I feel SO sorry for Yaya!

[Rag_hater]

I don't think people are giving Spuds enough credit.They are one of the best teams in the prem and although Yaya and the others made a few mistakes I think this was down to the quality of the opposition.
To me its no suprise how the game went yesterday.
In fact I thought we were gonna be under the cosh a lot more and Yaya and the other midfielders seemed to nullify them more less totally in the second half.

[Beefymcfc]

I don't think people are giving Spuds enough credit.They are one of the best teams in the prem and although Yaya and the others made a few mistakes I think this was down to the quality of the opposition.
To me its no suprise how the game went yesterday.
In fact I thought we were gonna be under the cosh a lot more and Yaya and the other midfielders seemed to nullify them more less totally in the second half.

I don't think anybody on here knew how good Spurs were, but would you say that it was down to the first half tactics then, if we nullified them in the second half?

[Rag_hater]

I don't think people are giving Spuds enough credit.They are one of the best teams in the prem and although Yaya and the others made a few mistakes I think this was down to the quality of the opposition.
To me its no suprise how the game went yesterday.
In fact I thought we were gonna be under the cosh a lot more and Yaya and the other midfielders seemed to nullify them more less totally in the second half.

I don't think anybody on here knew how good Spurs were, but would you say that it was down to the first half tactics then, if we nullified them in the second half?

I think Spurs will do that to almost every team.Maybe youre right and we did change a little tactically in the second half to make them less of a threat and if we had gone out the first half like we did in the second,we wouldn't have been so pressurised.But I think personally that it being the first game in the Prem for some of our boys and being away from home with some other factors the first half was always going to be a learning curve.I think we learn't how to nullify them pretty quick.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

he gave the ball away because no other city player gave him an option, so he was closed down. When a city player had the ball he gave them an option there is the diffrence.

And calling players like De Jong and Barry mongs, Micah yeah but I thought the other two did ok today. De Jong made some telling tackles today. Everyone of our players gave the ball away cheaply today and I hope that Mancini works on this as it will kill us agaisnt your Man Us and Chelseas.

I was calling de jong and barry a mong because they kept playing the ball over the top to tevez rather than keeping the ball. you cant force people to just chase after the ball. I thought barry was quite strong with his body and passing sideways is great. If ade would of started with tevez i would of thought playing those balls over the top was a decent idea to mix it up. But we just gave the ball away for no reason other than to try and find the killer pass. But its early i actually rate barry but i think mancini is not sure who to play in the middle because you cant play barry on the left in my opinion, unless its left back.

Barry was shoehorned onto the left hand side after we were given a roasting in the first half. Playing narrow against a side whose main tactic is to get it to their widemen was a bit daft on reflection.

If we had matched their formation maybe we would have won the game?

As for De Jong, he was better in the second half when he, Yaya, and Gareth were spread out rather than all playing within 2 yards of each other. To often Mancini plays players so close together that it gives the sch little room in which to operate in and leaves other areas exposed. Like the wings against Spurs!!

I agree regarding tactics. I think the plan was for us to dominate central midfield and have more posession. However that wasn't happening in the first half. Once they spread little in second half, we had the majority of posession and started looking better.

The main problem is still there though, we lack real attacking playmaker and there's huge hole between attack and midfield. That's why we needed a proper playmaker.

[Grob]

he gave the ball away because no other city player gave him an option, so he was closed down. When a city player had the ball he gave them an option there is the diffrence.

And calling players like De Jong and Barry mongs, Micah yeah but I thought the other two did ok today. De Jong made some telling tackles today. Everyone of our players gave the ball away cheaply today and I hope that Mancini works on this as it will kill us agaisnt your Man Us and Chelseas.

I was calling de jong and barry a mong because they kept playing the ball over the top to tevez rather than keeping the ball. you cant force people to just chase after the ball. I thought barry was quite strong with his body and passing sideways is great. If ade would of started with tevez i would of thought playing those balls over the top was a decent idea to mix it up. But we just gave the ball away for no reason other than to try and find the killer pass. But its early i actually rate barry but i think mancini is not sure who to play in the middle because you cant play barry on the left in my opinion, unless its left back.

Barry was shoehorned onto the left hand side after we were given a roasting in the first half. Playing narrow against a side whose main tactic is to get it to their widemen was a bit daft on reflection.

If we had matched their formation maybe we would have won the game?

As for De Jong, he was better in the second half when he, Yaya, and Gareth were spread out rather than all playing within 2 yards of each other. To often Mancini plays players so close together that it gives the sch little room in which to operate in and leaves other areas exposed. Like the wings against Spurs!!

I agree regarding tactics. I think the plan was for us to dominate central midfield and have more posession. However that wasn't happening in the first half. Once they spread little in second half, we had the majority of posession and started looking better.

The main problem is still there though, we lack real attacking playmaker and there's huge hole between attack and midfield. That's why we needed a proper playmaker.

I thought the biggest hole we had was not having any players in the spurs box when we got near their goal.

[BlueMoonAwoken]

he gave the ball away because no other city player gave him an option, so he was closed down. When a city player had the ball he gave them an option there is the diffrence.

And calling players like De Jong and Barry mongs, Micah yeah but I thought the other two did ok today. De Jong made some telling tackles today. Everyone of our players gave the ball away cheaply today and I hope that Mancini works on this as it will kill us agaisnt your Man Us and Chelseas.

I was calling de jong and barry a mong because they kept playing the ball over the top to tevez rather than keeping the ball. you cant force people to just chase after the ball. I thought barry was quite strong with his body and passing sideways is great. If ade would of started with tevez i would of thought playing those balls over the top was a decent idea to mix it up. But we just gave the ball away for no reason other than to try and find the killer pass. But its early i actually rate barry but i think mancini is not sure who to play in the middle because you cant play barry on the left in my opinion, unless its left back.

Barry was shoehorned onto the left hand side after we were given a roasting in the first half. Playing narrow against a side whose main tactic is to get it to their widemen was a bit daft on reflection.

If we had matched their formation maybe we would have won the game?

As for De Jong, he was better in the second half when he, Yaya, and Gareth were spread out rather than all playing within 2 yards of each other. To often Mancini plays players so close together that it gives the sch little room in which to operate in and leaves other areas exposed. Like the wings against Spurs!!

I agree regarding tactics. I think the plan was for us to dominate central midfield and have more posession. However that wasn't happening in the first half. Once they spread little in second half, we had the majority of posession and started looking better.

The main problem is still there though, we lack real attacking playmaker and there's huge hole between attack and midfield. That's why we needed a proper playmaker.

I thought thats what silva was bought for to be the playmaker?

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

I agree regarding tactics. I think the plan was for us to dominate central midfield and have more posession. However that wasn't happening in the first half. Once they spread little in second half, we had the majority of posession and started looking better.

The main problem is still there though, we lack real attacking playmaker and there's huge hole between attack and midfield. That's why we needed a proper playmaker.

I thought the biggest hole we had was not having any players in the spurs box when we got near their goal.

Think we are talking about......errrrmmmm....same hole.

I thought thats what silva was bought for to be the playmaker?

That's what loads of people seemed to think but I kind of expected he'd play in the left and he was there on saturday.

[john@staustell]

It's easy to be over-critical when we've just had one of the hardest away games there is, with a team of strangers and including Richards.

Spuds will roll over a few there this year. Haven't they beaten Chelsea and Arsenal very recently?

It's all very well to say we should've played/formed more up the field, but who's to say we wouldn't have been anihilated?

[london blue 2]

I thought the biggest hole we had was not having any players in the spurs box when we got near their goal.

well said Grob, I thought this was our main problem, Tevez looks like he's been watching Rooney for england! too much time taking the ball off our midfilders in the centre circle.

[Grob]

It's easy to be over-critical when we've just had one of the hardest away games there is, with a team of strangers and including Richards.

Spuds will roll over a few there this year. Haven't they beaten Chelsea and Arsenal very recently?

It's all very well to say we should've played/formed more up the field, but who's to say we wouldn't have been anihilated?

We were anhililated for 45 minutes, they just didnt manage to score due to excellent goalkeeping and bad luck.

On first half tactics led alot to be desired. The first rule when playing good teams away is to stop the oppo playing their game. We let Spurs play theirs and so were on the back foot.

I can see the arguement that its a new team but Tevez dropping off condensed us, the 3 in midfield were too central, and the only player who got into the spurs box before Ade came on was Shaun and he was off the pace in general.

Basically flawed tactics again for me.

[Grob]

I thought the biggest hole we had was not having any players in the spurs box when we got near their goal.

Think we are talking about......errrrmmmm....same hole

Your talking about the lack of a playmaker, Im talking about the lack someone to play as a striker, different holes I think.