***official stoke at manchester city match thread***

[johnny crossan]

Watch on youtube.com

interesting take on last Saturday's game and what lies ahead for us

[Piccsnumberoneblue]

Not that interesting. Stating the obvious really

[DoomMerchant]

Not that interesting. Stating the obvious really

but Mark Noble is a pretty smart guy i think and you are overlooking his major point. Clearly ANY team can focus on defending but in the last few years only 2 teams have come to ours and won. His point is valid. They'll look at video of that match and understand what Hughes did to setup his team and try and emulate it, AND more importantly, and this is the magic that the rags have lost, they'll BELIEVE they can get something. As Noble said....when you play a team like City you know you can't match us for talent, etc...this is that x factor of teams coming into the match pre-defeated. We've lost that luster and will have to work that much harder for things for a while.

What he's saying may be obvious, but losing at home this early in the season gives hope to the cunts who will play like that. And we'll have to find a key to unlock them. We barely seemed to try to finish vs Stoke. We've got to find that higher gear. The setup was wrong from the Count with his forwards i think, but...it's a real life problem with the 3 forwards we've got all seeming like they are raring and ready to go.

cheers

[Piccsnumberoneblue]

Still think it is pretty obvious. Wigan and Chelsea also won at ours and did it by out playing us. Loads have come and tried to defend but failed. Like stoke last year, or Palace, or Hull. The other team that have caused us problems at home is Sunderland and again they did it by having a dart at us.

[Mikhail Chigorin]

Not that interesting. Stating the obvious really

He did say that Kolarov was "quick and strong", which made me smile.

[Wonderwall]

Still think it is pretty obvious. Wigan and Chelsea also won at ours and did it by out playing us. Loads have come and tried to defend but failed. Like stoke last year, or Palace, or Hull. The other team that have caused us problems at home is Sunderland and again they did it by having a dart at us.

palace were really stubborn last year and lasted a long time before we broke them for our 1-0 win. the big problem is our defending against teams like that, we are so open and vulnerable. I reckon I could train a team to beat us, its a very simple game plan.