***city v the ref, sorry v barca match thread***

[getdressedmctavish]

Edward, think my friend. You have a team of serial bottlers as you rightly describe them. Do you leave them isolated or do you say"we will have strength in numbers to give you some protection" Its about playing with what you have got, not what you ought to have. People go on about players running away from the ball and failing to make tackles but that is because Barca made the pitch large for us but small for them. That was because as those who can count on here realise, Barca played with only one up top, Suarez. The rest played across the park, mainly but not exclusively behind him. We played two strikers who are never for fucking christs sake gonna join in in midfield like Messi or Neymar. Everyone on the planet can see that.With a different formation we may still have played like cunts but we would have had a better chance of not being rogered like we were.The stupidity was drawing conclusions from playing the abject Toon for Barca. That is why I think the manager is naïve. As for Fernando, every one can see two things that are not optical illusions. His touch and passing is weak. He doesn't get close enough to win the ball often enough and is far too easily brushed off.I might add that he doesn't sniff danger enough. Apart from that he is pretty good.Any manager can make mistakes. Any manager can get beaten by a good side. Pellers keeps making the same mistake, because of his philosophy. I fuckin hate philosophers!lol

[Ted Hughes]

Edward, think my friend. You have a team of serial bottlers as you rightly describe them. Do you leave them isolated or do you say"we will have strength in numbers to give you some protection" Its about playing with what you have got, not what you ought to have. People go on about players running away from the ball and failing to make tackles but that is because Barca made the pitch large for us but small for them. That was because as those who can count on here realise, Barca played with only one up top, Suarez. The rest played across the park, mainly but not exclusively behind him. We played two strikers who are never for fucking christs sake gonna join in in midfield like Messi or Neymar. Everyone on the planet can see that.With a different formation we may still have played like cunts but we would have had a better chance of not being rogered like we were.The stupidity was drawing conclusions from playing the abject Toon for Barca. That is why I think the manager is naïve. As for Fernando, every one can see two things that are not optical illusions. His touch and passing is weak. He doesn't get close enough to win the ball often enough and is far too easily brushed off.I might add that he doesn't sniff danger enough. Apart from that he is pretty good.Any manager can make mistakes. Any manager can get beaten by a good side. Pellers keeps making the same mistake, because of his philosophy. I fuckin hate philosophers!lol

If we're just shit, we don't play Nasri & Silva. Simple. You just fill the team with defenders, park the bus & hope you get something. Chelsea probably would. Good luck to them.

This idea that playing some cunt extra in midfield would solve all our problems is absolute bollocks.
It was absolutely proved today, that when the players did what they were supposed to do, we were fully competitive in the game. It works. The manager knows that, the players know it, & tbf Roberto Martinez said the same thing.

If another manager could persuade those players to carry out the job they are supposed to do, then fair enough. But otherwise, don't get rid of the bloke who knows it works. Evolve into a side who will carry it out.

I'm still waiting for the example of a City team with Aguero on his own up front, actually not losing vs a decent side ? Anybody got one ?

[phips]

Clichy didn't close down on Messi for the opening goal.

no defender near Alba and Kompany fell asleep and let Suarez get behind him for the second.

stupid, reckless, unnecessary challenge by Zaba for the pen.


not gonna go very far in the CL with a shitty defense and poor holding mid like we have now.

[dick dastardley]

Men v boys the men won simple as that!!!!

[john@staustell]

Calm down boys - stranger things have happened, like winning IN Munich that time.

Barca have lost to Vigo and Malaga at home - they are under a lot of pressure at home as the boo boys make our old lads look like amateurs if someone puts a pass out of place. We seem to play better away.

[Original Dub]

Clichy didn't close down on Messi for the opening goal.

no defender near Alba and Kompany fell asleep and let Suarez get behind him for the second.

stupid, reckless, unnecessary challenge by Zaba for the pen.


not gonna go very far in the CL with a shitty defense and poor holding mid like we have now.

[CuteMancs]

Calm down boys - stranger things have happened, like winning IN Munich that time.

Barca have lost to Vigo and Malaga at home - they are under a lot of pressure at home as the boo boys make our old lads look like amateurs if someone puts a pass out of place. We seem to play better away.

Not to mention Yaya will be back and we play them three days before El Classico ....I'm trying to be a positive Blue

[john@staustell]

Calm down boys - stranger things have happened, like winning IN Munich that time.

Barca have lost to Vigo and Malaga at home - they are under a lot of pressure at home as the boo boys make our old lads look like amateurs if someone puts a pass out of place. We seem to play better away.

Not to mention Yaya will be back and we play them three days before El Classico ....I'm trying to be a positive Blue

Not sure having Yaya guarding our midfield is an advantage in this one tbh. We need the Roma/Bayern set-up.

[City64]

Clearer head this morning . We had to score first but we defended shite plus a fortunate bounce and we are one nil down and all over the place . Second half totally different , plenty to be confident there and looked like scoring again until we yet another fucking player sent off against these twats !!! Great save by joe fucking mint !!! plenty of positives from the second half . The CL is harsh we all understand this it isn't the end of the world ffs !!!!

[Ted Hughes]

Calm down boys - stranger things have happened, like winning IN Munich that time.

Barca have lost to Vigo and Malaga at home - they are under a lot of pressure at home as the boo boys make our old lads look like amateurs if someone puts a pass out of place. We seem to play better away.

Not to mention Yaya will be back and we play them three days before El Classico ....I'm trying to be a positive Blue

Not sure having Yaya guarding our midfield is an advantage in this one tbh. We need the Roma/Bayern set-up.

If we had a midfield to guard it would perhaps not be so much of a problem. Silva, Nasri, Dzeko should have been swarming in there rather than shaking hands with each other 20 yards further forward.

I think we need to consider evolving from Silva Nasri types, to Robben, Ribery types who have got the legs to get back & forward.

[Scatman]

Calm down boys - stranger things have happened, like winning IN Munich that time.

Barca have lost to Vigo and Malaga at home - they are under a lot of pressure at home as the boo boys make our old lads look like amateurs if someone puts a pass out of place. We seem to play better away.

Not to mention Yaya will be back and we play them three days before El Classico ....I'm trying to be a positive Blue

Not sure having Yaya guarding our midfield is an advantage in this one tbh. We need the Roma/Bayern set-up.

If we had a midfield to guard it would perhaps not be so much of a problem. Silva, Nasri, Dzeko should have been swarming in there rather than shaking hands with each other 20 yards further forward.

I think we need to consider evolving from Silva Nasri types, to Robben, Ribery types who have got the legs to get back & forward.

Or possibly Giggs

[iwasthere2012]

Calm down boys - stranger things have happened, like winning IN Munich that time.

Barca have lost to Vigo and Malaga at home - they are under a lot of pressure at home as the boo boys make our old lads look like amateurs if someone puts a pass out of place. We seem to play better away.

Not to mention Yaya will be back and we play them three days before El Classico ....I'm trying to be a positive Blue

Not sure having Yaya guarding our midfield is an advantage in this one tbh. We need the Roma/Bayern set-up.

If we had a midfield to guard it would perhaps not be so much of a problem. Silva, Nasri, Dzeko should have been swarming in there rather than shaking hands with each other 20 yards further forward.

I think we need to consider evolving from Silva Nasri types, to Robben, Ribery types who have got the legs to get back & forward.

Or possibly Giggs

Nah, he would hardly get into the Rags team, these days.

[Ted Hughes]

Calm down boys - stranger things have happened, like winning IN Munich that time.

Barca have lost to Vigo and Malaga at home - they are under a lot of pressure at home as the boo boys make our old lads look like amateurs if someone puts a pass out of place. We seem to play better away.

Not to mention Yaya will be back and we play them three days before El Classico ....I'm trying to be a positive Blue

Not sure having Yaya guarding our midfield is an advantage in this one tbh. We need the Roma/Bayern set-up.

If we had a midfield to guard it would perhaps not be so much of a problem. Silva, Nasri, Dzeko should have been swarming in there rather than shaking hands with each other 20 yards further forward.

I think we need to consider evolving from Silva Nasri types, to Robben, Ribery types who have got the legs to get back & forward.

Or possibly Giggs

That kind of player yes. Pace skill workrate & goals. Two of those plus 1 Aguero, plus three in midfield beats our two little jogging genii & any other combination most times imo.

[Scatman]

That kind of player yes. Pace skill workrate & goals. Two of those plus 1 Aguero, plus three in midfield beats our two little jogging genii & any other combination most times imo.

Are we developing any players into that type of system though?

I'd love to see the team you describe. They'd be destroyers, but I don't see the current management team playing that kind of syatem. Navas has the ability to do it but there has to be a reason he won't skin his man.

[sheblue]

Calm down boys - stranger things have happened, like winning IN Munich that time.

Barca have lost to Vigo and Malaga at home - they are under a lot of pressure at home as the boo boys make our old lads look like amateurs if someone puts a pass out of place. We seem to play better away.

Not to mention Yaya will be back and we play them three days before El Classico ....I'm trying to be a positive Blue

In a way its probably better for us if we know we have to win out there, a bit like Roma. If we went out there with a 2-1 or even 2-0 lead, we could very easily fuck that up trying to defend a lead, were not chelsea.
All this about formations, its crap, its down to attitude, concentration and sheer hard work. Silva and Nasri were very poor at marking, tracking and tackling last night, largely just leaving it for others. Thats not lack of ability, its poor attitude. Look at Silva for the second goal, no effort to get out to close down some space, why did he drift back into the box at all.
Second half after a wake up call, it was better, but more of that first half attitude in barca and its lambs to the slaughter, irrespective of formation.

[Foreverinbluedreams]

Got back from the match a bit ago. For what it's worth here are my post-match thoughts..

The players bottled it massively in the first half. For all the pre-match talk from Vinny and Nasri about showing Barca too much respect last season and how we weren't going to do that again, as soon as the whistle blew we went into our shells, seemingly overawed by the match and our opponents. Granted Barca have good players but give them as much time and space as we did and they will tear you apart and Messi especially had a field day in that first half. There is no way Pellegrini would have told the players to drop off Barca and give their players as much time on the ball as they wanted and to let them run at us at will so I can only imagine he was as frustrated and as angry as we were after that dreadful first half. It was so bad that their centre backs were running through our midfield as though it was non-existent as the team did not press them enough and this was what pissed me off more than anything else. I was really hoping we would press Barca from the front like we did so successfully against Newcastle on Saturday - I was hugely disappointed.

As the first half wore on more of our players went hiding and looked as though they simply didn't want the ball. I remember one occasion in the first half when Milner had the ball and everyone, including Silva, ran away from him!

Fernando did well in winning the ball but then looked scared of it when in possession and looked as though he wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible which caused us problems. So far he doesn't look good enough at this level and doesn't appear to be the upgrade on De Jong that we thought he would be

Kompany's poor form shows no sign of ending any time soon. He had a torrid first half and whilst not alone, the previous high standards he has set for himself highlight his mistakes more than anyone else's.

People are criticizing Pellegrini for playing with 2 strikers but it didn't seem to be a problem in the second half. I don't think it is entirely the system that was at fault but more the mentality of the players. Once we started playing with belief, aggression and tempo we showed that we could be a match for Barca, although I do think he should have brought Lampard not Bony on for Dzeko to change the system rather than making a like-for-like substitution

We need to be a lot smarter in Europe. Teams like Barca are very good at playing the refs and getting cheap free kicks - we need to wise up to this by either doing the same or not giving the ref the option to blow his whistle or we are never going to succeed in Europe

Barca are cheating cunts - especially ratboy

The odds are stacked against us to progress but Joe Hart's penalty save could prove to be huge. Fight til the end

This is more or less how I saw it too. Our front four did fuck all pressing in that first half which just invited pressure and we paid the price.

[South Stand Balti]

It's the first time in my life I have left the ground happy after a defeat. At half time I thought it was going to be a real pasting. It gives us a glimmer for the second leg until you think - 3 games against Bsrca in the last year, 3 sendings off for us and 3 pens for them. I suppose Messi not reaching the quarter finals would be a disaster for some.

[MilnersJaw]

We also need to stop paying top dollar for average players like fernando

[iwasthere2012]

Looking at this (the forum) in the cold light of day you would get the impression that there are two completely different views of last night's game, but on closer examination, I don't think the two main views being put forward are that diametrically opposed.
On the one hand you have those that seem to be saying that the system last night was not the problem and the players proved with an improved second half that it can work. On the other hand you have those that are saying that the personnel we employed in the positions given to them were not technically equipped to do the job that the system demands. I think I fall into this camp.
I think they are both sides of the same coin though, we weren't watching different matches.
My opinion from the outset was that for it to work last night Dzeko and Aguero would have to work their butts off when we were out of possession.
You can add to that, that Nasri and Silva would have to work their asses off covering the fullbacks as much as possible.
We had Milner and Fern2 in the middle that were never going to be able to handle things without the help of the front two.
Part of the problem in my mind is that I never have much faith in Dzeko and Aguero as a partnership. They don't work together, they play individually up front. Rarely take the better option of passing to the other when in a better position.
When we were out of possession, one of them should have been running his lungs out closing down the ball out of defence and the other should have been doing the same deeper back helping midfield. I never thought that this would be the case. This is just my view by the way.
I would have sacrificed Dzeko in that game and played Silva in the hole between Aguero and midfield, but that's just my preference again.
Our form has been patchy this season at best and I thought it was rather naive to expect the team formation put out to have the wherewithal to carry out a perfect plan for 93+ minutes. It's true that with with a slight adjustment in the second half we played better, but I still don't think we could play like that for ninety minutes and not concede. We may however have started like that and scored first, and found ourselves in a completely different game.
We all on here can see the same problems but interpret the solutions differently.
I'm perhaps conservative by nature and would go along with the philosophy of, 'what we have we hold', in this case. My priority last night would have been
1. Do not let them score, especially as early as they did. Keep it very tight and uncomfortable for them in the first half.
2. Try to negate their possession in the middle, force them to pick the ball up deeper and deeper in their half and apply pressure.

0-0 would have been good. 1-0 better. But above all else we should have ensured we put the pressure on them for the second leg.
putting Fern1 in the middle and Milner out wide (who works harder than Nasri) certainly improved things, but it put us one substitution down, just to rectify what was wrong in the first place. I think this made the Bony substitution for his début, a luxury we could not afford. I'm sure he was promised Champions League football, but I don't think we could afford to put him in, untried in a system that was struggling. We were getting a foothold, I think Lampard might have steadied the ship. All irrelevant now I know.
Saying we have never beaten anyone of significance playing with Aguero up top on his own is also irrelevant though, in my opinion. Whether he was playing or not we have done well recently against Bayern and Roma playing more or less one up top on their own. We can also say that putting out the formation we did last night has not been successful for us in against halfway decent teams in Europe.
At the end of the day none of us are the manager, we don't work with the team day in day out. Who knows what his instructions were to the team, but whether it's his or the teams fault, or both, it wasn't working. Some of us feel it never was going to work.
Stranger things have happened, we're still hanging in there in this tie, just about, but that's the way this team seem to do things.
Get back to winning ways on Sunday and things may look brighter.

[Ted Hughes]

That kind of player yes. Pace skill workrate & goals. Two of those plus 1 Aguero, plus three in midfield beats our two little jogging genii & any other combination most times imo.

Are we developing any players into that type of system though?

I'd love to see the team you describe. They'd be destroyers, but I don't see the current management team playing that kind of syatem. Navas has the ability to do it but there has to be a reason he won't skin his man.

All the kids' teams play that way.

What Pellegrini is trying to do, is a more advanced system, where the players take responsibility to move around & find space/cover. People call it 442, but it's hardly ever 442. What is really shit, is when Dzeko, Silva, Nasri, all step into midfield to harass & outpass Newcastle, & all pat each other on the back, then they all fuck off ut of the way for 45 mins when Barca turn up.

People are talking about 5 in the midfield, not because our system is outnumbered there, but because our players can't be arsed doing the job they have trained to do. Get Silva or Nasri out of the way further forward, stick someone in midfield who will comptete there, & there's one less to worry about, plus Silva or Nasri will naturally drop in, whereas Aguero/Dzeko need it stapling to their fucking heads before they do it properly, is what 5 in the midfield represents at City. But Aguero & Dzeko score goals, so they are not really the problem. Imo, the problem is Silva, Nasri & Yaya. Three of our best players who ofte don't tun up for European games.

I think our plan B, should be a couple of real tricky bastards, who can play as wide strikers but also drop into midfield & press. Then we can fix the midfield three, & have the option of switching to two strikers whenever we feel like it.