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Has anyone noticed that every away ground we go to the pitch looks as though its been ploughed!

This isnt an excuse for tonights shambolic display, but its common knowledge we play possession football and it seems wherever we go now the pitch is absolutely atrocious. The ball was ballooning up non stop tonight.

However all this highlights is a need for a plan B, except, well, Bobby has removed all our plan B options and has left us threadbare.

What was plan A?

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:What was plan A?

You watch them train Mr H?

I think plan A involves, passing it to Silva or Tevez, Kolaraov bombs on while the rest do nothing.

It's winter and 3 of our last 4 away games have been at Leicester, Notts County, Brum. I remember the pitch at the Emirates being decent but I didn't see us playing possession football then. I don't think teams deliberately do this.

About plan As & Bs, I'm not sure a manager who cut his teeth in a country where poorly maintained shared stadia is the norm [strike]would be[/strike] should be completely oblivious.

svengali wrote:

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:What was plan A?

You watch them train Mr H?

I think plan A involves, passing it to Silva or Tevez, Kolaraov bombs on while the rest do nothing.

As I have said many times the one thing they do not do in training is anything close to what I would call match practice.The attacking work they practice is not done with a defence against them!

svengali wrote:Has anyone noticed that every away ground we go to the pitch looks as though its been ploughed!

This isnt an excuse for tonights shambolic display, but its common knowledge we play possession football and it seems wherever we go now the pitch is absolutely atrocious. The ball was ballooning up non stop tonight.

However all this highlights is a need for a plan B, except, well, Bobby has removed all our plan B options and has left us threadbare.

Spoke to a lad that works at City yesterday and he told me that at Notts after the rugby match the groundsman was told not to bother rolling it for the FA Cup game.

As for the St Andrews pitch, like a sunday league one and a joke for a premier league club.

This is absolutely no coincidence. That is the real home field advantage. When we were playing quick and direct football under Keegan, he apparently told the groundmen to water the pitch before the games so that the ball would move faster and apparently told to make the touchlines were as wide apart as possibly to create more space.

Every Club does this to suit the strenghts of their team.

That pitch was a disgrace; it certainly didn't help Silva and Tevez, particularly in the kind of quick one twos they like to play, because their passes, by definition, need to be timed to perfection and it was clear that far too many of them weren't coming off, but at the very least the team, and Mancini, should have cut their cloth, accordingly.