Niall Quinns Discopants wrote:Thing is, we were pretty pathetic going forward on saturday. There's no escaping that fact. Not getting proper playmaker in summer is coming to haunt us with these slow and negative as fuck midfielders running backwards there. As much as it pains to admit it, Mancini has got to carry some blame for that. There were some fucking quality attacking midfielders available, Van der Vaart for example, yet we just bulked the squad with million wingers and second rate fullbacks.
The idea of three holding midfielders and fullbacks going forward is shite. Back to drawing board in january me thinks.
We were very disjointed and piecemeal going forward and it looked to me that the players knew it after a while.. so they all took turns to try and shoot out of frustration. The whole too negative thing is just a massive OTT reaction after the Derby and is just people venting off. We were all over Birmingham in the second half but the players couldn't link up well enough to break through them. You have take into account that Brum were set up to do that, there is no point in pretending they didn't play a part. However no-one of our players seemed to perform well.. and certainly not together. It is also worth bearing in mind that Boateng and Kolarov have not played that many games and again it is a big ask from Bobby to expect them to fit in seamlessly. If anything apart from an off day for most of the attackers, we perhaps underestimated Birmingham, so both Mancini and the players were not ready for how resolute they were. We would have been better to stick with Micah and Zabba as FBs imo.
I think Mancini thought this would have been the perfect game for Kolarov and Boateng to get into the swing of things against an intimidated and overwhelmed Birmingham side. That didn't pan out and Brum were better organised than expected.
Conclusion: We are still not there and still bedding in players and still trying to find our edge partly because of that. Secondly going on from here it is a short term concern as a lot of teams will give us the same problem ( at Home ) and we have to be able to deal with it. All the teams we have had problems with have sat behind the ball, the teams we have had least problems with have tried to come and play.. Liverpool did and got outclassed, Chelsea did and lost out, Newcastle tried and lost out, Sunderland just sat there for 90 and nicked it, Blackburn sat there, even the rags sat back.
If you look at that trend you can easy see where our problem is, add our away form and it confirms that we are much better when teams have to come out.
Breaking down teams that are sat in their penalty area is not easy.. not even for Barca, and it takes and demands a lot of creativity and second nature understanding between players.
There is nothing particularly wrong with our set up, we just have to learn to know each other and get faster at making decisions and getting the ball through the oppositions massed ranks as though it is second nature. On an off day that can seem laborious and players resort to trying it alone, that is what happened v Brum.. Tevez, Yaya, Milner, AJ, Silva, Zabba, deJong all had a go at an individual attempt.
I have see the mighty Barca do exactly the same thing, so it can happen to the best of them. City as i say have to try and deal with it quickly.. and i imagine it is possibly why Mancini is putting so much store in Balotelli as he is crafty in close situations and has a poachers instinct, is quick witted and looks like he knows where the net is. I can understand in tight games he can be the key difference in the oppositions crowded area.
We will get better though even without Mario, will take time though.
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