The mancityfans.net football forum

getdressedmctavish wrote:One very simplistic response is that winning is all about ball retention. keep the ball, they can't score. Attacking away from hom is similar. If you have muppets who want to penetrate at the earliest opportunity you end up giving the ball away and getting suckered as we've seen so many times. So to me its not about attacking per se, we attacked at sunnerland in the first half, but we gave the ball away. Its about playing football, using your brains, not being panicked, and rememberiong you have to fight and keep running. This last bit is sometimes the hardest bit when you are a good side. But slowly, we're getting there.Everton will be a big test. We need to play but also scrap for it at the same level as them.Looking forward to it.

sound post.

I agree that our biggest short coming against Sunderland in that shocking first half was that they weren't playing as team and made stupid individual blind alley runs, losing posession of the ball all the time. Yesterday we were smarter in our passing.

Some people, including obviously Andy Gray, like to have constant pops on him for lack of pace but I thought Vieira was the key yesterday just as he was in our comeback against Sunderland. Sure he makes few stupid passes but generally he offers so much more in midfield in a game like this than De Jong and he also makes Barry look much much better alongside him.

Regardin the original subject of this post, long time members know that this is a pet hate of mine. 4-4-2 is just ONE good formation but hardly any secret formula for winning everything. There are lot of good formations used properly that will make a winning team and side can be fucking awfull playing 4-4-2. And other way around. Modern football is more about fluidity and individual instructions.