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

[Ted Hughes]

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.

Aguero upfont on his own is not irrelevent at all, it is testing the theory.

Aguero on his own v Bayern= Bayern with ten men run fucking rings round City, dominate possession & score twice. Aguero + Jovetic= City put pressure on Bayern's shit defence & win.

Our players refuse to compete with sides like Bayern no matter how many we play in midfield. Aguero is nowhere near as good without a player to pull away defenders & almost all of his worst performances are when he plays as a lone striker.

That is a proven fact & not irrelevant at all.

It COULD work. People who say it's a no brainer, are talking through their fucking arses, because we have tried it & failed, loads of times.

It COULD work playing two up top. Provided one of them drops in & works for the ball (preferably both).

Either way, it needs the whole team to turn up. If we play v Liverpool like we did first half v Barca/ Bayern, we will lose. Whatever the formation.

[iwasthere2012]

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.

You see, I accept all of that, although the U19's yesterday would not be a good advertisement for your theory. I'm sure it was an off day.
But what I take out of what you are saying, is that we have the personnel, but not the personnel that will effectively and consistently play that style in Europe.
We may need to change the personnel, I won't mention any names, if we persist with this plan.
Are the players we have capable of doing what we say they should be doing, well I would say yes, there is no reason why not, but they rarely do.
I do think there are some big decisions to be made this summer, regarding who we will replace and whether we promote a quota of home grown players into the squad and use our funds to sign real quality only.

[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.

You see, I accept all of that, although the U19's yesterday would not be a good advertisement for your theory. I'm sure it was an off day.
But what I take out of what you are saying, is that we have the personnel, but not the personnel that will effectively and consistently play that style in Europe.
We may need to change the personnel, I won't mention any names, if we persist with this plan.
Are the players we have capable of doing what we say they should be doing, well I would say yes, there is no reason why not, but they rarely do.
I do think there are some big decisions to be made this summer, regarding who we will replace and whether we promote a quota of home grown players into the squad and use our funds to sign real quality only.

I think the Premier League & the Champions League are two different problems. Barca & Bayern don't have to play in the Prem every week; we do. We have seen British teams park the bus v Barca & Bayern & get results. We have to overcome that regularly. They don't.

Would you bet your life on Barca beating Chelsea if they parked the bus for 180 mins ? I wouldn't.

We are trying to evolve into a club that wins by playing great football, both in Europe & in the Prem. No team has yet done that succesfully.

It's not easy & I think it's fair to say that the current bunch of players have proved they can't do it. Well 'can't' is the wrong word; 'won't' do it because they will freeze & fuck it up, is probably the truth. They are good enough to have won last night if they played to their ability.

Our performances in Europe have been pitiful. Not because CSKA Moscow are better than Southampton or Spurs, but because we were fucking shite.

We seemed to play with confidence & determination in Rome & all talked about how things have changed. Then froze again v Barca. You could almost superimpose an image of the Barca game, onto an image taken from Dortmund game, or the Bayern game,even the CSKa game & find the same players on the wrong side of the oppo midfield when they have the ball. That would be excusable, if those players were caught out pressing the ball up there but they weren't pressing either. Commentator mentioned 'a lot of pointing going on'. That was people pressing & pointing to others, where they have been training all week & aren't doing.

Top & bottom of it is, we are too slow, too cowardly in possession, & don't work hard enough, to compete with Bayern & Barca. Perhaps Pep Guardiola could work some miracle to fix that, but I doubt it would be with more than about 6 or 7 of the players who started last night.

Time to start evolving to the next phase, & I don't mean the manager.

[iwasthere2012]

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.

You see, I accept all of that, although the U19's yesterday would not be a good advertisement for your theory. I'm sure it was an off day.
But what I take out of what you are saying, is that we have the personnel, but not the personnel that will effectively and consistently play that style in Europe.
We may need to change the personnel, I won't mention any names, if we persist with this plan.
Are the players we have capable of doing what we say they should be doing, well I would say yes, there is no reason why not, but they rarely do.
I do think there are some big decisions to be made this summer, regarding who we will replace and whether we promote a quota of home grown players into the squad and use our funds to sign real quality only.

I think the Premier League & the Champions League are two different problems. Barca & Bayern don't have to play in the Prem every week; we do. We have seen British teams park the bus v Barca & Bayern & get results. We have to overcome that regularly. They don't.

Would you bet your life on Barca beating Chelsea if they parked the bus for 180 mins ? I wouldn't.

We are trying to evolve into a club that wins by playing great football, both in Europe & in the Prem. No team has yet done that succesfully.

It's not easy & I think it's fair to say that the current bunch of players have proved they can't do it. Well 'can't' is the wrong word; 'won't' do it because they will freeze & fuck it up, is probably the truth. They are good enough to have won last night if they played to their ability.

Our performances in Europe have been pitiful. Not because CSKA Moscow are better than Southampton or Spurs, but because we were fucking shite.

We seemed to play with confidence & determination in Rome & all talked about how things have changed. Then froze again v Barca. You could almost superimpose an image of the Barca game, onto an image taken from Dortmund game, or the Bayern game,even the CSKa game & find the same players on the wrong side of the oppo midfield when they have the ball. That would be excusable, if those players were caught out pressing the ball up there but they weren't pressing either. Commentator mentioned 'a lot of pointing going on'. That was people pressing & pointing to others, where they have been training all week & aren't doing.

Top & bottom of it is, we are too slow, too cowardly in possession, & don't work hard enough, to compete with Bayern & Barca. Perhaps Pep Guardiola could work some miracle to fix that, but I doubt it would be with more than about 6 or 7 of the players who started last night.

Time to start evolving to the next phase, & I don't mean the manager.

All this proves to me is that, although it looks at times that we on here are arguing from completely opposing viewpoints, I think the opposite is through more often than not. We all seem to be seeing the same problem, but depending on our own character we react to it differently.
I think what it will boil down to is, what the Club intend to go forward with as their policy. Us looking for individual blame (manager or players) in specific matches is irrelevant. Our future in Europe and the kind of football we persist with will ultimately come down to what the Club policy on the matter will be.

[Ted Hughes]

When the rags started playing in the Champions League, they got turned over year in year out.

In the end, they had to accept that some of their 'star' players, for whatever reason, don't turn up. They changed a few & started to compete.

[Peter Doherty (AGAIG)]

When the rags started playing in the Champions League, they got turned over year in year out.

In the end, they had to accept that some of their 'star' players, for whatever reason, don't turn up. They changed a few & started to compete.

Ince and Cuntona spring to mind.

[Scatman]

When the rags started playing in the Champions League, they got turned over year in year out.

In the end, they had to accept that some of their 'star' players, for whatever reason, don't turn up. They changed a few & started to compete.

This is our fourth attempt at the Champions League. Are we in the "started playing" stage still?

And in what way did they get turned over year in year out?

In their third appearance they got to the semi. By the end of their fourth campaign they had lost 6 out of 28 games. The following year they didn't lose a single game.

If we pretend our fourth campaign ends now, we have lost 11 out of 25 fixtures. Thats more than double the number of defeats.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

When the rags started playing in the Champions League, they got turned over year in year out.

In the end, they had to accept that some of their 'star' players, for whatever reason, don't turn up. They changed a few & started to compete.

True, they got players such as Park Ji Sung, Wes Brown, Darren Fletcher and John O'Shea to turn in performances miles better than anything we saw from most our players last night or in this competition generally.

[Hazy2]

Since the Draw and planning without Yaya, it did appear that changes made which were ill thought out. It seemed to confuse everything. Every person I was with in town said the same FFS. on entering the ground I spoke with an ex pro he said 2 UPFRONT suicide it will not work. Why did we see that coming ? Messi 1 v 1 for 45 mins was crazy from MP and killed Glichy, no cover against him WTF was that about.

[Aggressive Walkling]

Just want to chime in and say I have enjoyed reading the discussion here. I've gotten to the point this year of swearing off reading all internet discussion of City because it inevitably devolves to "ARRRRRR PELLERS THE COONT 4-4-2 DOESN'T WORK INFLEXIBLE NAIVE BLAH BLAH BLAH." At this point in time I generally slam my laptop closed.

For what it is worth, Atletico Madrid routinely twats UEFAlona playing a 4-4-2. Granted, their system is more or less designed specifically to counter those twats. They will largely cede possession on the wings but compress the center of the field, press them with utter ferocity, and dare them to score via tossing it in from outside. Which they are of course quite ill-equipped to do.

Obviously this approach would not fit our personnel at all. But basically that is the point. Personnel, approach, mentality. So much more relevant to how things play on the pitch.

And as someone said a few pages ago, our 4-4-2 really does not operate a whole lot like the traditional idea of same. I'd call it a 4-2-2-2 as often as anything. (And Pellers had a lot of success with this at the Yellow Submarine. Also, really at Real but unfortunately in a year where UEFAcuntalona tallied 99 points or whatever.

Anyway, thank you lads collectively for rescuing my faith in the football knowledge of City fans. You can probably guess where I have generally been reading things.

[iwasthere2012]

Aguero upfont on his own is not irrelevent at all, it is testing the theory.

Aguero on his own v Bayern= Bayern with ten men run fucking rings round City, dominate possession & score twice. Aguero + Jovetic= City put pressure on Bayern's shit defence & win.

Our players refuse to compete with sides like Bayern no matter how many we play in midfield. Aguero is nowhere near as good without a player to pull away defenders & almost all of his worst performances are when he plays as a lone striker.

That is a proven fact & not irrelevant at all.

It COULD work. People who say it's a no brainer, are talking through their fucking arses, because we have tried it & failed, loads of times.

It COULD work playing two up top. Provided one of them drops in & works for the ball (preferably both).

Either way, it needs the whole team to turn up. If we play v Liverpool like we did first half v Barca/ Bayern, we will lose. Whatever the formation.

I suppose "irrelevant" may not be the proper word to use.
I suppose what I'm trying to convey is that you can get caught up in the semantics of what is a 442 or a 4411 or a 4231. I'm not sure what you would call Jovetic in the side with Aguero but I would not call it whatever that was last night.
You say it yourself in the highlighted text, it could work if....... That's what we needed I think we all agreed, but I don't think last night's team were the team to do that. I don't regard that as a Dzeko/Aguero type 442 which is probably getting caught up on semantics myself.
I think I mentioned somewhere along the line that by and large I don't think those two are a partnership. They are two individuals playing up front. There was no room for individuals in our team last night, we needed to execute a perfect plan as a team. Everyone working as a unit.
I think we all agree in what was needed, calling it a fault in a system or a fault in personnel executing a plan or system is probably the irrelevant bit.

[bayblue]

I don't get the shit Joe Hart is getting from some people on this thread. His saves kept the scoreline respectable and he wasn't at fault for either goal so why some posters have singled him out is beyond me when there were many others in a blue shirt who were worse. Aguero did fuck all in the first half and was strolling about instead of pressing their defenders like he should have done yet gets away with it. Silva was hiding in the first half too but that doesn't get a mention either

Agree about Hart but you're plain wrong about Silva. What on earth did you see that makes you think he was hiding?

The fact that he was running away from the City player in possession of the ball - one occasion in particular springs to mind where Milner had the ball and was desperately looking for someone to pass to. Silva was the closest player to him and instead of giving Milner an option and being available for the ball as he always is in the Prem, ran away from him. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. His only mitigation (if you can call it that) is that he wasn't alone in this. A prime example of how as a team we bottled it in the first half

Did you watch the game on tv? Not having a go just asking because if you did then you probably wouldn't have seen what I did

No. Was there. Dunno which specific instance you mean or what the other player movements were but there were many more where he, as he does 95% plus of the time, was the go to man.

[Wonderwall]

Aguero upfont on his own is not irrelevent at all, it is testing the theory.

Aguero on his own v Bayern= Bayern with ten men run fucking rings round City, dominate possession & score twice. Aguero + Jovetic= City put pressure on Bayern's shit defence & win.

Our players refuse to compete with sides like Bayern no matter how many we play in midfield. Aguero is nowhere near as good without a player to pull away defenders & almost all of his worst performances are when he plays as a lone striker.

That is a proven fact & not irrelevant at all.

It COULD work. People who say it's a no brainer, are talking through their fucking arses, because we have tried it & failed, loads of times.

It COULD work playing two up top. Provided one of them drops in & works for the ball (preferably both).

Either way, it needs the whole team to turn up. If we play v Liverpool like we did first half v Barca/ Bayern, we will lose. Whatever the formation.

I suppose "irrelevant" may not be the proper word to use.
I suppose what I'm trying to convey is that you can get caught up in the semantics of what is a 442 or a 4411 or a 4231. I'm not sure what you would call Jovetic in the side with Aguero but I would not call it whatever that was last night.
You say it yourself in the highlighted text, it could work if....... That's what we needed I think we all agreed, but I don't think last night's team were the team to do that. I don't regard that as a Dzeko/Aguero type 442 which is probably getting caught up on semantics myself.
I think I mentioned somewhere along the line that by and large I don't think those two are a partnership. They are two individuals playing up front. There was no room for individuals in our team last night, we needed to execute a perfect plan as a team. Everyone working as a unit.
I think we all agree in what was needed, calling it a fault in a system or a fault in personnel executing a plan or system is probably the irrelevant bit.

With regards to the highlighted text from Ted. I don't know if he has not had enough time with the squad yet, but last night but Bony had me fucking raging, he was last on and fresh and couldn't be arsed to track a run which ended up going 50 yds and was unchallenged until outside our box. . He jogged when he could see he was the closest City player and it became apparent all the other city players were occupied he fucking stopped. If I was on that pitch last night I would have crucified him because that shit is just unacceptable, I am not sure if anything was picked up on TV but it was fucking infuriating.

[iwasthere2012]

Aguero upfont on his own is not irrelevent at all, it is testing the theory.

Aguero on his own v Bayern= Bayern with ten men run fucking rings round City, dominate possession & score twice. Aguero + Jovetic= City put pressure on Bayern's shit defence & win.

Our players refuse to compete with sides like Bayern no matter how many we play in midfield. Aguero is nowhere near as good without a player to pull away defenders & almost all of his worst performances are when he plays as a lone striker.

That is a proven fact & not irrelevant at all.

It COULD work. People who say it's a no brainer, are talking through their fucking arses, because we have tried it & failed, loads of times.

It COULD work playing two up top. Provided one of them drops in & works for the ball (preferably both).

Either way, it needs the whole team to turn up. If we play v Liverpool like we did first half v Barca/ Bayern, we will lose. Whatever the formation.

I suppose "irrelevant" may not be the proper word to use.
I suppose what I'm trying to convey is that you can get caught up in the semantics of what is a 442 or a 4411 or a 4231. I'm not sure what you would call Jovetic in the side with Aguero but I would not call it whatever that was last night.
You say it yourself in the highlighted text, it could work if....... That's what we needed I think we all agreed, but I don't think last night's team were the team to do that. I don't regard that as a Dzeko/Aguero type 442 which is probably getting caught up on semantics myself.
I think I mentioned somewhere along the line that by and large I don't think those two are a partnership. They are two individuals playing up front. There was no room for individuals in our team last night, we needed to execute a perfect plan as a team. Everyone working as a unit.
I think we all agree in what was needed, calling it a fault in a system or a fault in personnel executing a plan or system is probably the irrelevant bit.

With regards to the highlighted text from Ted. I don't know if he has not had enough time with the squad yet, but last night but Bony had me fucking raging, he was last on and fresh and couldn't be arsed to track a run which ended up going 50 yds and was unchallenged until outside our box. . He jogged when he could see he was the closest City player and it became apparent all the other city players were occupied he fucking stopped. If I was on that pitch last night I would have crucified him because that shit is just unacceptable, I am not sure if anything was picked up on TV but it was fucking infuriating.

Agree WW, but as I said a few pages back, I think putting Bony on last night for his début, was not something we could afford to do in the end. I think we wasted one substitution trying to rectify the problems we had. Fern1 had to come on to put Milner out wide, which put Nasri off. We've gone round the houses about what could or couldn't work, but my personal preference would not to have started with Aguero/Dzeko.
But what do I know.

[Wonderwall]

Aguero upfont on his own is not irrelevent at all, it is testing the theory.

Aguero on his own v Bayern= Bayern with ten men run fucking rings round City, dominate possession & score twice. Aguero + Jovetic= City put pressure on Bayern's shit defence & win.

Our players refuse to compete with sides like Bayern no matter how many we play in midfield. Aguero is nowhere near as good without a player to pull away defenders & almost all of his worst performances are when he plays as a lone striker.

That is a proven fact & not irrelevant at all.

It COULD work. People who say it's a no brainer, are talking through their fucking arses, because we have tried it & failed, loads of times.

It COULD work playing two up top. Provided one of them drops in & works for the ball (preferably both).

Either way, it needs the whole team to turn up. If we play v Liverpool like we did first half v Barca/ Bayern, we will lose. Whatever the formation.

I suppose "irrelevant" may not be the proper word to use.
I suppose what I'm trying to convey is that you can get caught up in the semantics of what is a 442 or a 4411 or a 4231. I'm not sure what you would call Jovetic in the side with Aguero but I would not call it whatever that was last night.
You say it yourself in the highlighted text, it could work if....... That's what we needed I think we all agreed, but I don't think last night's team were the team to do that. I don't regard that as a Dzeko/Aguero type 442 which is probably getting caught up on semantics myself.
I think I mentioned somewhere along the line that by and large I don't think those two are a partnership. They are two individuals playing up front. There was no room for individuals in our team last night, we needed to execute a perfect plan as a team. Everyone working as a unit.
I think we all agree in what was needed, calling it a fault in a system or a fault in personnel executing a plan or system is probably the irrelevant bit.

With regards to the highlighted text from Ted. I don't know if he has not had enough time with the squad yet, but last night but Bony had me fucking raging, he was last on and fresh and couldn't be arsed to track a run which ended up going 50 yds and was unchallenged until outside our box. . He jogged when he could see he was the closest City player and it became apparent all the other city players were occupied he fucking stopped. If I was on that pitch last night I would have crucified him because that shit is just unacceptable, I am not sure if anything was picked up on TV but it was fucking infuriating.

Agree WW, but as I said a few pages back, I think putting Bony on last night for his début, was not something we could afford to do in the end. I think we wasted one substitution trying to rectify the problems we had. Fern1 had to come on to put Milner out wide, which put Nasri off. We've gone round the houses about what could or couldn't work, but my personal preference would not to have started with Aguero/Dzeko.
But what do I know.

maybe we line up all the first born children of each player and tell them if they dont go above and beyond the call of duty in effort, then they sacrifice their child. How they can just let people run away from them without trying is beyond me on such a big occasion and in those circumstances. If he does that once more, I will be waiting for him outside the main entrance to give him my thoughts on his performances!

[iwasthere2012]

Just want to chime in and say I have enjoyed reading the discussion here. I've gotten to the point this year of swearing off reading all internet discussion of City because it inevitably devolves to "ARRRRRR PELLERS THE COONT 4-4-2 DOESN'T WORK INFLEXIBLE NAIVE BLAH BLAH BLAH." At this point in time I generally slam my laptop closed.

For what it is worth, Atletico Madrid routinely twats UEFAlona playing a 4-4-2. Granted, their system is more or less designed specifically to counter those twats. They will largely cede possession on the wings but compress the center of the field, press them with utter ferocity, and dare them to score via tossing it in from outside. Which they are of course quite ill-equipped to do.

Obviously this approach would not fit our personnel at all. But basically that is the point. Personnel, approach, mentality. So much more relevant to how things play on the pitch.

And as someone said a few pages ago, our 4-4-2 really does not operate a whole lot like the traditional idea of same. I'd call it a 4-2-2-2 as often as anything. (And Pellers had a lot of success with this at the Yellow Submarine. Also, really at Real but unfortunately in a year where UEFAcuntalona tallied 99 points or whatever.

Anyway, thank you lads collectively for rescuing my faith in the football knowledge of City fans. You can probably guess where I have generally been reading things.

Welcome on board. Not long here myself. Joined here and Bluemoon around same time. I've stopped posting there though.

[Dameerto]

Just want to chime in and say I have enjoyed reading the discussion here. I've gotten to the point this year of swearing off reading all internet discussion of City because it inevitably devolves to "ARRRRRR PELLERS THE COONT 4-4-2 DOESN'T WORK INFLEXIBLE NAIVE BLAH BLAH BLAH." At this point in time I generally slam my laptop closed.

For what it is worth, Atletico Madrid routinely twats UEFAlona playing a 4-4-2. Granted, their system is more or less designed specifically to counter those twats. They will largely cede possession on the wings but compress the center of the field, press them with utter ferocity, and dare them to score via tossing it in from outside. Which they are of course quite ill-equipped to do.

Obviously this approach would not fit our personnel at all. But basically that is the point. Personnel, approach, mentality. So much more relevant to how things play on the pitch.

And as someone said a few pages ago, our 4-4-2 really does not operate a whole lot like the traditional idea of same. I'd call it a 4-2-2-2 as often as anything. (And Pellers had a lot of success with this at the Yellow Submarine. Also, really at Real but unfortunately in a year where UEFAcuntalona tallied 99 points or whatever.

Anyway, thank you lads collectively for rescuing my faith in the football knowledge of City fans. You can probably guess where I have generally been reading things.

Welcome on board. Not long here myself. Joined here and Bluemoon around same time. I've stopped posting there though.

Welcome to the board, you'll find plenty to discuss.

[City64]

Putting Bony on showed the confidence the manager has in him and rightly so , Dzeko has put two proper shifts in the last two games so it was the right thing to do in my opinion . Barca were rattled in that period of the second half and we were actually playing in there half for decent periods just like we should have been fucking doing most of the match . The second half performance had plenty of positives for me but the first half after they got a break and scored was a complete fucking disaster . All is not lost we need something special , a complete performance in the Nou Camp to get through and Yaya is back , plus a bit of luck / fortune wouldn't go amiss ........... we got fuck all last night but probably didn't deserve any either .

[DoomMerchant]

Kompany continues to annoy me, not as much as he bothers CARL, but he's been largely nothing close to world class and closer to Jonathan Woodgate imho. He's extremely average. The new Richard Dunne. I hope he had a halftime pint last night.

Plenty of chances to score or create something from a corner, and we fluffed about 3-4 very good chances which we should have buried at least one of those.

Clichy looked fucking winded at like the 25 minute mark, so....no surprise on how that ended up.

Jayko....i blame that fuclin thread on here for his "back to the mostly normal Jayko" reaction. Not his worst game at all, but....everyone got their cock and balls out and licked each other's privates as if he was reborn like a Phoenix. He is who we know he is, which leads me to.....

Jojo -- coulda used someone like him actually last night. Looks to me like the Count's only fuck up is not having him in the team. He'd have done the work that no one seemed interested, in or god fucking forbid capable of. He's probably taking smug shirtless selfies on Instagram right now, thinking "fuck you cunts....i'm going back to Italy, Italy. Going Back to Italy...."

I really, really, really HATE Barca. The idea that we want to be an "English Barca" sounded interesting after the money came in, but i'd prefer an honest, non-cheating, non-cunt club to support. I fucking hate them more than any continental club right now. That won't change anytime soon. Maybe Jose was right....i want Big Rubes to do some eye gouging at the fucking precious, bullshit Nou Camp.

Also, Joe Hart's hair was absolutely shite. I would ask for my cash back if i was Head and Fucking Shoulders.

cheers

[Original Dub]

Top dollar for fernando?
12m??

Hardly