want to progress.

(By the way, according to the media all of Chelsea, Arse, Scum and Liverpool are all going to splash out this summer. If, say, Arsenal spend £100 mill on players and then go on to win the PL, will the media be full of comments about how they've bought the title? Thought not.)

Oh, and we need the likes of Ted, we don't want complacancy setting in.

[kinkylola]

I agree that we need to always look to improve (this doesn't mean that we can't congratulate ourselves and feel good for more than a week after the season has ended)

I disagree with the stats presented in the original post ... I realize your intention behind the post, and I like lev's post which gives a bit clearer picture.

I do think you are being a bit harsh in your criticism, and not taking the whole picture into account.

[King Kev]

With our squad, we should be bringing on players who score goals all the time.

Most substitutions I think people would agree, happen in the 2nd half of games. This is how the top half of the table would look if only the 2nd halves had been played:

Second Half PL Table

1 Chelsea P38 W18 D14 L6 F38 A14 GD + 24 PTS68
2 Arsenal P 38 W17 D14 L7 F38 A25 GD +13 PTS65
3 Fulham P38 W16 D16 L6 F30 A16 GD +14 PTS64
4 MUnited P38 W15 D18 L5 F44 A24 GD +20 PTS 63
5 M City P38 W14 D17 L7 F27 A19 GD +8 PTS 59
6 WBA P38 W14 D13 L11 F37 A35 GD +2 PTS 55
7 Stoke P38 W13 D15 L10 F30 A21 GD +9 PTS 54
8 Everton P38 W12 D18 L 8 F28 A22 GD +6 PTS 54
9 Lpool P38 W13 D13 L12 F33 A29 GD +4 PTS 52
10Spurs P38 W10 D21 L 7 F29 A20 GD +9 PTS51

So.... 'cough' .... Fulham, are a better 2nd half team & all those teams, including WBA, Stoke & Everton have scored more goals as did Bolton & Newcastle, with Blackpool equalling us. Pretty dreadfully piss poor considering our squad imo & suggests that the 2nd half problems at Blackburn & Everton are worthy of thought for next season. Bob still has plenty of work to do both on the team & on his own decision making 2nd half imo, particularly on when to make changes.

Using your logic, Hughes is a better manager than baconface.

I don't think I need to say any more really.

[King Kev]

I would be interested to know how many of those substitutions actually changed the game as the title says.In the ones I remember we were already winning the game when the subs were made so they hardly changed the game did they?

IMO goals change games, regardless of if you are winning or not when they are scored.

Maybe you should be writing for the papers KK :) Using stats to prove what you want them to is what they usually do for negative reasons.

Reading this board over the years has taught me that it doesn't matter what you post (positive or negative) it will always end up as a negative thread anyway. Some City fans just love to moan.

[Ted Hughes]

Whilst it's rubbish to say statistics are useless, or that you can prove anything with statistics you do have to be very careful, especially with the questions you ask.

For example, to say that Bobby Manc's substitutions don't change a game you have to look at those games that needed changing and ignore those that didn't.

I'm more impressed with the stats that point to a low return after we fell behind. But then again, the numbers have to be compared with the rest of the clubs for it to be meaningful. Also, it depends when we fell behind, does it make sense to include game where we lost in the last minutes of a game (eg Sunderland) and had no chance to make a substitution that could change the game - we don't get Fergie time.

How much weight can you give the home defeat by Arsenal where we were down to 10 men from the early minutes?

How far can you discount games where we were riddled with injuries?

It's alright saying that we've spent £300mill on players, but, would have needed to spend less if we'd been able to offer CL football when the Sheikh bought us? Let's face it, we were miles behind the top four and large sums had to be spent. We'll still have to spenr if we want to progress.

(By the way, according to the media all of Chelsea, Arse, Scum and Liverpool are all going to splash out this summer. If, say, Arsenal spend £100 mill on players and then go on to win the PL, will the media be full of comments about how they've bought the title? Thought not.)

Oh, and we need the likes of Ted, we don't want complacancy setting in.

I would assume that the other teams also had those same problems at times though. However we look at it, a lot of pretty average or poor teams, with smaller squads, scored more goals than we did in the 2nd half of games. That particular statistic should be one we take note of. Imo, that means we were doing something wrong.

With our resources, we should be increasing our goal difference 2nd half by bringing on fresh, high quality players against tiring defences. It appears we've failed to do that.

[King Kev]

Just out of interest, are there any stats for the other 43 matches we played during the season?

If you have access to the internet you should be able to find them. Maybe you could post your findings in this thread?

[Ted Hughes]

I would be interested to know how many of those substitutions actually changed the game as the title says.In the ones I remember we were already winning the game when the subs were made so they hardly changed the game did they?

IMO goals change games, regardless of if you are winning or not when they are scored.

Maybe you should be writing for the papers KK :) Using stats to prove what you want them to is what they usually do for negative reasons.

Reading this board over the years has taught me that it doesn't matter what you post (positive or negative) it will always end up as a negative thread anyway. Some City fans just love to moan.

It''s not a case of turning something negative, it's the case of pointing out the truth rather than blindly agreeing with some random stats presented as proof of a fact, when the opposite is actually true. If you'd started a thread about us looking better at the back or looking more confident etc, I would have joined in, agreeing with you & I'm sure others would too. If you point out something that needs fixing & say it never happened, you'll get someone disagreeing.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

Terrible use of stats Kev.

A much better one would be to see how long it took a sub to score or create a goal.

It really doesn't tell us much. For example against Sunderland we brought Vieira on at 3-0 up and he scored straight away. Hardly changing the game.

[Florida Blue]

I think there were many times he got it wrong earlier in the season (like bringing on Zabs for Ade when behind in a match), and frankly I do not think it was until the end of the season did his tactical changes really work.

I will just calling it a learning curve and expect perfection next season.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

Even more pointless when analysed. Who's to say that the subs brought on had anything to do with the goal being scored?

What about when he took Tevez off for Barry at home to Birmingham? Or took Ade off for Zabaleta when we were losing.
Against Chelsea he waited until they scored to bring the likes of Johnson and Balotelli on. Why not before?
Mancini is a good manager but he needs to work on changing games.

Yes we had a great season but as others have said, Mancini will be the last one blowing his own trumpet and will already be focusing on improving the team and himself as a manager.

[Original Dub]

Well I've said a few times this season that our games for the most part seem to be won and lost in the first 20 mins.

If a team gets on top of us after that period, we'll generally collapse and "plan b" is (9 times out of ten from I can see) normally the wrong one - defender on for striker or something stupid like that - or the right one but waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late.

In fact, the title of this thread is Mancini's main weakness as far as I'm concerned, but the transfer market and a new winning mentality that we now have should appease at least some of that and that could be enough for the league. who knows?

[King Kev]

Terrible use of stats Kev.

A much better one would be to see how long it took a sub to score or create a goal.

It really doesn't tell us much. For example against Sunderland we brought Vieira on at 3-0 up and he scored straight away. Hardly changing the game.

Are you saying that it is only a good substitution if the player coming on is the one who scores the goal?

I really thought you understood the game better than that!

[Bridge'srightfoot]

Terrible use of stats Kev.

A much better one would be to see how long it took a sub to score or create a goal.

It really doesn't tell us much. For example against Sunderland we brought Vieira on at 3-0 up and he scored straight away. Hardly changing the game.

Are you saying that it is only a good substitution if the player coming on is the one who scores the goal?

I really thought you understood the game better than that!

Well no but if he takes Richards off for Zabaleta and then 30 seconds later Tevez scores a 30 yard volley you can't exactly say the substitutions changed the game.

[King Kev]

Terrible use of stats Kev.

A much better one would be to see how long it took a sub to score or create a goal.

It really doesn't tell us much. For example against Sunderland we brought Vieira on at 3-0 up and he scored straight away. Hardly changing the game.

Are you saying that it is only a good substitution if the player coming on is the one who scores the goal?

I really thought you understood the game better than that!

Well no but if he takes Richards off for Zabaleta and then 30 seconds later Tevez scores a 30 yard volley you can't exactly say the substitutions changed the game.

It depends really. Did Zab win the ball at the start of the move? Was it Zab that passed the ball to Tevez? Did Zab make a run that took a defender away from Tevez?

[Bridge'srightfoot]

Terrible use of stats Kev.

A much better one would be to see how long it took a sub to score or create a goal.

It really doesn't tell us much. For example against Sunderland we brought Vieira on at 3-0 up and he scored straight away. Hardly changing the game.

Are you saying that it is only a good substitution if the player coming on is the one who scores the goal?

I really thought you understood the game better than that!

Well no but if he takes Richards off for Zabaleta and then 30 seconds later Tevez scores a 30 yard volley you can't exactly say the substitutions changed the game.

It depends really. Did Zab win the ball at the start of the move? Was it Zab that passed the ball to Tevez? Did Zab make a run that took a defender away from Tevez?

None of the above :) Van Der Sar on a goal kick kicked it straight to Tevez who on the volley scissor kicked it into the top corner ;)

[wyted]

With our squad, we should be bringing on players who score goals all the time.

I'm interested to hear which players within our squad you think are capable of scoring goals all the time but are not good enough to be included in the first choice 11?

The point of spending 300 mil quid on a squad of fucking players, is that you are able to change the game when you bring on substitutes no matter who starts! Surely ?

Sorry, I forgot we had no injuries this season and Bob had a full strength squad to pick from every game.

You're talking bags of shite here. Explaining how we finished 5th on second half performances without mentioning that we were 2nd on first half performances 2nd only to the champions with only Scum and Arse scoring more goals (+1 only I might add).

This season has seen us improve in one major area, getting points from the bottom half of the table. We topped that table didn't you know and look at the success it has led to, 3rd in the league and Champs League Footie next season!

What we need to do now is learn how to come back when we go behind as last season we only managed to gain 4 points from matches where we went behind and I believe we showed the fighting spirit to do that towards the end of last season. If we'd manage it in games such as Wolves or Villa away, we would of been clear 2nd. We also need to figure out how to beat Everton, another 6 points a season. Now we're real title contenders and the season comes down to how we perform against the other big 5 teams.

I thought we would enjoy a summer of good feeling and excitement for next season and that Bobby Manc had earned himself some slack, but sadly you've proven I was wrong.

This is just absolutely, utterly fucking pathetic. How many pat on the back, basking in glory threads do we fucking need ?? Jesus, Christ, we've been at it for two weeks are we not allowed to discuss anything other than how wonderful we are ?

In case you didn't notice; I didn't start a thread slagging off Bob's management, in fact on another thread, I'm praising him for being ahead of Ferguson at the same point in their careers. I replied to some stats which were claiming he'd done really well in an area which I thought he did badly & needs to improve. Looking into it more deeply, has made me realise it was worse than I thought, & so needs to improve more. I strongly disagree with the premise that he did well, on the whole, with his substiutions & I think that our 2nd half performances could often have been better. I am saying so, on a forum for football discussion. Perhaps what you're looking for, is a communal wanking forum ?

For the second time you have failed to respond to any of my points, instead taking a defensive stance and now trying to belittle me.

With our resources, we should be increasing our goal difference 2nd half by bringing on fresh, high quality players against tiring defences. It appears we've failed to do that.

Who are these players you keep harping on about, bearing in mind that we have had injury problems to the likes of Balotelli, Johnson and Tevez, and we've had players still trying to settle in like Dzeko. The management has already said they are looking at a couple of players to improve the strength of the first 11 which will improve the quality of the bench.

Back to your first post above, you're entitled to have your own opinions and to express them, and as such I am entitled to tell you you're talking bollocks. Neglecting the first half performances and slating us for a poor return in the second half of games is a joke. Our second half performances could have been better, yes, and I actually agree that some of his changes were poor, and further more I agree that the stats posted by the OP are as misleading as those you have provided.

If by Christmas, little progress has been made, then you will be fully justified to go for the throat and tell us all how right you have been but right now, you have no right. Don't get ahead of yourself because we now have the money to compete, it isn't our given right to win everything. We have had a long way to go to even get to the level we are now at, don't forget our history.

A communal wanking forum sounds great though, and I'm sure you'd have a "special rank" there too.

[Dameerto]

Just out of interest, are there any stats for the other 43 matches we played during the season?

If you have access to the internet you should be able to find them. Maybe you could post your findings in this thread?

That would require effort