***Offishal City plays Notlob Thread -- it's in here ***

[brite blu sky]

I'm putting the defensive lapses down to early season rust, same goes for the amount of close misses. They did look sharper than the Swansea game and in a few more games will be well up to speed and sharp as fook. Great to see good performances from Milner, Dzeko and Bazzer, Yaya was better imo too. Kolorov and Micah also had good moments. Silva is just class even if he wasn't at his best.
After Notlob got their second we looked a bit disorganised for a short while.. missing DeJong at that moment.

If that game had been a few more weeks into the season it would have been 3-0 at HT and 6-0 at FT, but at this stage the 3 pts are in the bag and we already look like a real force going forward.

[Ted Hughes]

I thought Lescott was fine personally, made some great defensive blocks

He was pretty much pap mate...have a look at highlights and see his positioning for the first goal and outjumped by chicken breast Davies for their second.

I can't get my head round this. He was beaten to a header by Kevin Davies, like every other centre half that's ever played against Kevin Davies; Vidic, Terry all of them, every time they'ver pklayed him & like Vinny was just about every time he went near him. The difference is; most of the time when Davies wins the header, he misses. This time, he was lucky, it dropped in the corner of the net without him really connecting as he was trying to.

Lescott does more defending than anyone else. If he was pap, Vinny was worse.

[Beefymcfc]

I thought Lescott was fine personally, made some great defensive blocks

He was pretty much pap mate...have a look at highlights and see his positioning for the first goal and outjumped by chicken breast Davies for their second.

I can't get my head round this. He was beaten to a header by Kevin Davies, like every other centre half that's ever played against Kevin Davies; Vidic, Terry all of them, every time they'ver pklayed him & like Vinny was just about every time he went near him. The difference is; most of the time when Davies wins the header, he misses. This time, he was lucky, it dropped in the corner of the net without him really connecting as he was trying to.

Lescott does more defending than anyone else. If he was pap, Vinny was worse.

I agree with you there Ted, Lescott seemed to be on the end of everything and it was only the tenaCity (see what I did there) of Davies that forced the goal; they do say that most goals are a mistake from the defending team, but I think I'll give them the grace of 2 decent goals on this occasion.

On another note, what the fuck was Bobby doing leaving 3 up when they had a corner, especially away from home? I like it, but it's not very Italian is it.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

I thought Lescott was fine personally, made some great defensive blocks

He was pretty much pap mate...have a look at highlights and see his positioning for the first goal and outjumped by chicken breast Davies for their second.

I can't get my head round this. He was beaten to a header by Kevin Davies, like every other centre half that's ever played against Kevin Davies; Vidic, Terry all of them, every time they'ver pklayed him & like Vinny was just about every time he went near him. The difference is; most of the time when Davies wins the header, he misses. This time, he was lucky, it dropped in the corner of the net without him really connecting as he was trying to.

Lescott does more defending than anyone else. If he was pap, Vinny was worse.

Nice one Ted.To be fair to both sides of the argument Lescott didn't have his best game today but why does that mean he was pap and should be shot? I agree to that Vinnie was less than great today but it's what can happen when Davies sets out ,as he did today and always does,to rough the opposition up and go as far as he can with the referee with his constant fouling.

They scores 2 goals which we can do better on and hopefully will but that Klasnic goal was a fantastic finish and as Tevez showed later is a very hard skill.The Davies goal will go in about 1 out of 20.

Overall a good performance with some top class football and there is no way Bolton were only one goal worse.

Shame Aguero didn't score but he is human after all and to win without him or Tevez scoring is great.Dzeko is coming along well and doing what I always thought he would do but today there were a few others who played really well as well like Barry,Milner and of course Silva even though not at his sublime best.

[ant london]

I thought James Milner was bloody brilliant today. Gareth Barry had his second excellent game in two...I've criticsed both but they looked the business, and then some.

Today was overall very very encouraging on a number of fronts.

Feel v positive. Not just because we won

[blues2win]

The trouble with Lescott is that he's not a foil to Kompany which is the job description. His distribution isn't good enough but in my view his real failing is how often he allows himself to be bullied by centre forwards; bullied off the ball, failing to bully the opponent off the ball and bullied in the air. He's not a bad player: I just don't think he's good enough to be a top of the league centre half.

To answer Ted's point I don't think Toure's the answer either. We badly a really good aerially dominant central defender who's good on the ball and preferably has a good left foot. I thought I saw that Mancini still wanted a top class centre half and I can see why.

Trouble is there aren't many with that description around.

[bluej]

I thought Lescott was fine personally, made some great defensive blocks

He was pretty much pap mate...have a look at highlights and see his positioning for the first goal and outjumped by chicken breast Davies for their second.

I can't get my head round this. He was beaten to a header by Kevin Davies, like every other centre half that's ever played against Kevin Davies; Vidic, Terry all of them, every time they'ver pklayed him & like Vinny was just about every time he went near him. The difference is; most of the time when Davies wins the header, he misses. This time, he was lucky, it dropped in the corner of the net without him really connecting as he was trying to.

[highlight]Lescott does more defending than anyone else. If he was pap, Vinny was worse[/highlight].

Completely agree with this, I watched the game away from this site and I must admit I'm surprised about the amount of flak Lescott has copped in this thread compared to Kompany. I don't think there's too much to be concerned about, especially if we start putting away even half of the chances we created today.

[brite blu sky]

for what its worth also think the pistol-prick-kid is wrong to pick on Lescott, no worse than the others. As mentioned the sharpness will come for the whole team and without discrediting Notlob, if City had been working at full jannock to a man they would have cut out a lot of Notlob's forward link ups earlier... less corners and less crosses in.
Lescott proved in the run in last season that he was up to the job, if after another 3 games any of them are still making mini-fuck ups then we can get the water pistols out.

[zuricity]

MOM: Milner, what a game he had!

Lescott dont really have what it takes has he, cant wait for Kolo to take he's place.

Hes a good defender but not good enough to be a starter imo....clearly at fault for their 2nd and was suspect for their 1st.

Very suspect. The 2nd was pathetic defending.

Lots of things to be happy about though. We looked, at one stage, like there were 10 options every time we went forward. Maybe too many options, if you know what I mean. I know this, there are several teams going to get done 6 by us this year, we look full of goals.

Having seen everyone twice, almost, it's between us and The Rags for the league. I think Spurs might be the 3rd team, not Chelsea or Arsenal. Chelsea look slow and predictable, Arsenal Just a mess.

I reckon spurs will tonk united tomorrow.

[Beefymcfc]

I don't get this Lescott shit and people saying he has his failings. We all have them, even the best in the world but it seems that some like to micro-scrutinise with regard to a few of our players and Lescott is one of them. When Kolo went out last season Lescott came in and did a sterling job and within a few games started to really come into his own, so much so that I feel he took control of the CB pairing giving Vinny and the midfield real feedback and direction when things looked to go wrong. His only let down for me is his distibution but he's always been that no nonsense type of player, 'If in danger, kick it out', however, this is where Nige helps out and you may have noticed in many matches where Lescott will always look for that easy pass to Nige for him to then start the attack.

All-in-all I think he does the job just as good or if not better than many of the other top PL CB, and the bonus is that he is naturally left footed (Vinny prefers his current position and would have to move across if/when Kolo is back) which allows for more natural play.

And, I'm pretty sure he played around 40 games and had a big hand in a season where we kept the most clean sheets and the least goals of all PL teams. If that doesn't say something, I don't know what does.

[Beefymcfc]

MOM: Milner, what a game he had!

Lescott dont really have what it takes has he, cant wait for Kolo to take he's place.

Hes a good defender but not good enough to be a starter imo....clearly at fault for their 2nd and was suspect for their 1st.

Very suspect. The 2nd was pathetic defending.

Lots of things to be happy about though. We looked, at one stage, like there were 10 options every time we went forward. Maybe too many options, if you know what I mean. I know this, there are several teams going to get done 6 by us this year, we look full of goals.

Having seen everyone twice, almost, it's between us and The Rags for the league. I think Spurs might be the 3rd team, not Chelsea or Arsenal. Chelsea look slow and predictable, Arsenal Just a mess.

I reckon spurs will tonk united tomorrow.

Here's fucking hoping Zed.

[1950]

I reckon spurs will tonk united tomorrow.

Yeah, right.

Spurs Premier League record at OT: W 0 D 3 L 15 GS 8 GC 38

I'm expecting no more & no less than the usual gutless jittery shite from Spurs.

[Beefymcfc]

I reckon spurs will tonk united tomorrow.

Yeah, right.

Spurs Premier League record at OT: W 0 D 3 L 15 GS 8 GC 38

I'm expecting no more & no less than the usual gutless jittery shite from Spurs.

The thing is, if Spurs can't put a good game together against a depleted Rag team tomorrow then they may as well pack it all up now.

I'm looking forward to the game tomorrow as I want to see how both teams fare. Let's just hope that Ole Whiskey Nose doesn't get to Ole Twitchy Bastard before the game starts, otherwise he'll be entering the dressing room shaking like a shitting dog.

[phips]

Silva, Milner, Barry, Richards, and Dzeko were our best players today. Not sure what was going on with Yaya...maybe Mancini had him sit deeper or that's just what happened but he was largely anonymous going forward..he was good in defense.

Am I the only one who thought Tevez was fairly dreadful in his sub appearance? Too selfish and a bit lazy at some points....AJ's cross was straight across the front of goal with a gaping net and Tevez failed to continue his run because he doubted AJ's ability to get a cross in; I feel like Tevez last year would've bundled that ball into the goal.

[carl_feedthegoat]

for what its worth also think the pistol-prick-kid is wrong to pick on Lescott, no worse than the others. As mentioned the sharpness will come for the whole team and without discrediting Notlob, if City had been working at full jannock to a man they would have cut out a lot of Notlob's forward link ups earlier... less corners and less crosses in.
Lescott proved in the run in last season that he was up to the job, if after another 3 games any of them are still making mini-fuck ups then we can get the water pistols out.

Lescott was at fault for both goals.......so in effect he was " worse than the others"......even Vinnyhas been unimpressive these last 2 games and needs to focus more..giving away stupid free kicks is getting on my tits.

[HeyMark]

for what its worth also think the pistol-prick-kid is wrong to pick on Lescott, no worse than the others. As mentioned the sharpness will come for the whole team and without discrediting Notlob, if City had been working at full jannock to a man they would have cut out a lot of Notlob's forward link ups earlier... less corners and less crosses in.
Lescott proved in the run in last season that he was up to the job, if after another 3 games any of them are still making mini-fuck ups then we can get the water pistols out.

Lescott was at fault for both goals.......so in effect he was " worse than the others"......even Vinnyhas been unimpressive these last 2 games and needs to focus more..giving away stupid free kicks is getting on my tits.

There was a moment in the 2nd half when vinny went chasing the ball and Bolton played it round him with ease, luckily it was eagles who got the ball in the box but I have to admit it was a bit worrying

[carl_feedthegoat]

Tyler....again called us United during the match.........is this guy a complete fucking turd or what?..How many times has he fucked this up over the years.

FUCK OFF TYLER YOU FUCKIING RAG SUCKING TURD BOLLOCK.

[Dubaimancityfan]

Missed the match completely as I was on a flight to Frankfurt at the time. Checked the last 3 pages and didn't see much said about Kun !
I gather he had a quiet match and missed a couple of chances. Is that it in a nutshell ?

[guv111]

MOTD(2) is cringeworthy. It's like fucking CBBC. Tatty, amateurish crap.

Off to the official site, then, for some decent highlights, rather than five minutes.

Twat presenter Colin Murray - "City have to stop spending at some point..." Football on TV aimed at kids and morons.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

Silva, Milner, Barry, Richards, and Dzeko were our best players today. Not sure what was going on with Yaya...maybe Mancini had him sit deeper or that's just what happened but he was largely anonymous going forward..he was good in defense.

Am I the only one who thought Tevez was fairly dreadful in his sub appearance? Too selfish and a bit lazy at some points....AJ's cross was straight across the front of goal with a gaping net and Tevez failed to continue his run because he doubted AJ's ability to get a cross in; I feel like Tevez last year would've bundled that ball into the goal.

Yaya had a completely different role today to Monday.He sat deeper but as a proper midfield player but without the surging runs. Played pretty well too.