What's the real problem?

[Hoorayforpeepee]

A lack of width, it's worked for every other top team so why not us?

[Piccsnumberoneblue]

No width, no pace, not enough flair attacking players in the side.
We started with four attack minded players and one of those was The French Duke.
Its clearly not enough to break down stubborn resistance. It happens so often.

[tikatakamcfc]

I agree with this too, especially the part that Silva is our only playmaker in the middle and oppositions target shutting him down ... Every time he went near the ball there were three to four QPR shirts closing him down ...

But having said that, the strikers we have seem to have somehow lost that final touch. The same Aguero and Dzeko were scoring for fun last season ... and Tevez at the end of the season. I remember them finding the net from the weirdest of angles and positions and from the smallest of space around them, while this season they are fluffing even the easiest of chances.

I just can't pin point to how all of a sudden all of them have lost form, all at the same time.

Agree. I was shocked at some of Tevez 1st touches. The one he tried to cut back to Nasri after his fumble would have been a turn and shoot a year or two ago.

Aguero has missed a few howlers and dzeko is out of sorts too.

Tevez should not have been replaced last night.
Dzeko started last 4 and we won all of them. There was no reason to change the winning team.
Aguero is not himself this whole season... had a few glimpses but thats not it.

[kinkylola]

you say tevez shouldn't have been subbed but aguero is not his usual self? By tevez's standards, he has been gash. At least aguero is dangerous in build up ... though apparently short on confidence and finishing. Dzeko looks a donkey, and that period when he came on killed our momentum at the time, because it shifted silva to the right. Bring rodwell on was a correction to that, and silva got back into the game then ... although he was shifted again when Sinclair came on, but sinclair looked like he actually wanted to do something, and almost created a penalty for us.

Can I say that I wish we had Balo to bring on, or is that poor form at this point?

[Dameerto]

Rodwell came on to move Milner out wide, which I agreed with (I actually suggested it in the match thread). We were still scoreless so he decided to try pace and trickery in the last bit of the game, I could understand him doing that too. I have no problem with any of his subs last night, he tried to win it.

[kinkylola]

Rodwell came on to move Milner out wide, which I agreed with (I actually suggested it in the match thread). We were still scoreless so he decided to try pace and trickery in the last bit of the game, I could understand him doing that too. I have no problem with any of his subs last night, he tried to win it.

and we would have if julio cesar wasn't in excellent form, and we had a bit more luck with zabba's header. Also if one of aguero, tevez and dzeko could conspire between themselves to get a decent effort on goal.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

We're just not clinical enough. Rags had one chance against Spurs and scored and very nearly took 3 points. We had 4 good chances last night and didn't.

[Swales4ever]

Problem is always the same, yet to be entirely sorted since two seasons: as a whole, we still lack some ruthless purpose, some merciless hunger in our aim to the goal, to fit the bill of a Side who can impose themselves at the top.

To be fair, talking of the whole, in the last weeks I saw some notable improvements on the purpose of midfielders (i.e.: while yesterday the only one who looked actually up to the challenge was Silva, I nonetheless saw an evidently tired Barry keep pushing and trying to knocking on the box). but our extremely talented and skilled strikers are yet to show they fit the bill of a Winning Side.
I keep mentioning the Allianz Arena game, last season, which is emblematic: we dominated 25 minutes, squandered a couple of excellent chances, then two chances went on Mario Gomes and the game was over.

You cannot expect to have a Carrington midweek stroll on every competitive game, at this level and City is no longer the Side which could rested on laurels and pride of knowing than The Goat might thrash apart any defense "on his days". To stay on top, we need our strikers to be on full ruthless greed, week in and week out.

While I don't even try and regret on the Zaba header, because You cannot expect a defender to be clinical in front of the goal on every occasion, the assist which Aguero treated as if it was a try conversion and the complacency that the same player applied to the possible tap-in on the Silva shot, later on, simple tell the whole story.
Our strikers are extremely talented and skilled but so far, all of them including the one just shipped out, are yet to prove they are stuff consistent enough to dress a Top Side shirt.

Then we can talk endlessly of clueless managers, bad luck in meeting up Caesar in full steam to remind us that he has been the best keeper in the world for several season, the surreal thing that we have probably witnessed the very first time of 'Arry being decent at tactics, and so on..... but a ruthless, winning side, last night would have won 0-3, irrespectively of wind, heavy rain, narrow pitch... purely by despatching home the chances created on a bad day at the office.

No manager, not even by starting XI Messi, shall go the places we aim without clinical, ruthless strikers.
Eeezz football.

[Hazy2]

We lack a killer in the box. Sergio should have hit the target with the knock down from Zabba, however it was a night for all guns blazing get the early goal and even take a chance or two get it we would still have had the ball all night. Cannot say we are not gonna be a great side for yrs the football is fantastic, Nasri for me is doing nothing and I hope Sinclair is given a go as he cannot do worse. Than a very average Nasri. They were there for a hiding we failed.

[tikatakamcfc]

Problem is always the same, yet to be entirely sorted since two seasons: as a whole, we still lack some ruthless purpose, some merciless hunger in our aim to the goal, to fit the bill of a Side who can impose themselves at the top.

To be fair, talking of the whole, in the last weeks I saw some notable improvements on the purpose of midfielders (i.e.: while yesterday the only one who looked actually up to the challenge was Silva, I nonetheless saw an evidently tired Barry keep pushing and trying to knocking on the box). but our extremely talented and skilled strikers are yet to show they fit the bill of a Winning Side.
I keep mentioning the Allianz Arena game, last season, which is emblematic: we dominated 25 minutes, squandered a couple of excellent chances, then two chances went on Mario Gomes and the game was over.

You cannot expect to have a Carrington midweek stroll on every competitive game, at this level and City is no longer the Side which could rested on laurels and pride of knowing than The Goat might thrash apart any defense "on his days". To stay on top, we need our strikers to be on full ruthless greed, week in and week out.

While I don't even try and regret on the Zaba header, because You cannot expect a defender to be clinical in front of the goal on every occasion, the assist which Aguero treated as if it was a try conversion and the complacency that the same player applied to the possible tap-in on the Silva shot, later on, simple tell the whole story.
Our strikers are extremely talented and skilled but so far, all of them including the one just shipped out, are yet to prove they are stuff consistent enough to dress a Top Side shirt.

Then we can talk endlessly of clueless managers, bad luck in meeting up Caesar in full steam to remind us that he has been the best keeper in the world for several season, the surreal thing that we have probably witnessed the very first time of 'Arry being decent at tactics, and so on..... but a ruthless, winning side, last night would have won 0-3, irrespectively of wind, heavy rain, narrow pitch... purely by despatching home the chances created on a bad day at the office.

No manager, not even by starting XI Messi, shall go the places we aim without clinical, ruthless strikers.
Eeezz football.

Some of this is true, but, non the less, no matter how poor Tevez was, he always can do something by himself to change the match, while Rodwell can't. Period. Rodwell wasnt needed for defensive assignments since there was no QPR's offense at all except of counters.

But you are right about those chances, no matter how small they are, should have been used.
We could create a lot more of them if only we had someone like Maicon or Kolarov, the only two players that can actually make a good cross when we dont have time for anything else.

[tikatakamcfc]

We lack a killer in the box. Sergio should have hit the target with the knock down from Zabba, however it was a night for all guns blazing get the early goal and even take a chance or two get it we would still have had the ball all night. Cannot say we are not gonna be a great side for yrs the football is fantastic, Nasri for me is doing nothing and I hope Sinclair is given a go as he cannot do worse. Than a very average Nasri. They were there for a hiding we failed.

While we're at Sinclair, someone should tell him that his job is to set up chances, not score goals and play hero, and then he'll be OK and maybe end up better than AJ.

[Beefymcfc]

17 shots.

69% possession.

604 passes.

All that but sometimes it's hard to get through a brick wall.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

Been thinking about this and still not 100% certain what the answer is.One thing is for sure we knew before the game last night exactly how QPR would play and we also know that ,so far this season,we haven't been very good at breaking down the massed defences.So many games have shown that and usually the lower the team the harder we find it ( Sunderland,Reading,WHU)

It's easy to say their keeper had a world class game but that's shouldn't be enough to stop us scoring 1.Even the fact that our strikers are not in good form should not stop us scoring 1. I wonder about two things. First we didn't seem to have enough movement from midfield whether to just run past the lead striker or making runs down the wings.It happened a few times and especially when Zaba gets forward and it often gets us our best openings but I don't think we see enough of Barry,Nasri and Milner really getting into goalscoring positions.

That leads into the next point which is whether we go for it enough.I am talking about taking chances and really committing players forward. Do we do that , do we really take enough risks so that when a cross goes in we have so many players in there that it's bound to fall to one of our players? I know I was frustrated a few times last night when a ball went over and missed the 2 players we had in the box and on another occasion the commentator mentioned that Remi had 6 defenders to deal with when a ball was cleared.

That and we missed Yaya.

[sweenyuk]

At the start of last season we were seen as a team that could be beaten, so teams came out to attack against us. Towards the second half they stuck 11 men in defence and we started to struggle. This season they have all, including United placed the majority of their team in defence to try and get a point or hit us on the break.

We don't have a target man, Tevez and Aguero are both too small for wingers to fly in high balls, Dzeko can't control a long pass and Mario is Mario who has now left anyway, so we try short passes and walking the ball in to the box. Tevez spends far too much time in midfield chasing the ball and then makes a pass to Aguero who is out wide and no chance of taking a shot, but has no one to cross to. No one shoots from outside the box at all, so we just don't score enough goals. I really want Mancini to stay and be our best ever manager, but he really does need to find a plan B

[Douglas Higginbottom]

At the start of last season we were seen as a team that could be beaten, so teams came out to attack against us. Towards the second half they stuck 11 men in defence and we started to struggle. This season they have all, including United placed the majority of their team in defence to try and get a point or hit us on the break.

We don't have a target man, Tevez and Aguero are both too small for wingers to fly in high balls, Dzeko can't control a long pass and Mario is Mario who has now left anyway, so we try short passes and walking the ball in to the box. Tevez spends far too much time in midfield chasing the ball and then makes a pass to Aguero who is out wide and no chance of taking a shot, but has no one to cross to. No one shoots from outside the box at all, so we just don't score enough goals. I really want Mancini to stay and be our best ever manager, but he really does need to find a plan B

Just on the point of Tevez passing to Kun,or vice versa, have you noticed how many times those apparently simple passes don't find the target. It's so annoying that 5 and 10 yard passes go astray as they do

[chips]

Also aguero and tevez both come deep. We need atleast one of them to stay in the box, otherwise it's like we're playing with just defenders and midfielders. There is no one at the point of our attacks.

[Ted Hughes]

At the start of last season we were seen as a team that could be beaten, so teams came out to attack against us. Towards the second half they stuck 11 men in defence and we started to struggle. This season they have all, including United placed the majority of their team in defence to try and get a point or hit us on the break.

We don't have a target man, Tevez and Aguero are both too small for wingers to fly in high balls, Dzeko can't control a long pass and Mario is Mario who has now left anyway, so we try short passes and walking the ball in to the box. Tevez spends far too much time in midfield chasing the ball and then makes a pass to Aguero who is out wide and no chance of taking a shot, but has no one to cross to. No one shoots from outside the box at all, so we just don't score enough goals. I really want Mancini to stay and be our best ever manager, but he really does need to find a plan B

Just on the point of Tevez passing to Kun,or vice versa, have you noticed how many times those apparently simple passes don't find the target. It's so annoying that 5 and 10 yard passes go astray as they do

Even more annoying when Silva does it, especially in the penalty area, as we know how good he is.

Imo, it was crying out for Dzeko from the kick off last night, & we were tired & uninspired by the time he came on.

Tevez can't hit a bull's arse with a banjo at the moment but I watched a re run of the Stoke game & he was absolutely awesome at times. If his finishing hadn't been shite then he would probably have got motm instead of Zabba. He is struggling finishing but if he hits a goal trail, he will still be worth his weight in gold. We take for granted some of the things he does because we have seen it so often. Very few players can do what he does.

I can see why you say we are missing Yaya Doug, but imo it's not him we are missing it's 'somebody' or 'something'.

We have seen Yaya many times in games like last night & the result has sometimes been the same, with the exact same problems.

The positions of Nasri, Sinclar & Balotelli need to be taken by players of the same standard as the 1st choice 11 imo, that's where we ned the next big improvement.

We need people who create, people who shoot, cross & score goals, to challenge Silva, Nasri, Yaya and our strikers for places.

Silva & Yaya should be players who have to produce 100% quality to stay in the side, not automatic picks, but they have no competition at all from similar players. The choice is either them or a defensive mid or an extra striker, no like for like.

Imagine (I hate to say it) 25 year old Giggs in place of Nasri & Scholes in place of Barry last night. Or a 25 year old Gerrard doing Yaya's job instead of Milner.

That's where we need to be if we are talking Champions League.

All this 'everything is ok' bollocks is ridiculous. We are not even scratching the surface of where we could be, yet.

[sheblue]

None of our strikers are performing, aguero was good in general play but not scoring, tevez not in top form in front of goal either, as for dzeko he needs 5 chances before he can convert one. Our lack of goals from front men will cost us title.
We need tevez and aguero to find the net.

[Foreverinbluedreams]

The real problem?

Now that Mario's gone it's obviously Marwood.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

Everyone just complains that teams stick ten men behind the ball. Yes they do, but the reason they do is because it works. It's our job to be able to still beat these teams.

We need to adapt our style of play, more width, quicker passing, more shots from distance rather than moaning about what the opposition do because that's not gonna change.