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I was at Wembley yesterday wasted the best part of £300 to take my son there, as you know that was the last pre season match, what have we learnt from our pre season?
I think what we learnt was that nastasic and boyota are awful, Clichy is not a right back and Kolarov can leave the rest a bit isolated as he plays forward. We had no defence playing yesterday which was odd. I stood next to some Belgium city fans and they had come to see kompany when we told them he was not playing they said well they'd see boyata and half the people who were listening said oh would not bother he is shit.

Then shortly after there was a fight between our fans ten people were chucked out, maybe the performance was dire so bad some fans decided to fight each other, perhaps so they could be ejected and not have to see the rest of the match!

OK it was the world cup and some of our boys went a long way into the competition so we were down a bit in strength but if Giroud could play where was Sagna?

All we know is despite the squad size we actually have about 15 players who are great a couple who are ok-ish and the rest needs selling and buy some better ones. It took a pre season to work that out the season starts Saturday and we have not got time to buy.

So we learnt nothing and gave the wrong players exposure and a run out, Sinclair, Micah,Nastasic ( please sell him id start a collection maybe we could buy him off the club and donate him to Liverpool!
I'm sure well be OK later on but why bother with that pre season we need a better one next year.

I think the 1st thing you should have learned from this prte season is not to attempt to learn too much from pre season programmes. Yesterday was a fixture dictated by tradition and certainly for City, after a World Cup, not a fixture we would have chosen.

The trips to Scotland and the USA were all about player fitness, assimilating some new players and complying with the wishes of the CFG Commercial Dept.

Our pre season preparation has been largely destroyed by the \World Cup, late returnees and players who last year were carrying injuries, having little chance to rest and heal.

Of course we had a poor back line, but Nastasic and Boyata are our 4th and 5th choices and neither are likely to see many minutes and only then in an emergency.Sinclair and Rodwell are not likely to figure either, so no worries there.

If you thought yesterday was anything more than an unwanted jogalong, then you were mistaken. Our sports science guys will have armed the coaching staff with the fitness data on individual players and advised them of minutes needed and at what intensity.

Kompany, Zaba, Aguero, etc sat in the stands and Mangala not yet arrived, should be all the info you needed.

No worries mate.

I share your frustration but we can't judge our forthcoming season based on our pre season. Too many of the team that will play in the league just have nt played any part in the warm up matches. It does worry me that we may start very slowly though.
Two things that did concern me yesterday was huge gaps in our crowd in the top tier. I was right behind the goal low down and was shocked when I looked round. The second thing was our failure to react tactically. Arse had an extra man in midfield and naturally took hold of the engine room. Why not do something to resolve this? Future opposition will do the same.

I'm assuming the op does actually understand that pre season is there to get the players fit etc & not to entertain the crowd ?

City have had a lot of players missing, some still aren't considered ready to play & some are only considered ready to play in short spells. The others have played. We have little choice in this, it is just how things are.

If all the players were available, then Pellegrini would have spent more time pre season on organisational, tactical drills etc but as the players aren't available he has had to make do filling holes with bit part players & has tried to find which ones are closest to the first team standard & give them some time on the pitch.

This is not ideal preperation at all & leaves us possibly going into the season a bit undercooked & effectively hoping we get enough done on the training ground & remember enough about how we played last season, so that we can hit the first few games in decent form. Whether that works remains to be seen, but it's nobodies fault, it's the cards we have been dealt & we have to get on with it. We stil had 58% possession in that game & more shots on target than Arsenal despite playing in 5th gear. Even with all their best players, when we put it together, we are still a class above them & we showed it from time to time even in that game. We can still play football.

BUT even if we had all our best players available & Lionel Messi as a new signing, we still could lose to Arsenal, Liverpool or anyone else. It's pre season. Arsenal dicked us last pre season & our defence was shit, & that was with our best players in it.

The last time Arsenal battered a side from this area 3-0 in a Charity Shield game, the team (who shall remain nameless) won the treble. The last time we lost a Charity Shield game, we beat the team involved 6-1 on their own ground a few months later.

It's nice to come out all guns blazing but it's nicer to finish that way, on top of the league.

South Stand Balti wrote:I share your frustration but we can't judge our forthcoming season based on our pre season. Too many of the team that will play in the league just have nt played any part in the warm up matches. It does worry me that we may start very slowly though.
Two things that did concern me yesterday was huge gaps in our crowd in the top tier. I was right behind the goal low down and was shocked when I looked round. The second thing was our failure to react tactically. Arse had an extra man in midfield and naturally took hold of the engine room. Why not do something to resolve this? Future opposition will do the same.

Like they did last season you mean ?

Ted Hughes wrote:

South Stand Balti wrote:I share your frustration but we can't judge our forthcoming season based on our pre season. Too many of the team that will play in the league just have nt played any part in the warm up matches. It does worry me that we may start very slowly though.
Two things that did concern me yesterday was huge gaps in our crowd in the top tier. I was right behind the goal low down and was shocked when I looked round. The second thing was our failure to react tactically. Arse had an extra man in midfield and naturally took hold of the engine room. Why not do something to resolve this? Future opposition will do the same.

Like they did last season you mean ?

Yes,teams have done that against us in the past. Wigan did it successfully in the cup and made life difficult in the league at the Etihad when Tevez got a late winner. Hull did the same from memory at home last season. The point is we can be outnumbered in midfield but don't seem to change it round as per yesterday. I know the personnel was nt our best but I can't understand why things were nt tweaked to prevent us being over run.

Last season:

Friendly 14 July 2013 SuperSport United South Africa 2 – 0 England Manchester City Pretoria, South Africa
Friendly 18 July 2013 AmaZulu South Africa 2 – 1 England Manchester City Durban, South Africa
Semi-final 24 July 2013 South China Hong Kong 0 – 1 England Manchester City So Kon Po, Hong Kong
Final 27 July 2013 Manchester City England 1 – 0 England Sunderland So Kon Po, Hong Kong
Semi-final 31 July 2013 Manchester City England 5 – 3 Italy Milan Munich, Germany
Final 1 August 2013 Bayern Munich Germany 2 – 1 England Manchester City Munich, Germany
10 August 2013 Manchester City England 1 – 3 England Arsenal

Just saying ...

what our preseason told us is that our season will start some time in September.

South Stand Balti wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:

South Stand Balti wrote:I share your frustration but we can't judge our forthcoming season based on our pre season. Too many of the team that will play in the league just have nt played any part in the warm up matches. It does worry me that we may start very slowly though.
Two things that did concern me yesterday was huge gaps in our crowd in the top tier. I was right behind the goal low down and was shocked when I looked round. The second thing was our failure to react tactically. Arse had an extra man in midfield and naturally took hold of the engine room. Why not do something to resolve this? Future opposition will do the same.

Like they did last season you mean ?

Yes,teams have done that against us in the past. Wigan did it successfully in the cup and made life difficult in the league at the Etihad when Tevez got a late winner. Hull did the same from memory at home last season. The point is we can be outnumbered in midfield but don't seem to change it round as per yesterday. I know the personnel was nt our best but I can't understand why things were nt tweaked to prevent us being over run.

Like we did at Chelsea last season & v Barca you mean ?

michaelcityfan wrote:I was at Wembley yesterday wasted the best part of £300 to take my son there, as you know that was the last pre season match, what have we learnt from our pre season?
I think what we learnt was that nastasic and boyota are awful, Clichy is not a right back and Kolarov can leave the rest a bit isolated as he plays forward. We had no defence playing yesterday which was odd. I stood next to some Belgium city fans and they had come to see kompany when we told them he was not playing they said well they'd see boyata and half the people who were listening said oh would not bother he is shit.

Then shortly after there was a fight between our fans ten people were chucked out, maybe the performance was dire so bad some fans decided to fight each other, perhaps so they could be ejected and not have to see the rest of the match!

OK it was the world cup and some of our boys went a long way into the competition so we were down a bit in strength but if Giroud could play where was Sagna?

All we know is despite the squad size we actually have about 15 players who are great a couple who are ok-ish and the rest needs selling and buy some better ones. It took a pre season to work that out the season starts Saturday and we have not got time to buy.

So we learnt nothing and gave the wrong players exposure and a run out, Sinclair, Micah,Nastasic ( please sell him id start a collection maybe we could buy him off the club and donate him to Liverpool!
I'm sure well be OK later on but why bother with that pre season we need a better one next year.

it's taught you never to spend £300 on a preseason friendly again

South Stand Balti wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:

South Stand Balti wrote:I share your frustration but we can't judge our forthcoming season based on our pre season. Too many of the team that will play in the league just have nt played any part in the warm up matches. It does worry me that we may start very slowly though.
Two things that did concern me yesterday was huge gaps in our crowd in the top tier. I was right behind the goal low down and was shocked when I looked round. The second thing was our failure to react tactically. Arse had an extra man in midfield and naturally took hold of the engine room. Why not do something to resolve this? Future opposition will do the same.

Like they did last season you mean ?

Yes,teams have done that against us in the past. Wigan did it successfully in the cup and made life difficult in the league at the Etihad when Tevez got a late winner. Hull did the same from memory at home last season. [highlight]The point is we can be outnumbered in midfield but don't seem to change it round as per yesterday.[/highlight] I know the personnel was nt our best but I can't understand why things were nt tweaked to prevent us being over run.

I thought about this yesterday and came to the conclusion that Pellers saw this as an exercise - with Yaya and Fernando faced with being overrun could this pairing come up with the answer where others might have failed in the key games you highlighted from last season where we were 4 v 5 in midfield?

Answer 'No' - better to have found the answer in a meaningless match than in an important one. Yes it's a pot but in a match where you can make 5 substitutions it's more geared to a friendly than a competitive match to be honest

I know Pellers says he always wants to win, I'm sure he does we all do but he knows whats most important at the same time. Interestingly the match stats - shots, possession and corners would support his argument that he wanted to win.

Thanks for the comments they helped and signing manguela cheered me right up. I was saddened to see our fans fighting each other don't know why it kicked off behind the goal. Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing the real deal next week and possibly waving nasty good bye. Hope we can keep Garcia I've warmed to him.

What we should have learned.
Jovetic is fit.
Dzeko is still hungry.
Fernando is going to take some time.
Boyata and Nastasic should not be playing together.
Clichy isn't a right back.
Navas looks quicker than last season.
Willy is as good a keeper as Hart with different strengths.
Sinclair may have a part to play in this team.
Rodwell is the latest in the long line of English players with an overly developed sense of entitlement and crybaby attitude.
Nasri should shut up.
Yaya should shut up.
David Silva is still a god.

Most importantly.
Pellers has earned our trust and a couple of poor friendly results shouldn't change that.

Spurge wrote:

South Stand Balti wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:

South Stand Balti wrote:I share your frustration but we can't judge our forthcoming season based on our pre season. Too many of the team that will play in the league just have nt played any part in the warm up matches. It does worry me that we may start very slowly though.
Two things that did concern me yesterday was huge gaps in our crowd in the top tier. I was right behind the goal low down and was shocked when I looked round. The second thing was our failure to react tactically. Arse had an extra man in midfield and naturally took hold of the engine room. Why not do something to resolve this? Future opposition will do the same.

Like they did last season you mean ?

Yes,teams have done that against us in the past. Wigan did it successfully in the cup and made life difficult in the league at the Etihad when Tevez got a late winner. Hull did the same from memory at home last season. [highlight]The point is we can be outnumbered in midfield but don't seem to change it round as per yesterday.[/highlight] I know the personnel was nt our best but I can't understand why things were nt tweaked to prevent us being over run.

I thought about this yesterday and came to the conclusion that Pellers saw this as an exercise - with Yaya and Fernando faced with being overrun could this pairing come up with the answer where others might have failed in the key games you highlighted from last season where we were 4 v 5 in midfield?

Answer 'No' - better to have found the answer in a meaningless match than in an important one. Yes it's a pot but in a match where you can make 5 substitutions it's more geared to a friendly than a competitive match to be honest

I know Pellers says he always wants to win, I'm sure he does we all do but he knows whats most important at the same time. Interestingly the match stats - shots, possession and corners would support his argument that he wanted to win.

We had a midfield minus Fernandinho & Silva & with some of the forwards not exactly busting a gut to get involved in play.

Silva came on, we dominated possession in midfield.

Can't judge anything from that game. If we really found it neccessary to change tactics in a proper game, we have the players to do so. But it didn't especially work last season, so there are no guarantees. On the other hand, we won the league & a cup playing two up front vs all manner of different systems & winning quite a lot, scoring a record number of goals.

Although it's important not to place too much emphasis on pre season, it's equally as important not to be too complacent and care free as we were two seasons ago.

Slim wrote:What we should have learned.
Jovetic is fit.
Dzeko is still hungry.
Fernando is going to take some time.
Boyata and Nastasic should not be playing together.
Clichy isn't a right back.
Navas looks quicker than last season.
Willy is as good a keeper as Hart with different strengths.
Sinclair may have a part to play in this team.
Rodwell is the latest in the long line of English players with an overly developed sense of entitlement and crybaby attitude.
Nasri should shut up.
Yaya should shut up.
David Silva is still a god.

Most importantly.
Pellers has earned our trust and a couple of poor friendly results shouldn't change that.

That seems about the size of it.

The Suits have had a great pre-season, over to the players, Manager and coaches.......