Mancini proud despite defeat

[Mark (Blue Army)]

Roberto Mancini was proud of his Manchester City side after their defeat at home to Arsenal.

The Blues had to play the vast majority of the game with 10 men following Dedryck Boyata's dismissal in the fifth minute, and they made a decent fist of trying to get back on level terms after Samir Nasri's opening goal.

But it was the straight red shown to the young defender by Mark Clattenburg that proved to be the turning point of the day, and the City manager reflected that on choice of words:

"It was the key decision in the game, against Arsenal it was the worst time to go down to 10 men. But I am very proud of my players because I think they played very well," he said.

"We stayed in the game until the second goal, we always tried to play and to score. After today we can say we are one of the best teams in the Premier League. I think with 11 against 11 we would have won this game. We are a good team, I am disappointed with the loss.

"Against Newcastle, we had a penalty against Carlos, it was by the last man but it was only a yellow card. It's difficult to say from the bench"

The City skipper did not see out the game, having been replaced just after half time, but thankfully his condition does not look to be serious with just under a week to City's next game.

"We don't think it is a bad one, he took a knock in a muscle in the second half but it should be OK," reported the nanaager.

"We have improved, today showed that but now it is in the past and we must start again at Wolves next Saturday."

mcfc.co.uk

[david yearsley]

Good point about the Tevez pen , doubtful though it was, why not a red if the letter of the law is applied as it was today. The ref was allowed to use common sense or not? Cuntenburg clearly has none

[Sister of fu]

Good point about the Tevez pen , doubtful though it was, why not a red if the letter of the law is applied as it was today. The ref was allowed to use common sense or not? Cuntenburg clearly has none

We can't really complain about that red, I would have been pissed off if it was the other way round and their player would have stayed on.

As for the game, no complaints, no worse side to loose man too IMO than the Arse. I thought they were very professinal and got better as the game went on. I'm sure we will come back strong next week with the bit between our teeth.

[shawzy]

Dont get me wrong because i do like Mancini as our gaffer,but i think he got it wrong today on a couple of counts.

1: Why did he play Boyata instead of Lescott? It was a big game today and we needed experience in defence.He did the same thing playin Boyata at CB at the swamp last season in the cup and we lost that one.

2: Ade IMO is the last player you would bring on to replace Tevez when your down to 10 men.We needed a grafter to help in Mf and attack so why not bring AJ on.

Am i makin any sense or has the beer gone to my head ;-$

[Manx Blue]

I thought it was a sending off straight away,because of who the ref was, although the difference between the ball being knocked and Deddy getting his foot in was milliseconds. It was like Clattenburg was trying to make up fir last year in some way. How often do you see the same ref doing the same game the following season?

Thought Deddy conducted himself well following the descision. How many times have we seen the swamp dwellers surround a ref?

(Btw compare tevez getting booked last week, with their players especially Wio whipping their fans into a frenzy today)

[Dingus McDouchey]

totally agree with mancini's comments. even though we lost, i felt this was another game where our performance gave me confidence that we are for real, and that we will likely be amongst those top 3 at the end of the season.

[Dingus McDouchey]

Dont get me wrong because i do like Mancini as our gaffer,but i think he got it wrong today on a couple of counts.

1: Why did he play Boyata instead of Lescott? It was a big game today and we needed experience in defence.He did the same thing playin Boyata at CB at the swamp last season in the cup and we lost that one.

2: Ade IMO is the last player you would bring on to replace Tevez when your down to 10 men.We needed a grafter to help in Mf and attack so why not bring AJ on.

Am i makin any sense or has the beer gone to my head ;-$

i think boyata is better than lescott, and mancini thinks so too. he was magnificent against chelsea, and how else is he going to get experience unless he plays against these big teams? he learnt a valuable lesson today.

ade was a handful when he came on, and AJ is no grafter, mate :)

[The Original Special One]

Dont get me wrong because i do like Mancini as our gaffer,but i think he got it wrong today on a couple of counts.

1: Why did he play Boyata instead of Lescott? It was a big game today and we needed experience in defence.He did the same thing playin Boyata at CB at the swamp last season in the cup and we lost that one.

2: Ade IMO is the last player you would bring on to replace Tevez when your down to 10 men.We needed a grafter to help in Mf and attack so why not bring AJ on.

Am i makin any sense or has the beer gone to my head ;-$

Its easy to be wise after the event: Lescott has consistently looked dodgy this season; Boyata showed his failings with that dodgy backpass during the week, but he's looked more consistent than Lescott.
I hope this won't knock him back!

Bringing Ade on was a good call, also: keeps the momentum going from his hat-trick

[shawzy]

Thanks for the replies lads and shedding a diff light on it.

[Beefymcfc]

Nice comments which I'd expect, but his choices today left me a little confused. For me, Jolean should've been on instead of Dedryk but that's by-the-by, the real issues were after he went off. For the 1st 5 minutes we played 3 at the back before pushing Yaya back, then after realising he wasn't happy there changed to Gazza; against the speed of Arsenal it was always the wrong choice, finally changing to Wayne. It also unsettled the back 4 on a number of occassions rather than just the once.

Then, he brings on Ade for Carlos, who had obviously been struggling prior to the break, but give him no ammunition to fire in the goals. The choice for me would've been AJ or Shaun who at least would've forced the issue, not take a gamble with a player who hasn't played in the Prem. Yes we were losing but at least give it a go, the 'pass it in to the net' route didn't work, even worse with tiring legs, so why not change the pattern.

But what would I know, I'm no World Class Manager am I.

[Dameerto]

I can see tomorrow's headline now: Ded end.

[MaineRoadMemories]

I was surprised to learn that after 9 games last season we had 18 points on the board. This season we have 17 points. Thought this season was going better than last until I read that.

[ronk]

Good point about the Tevez pen , doubtful though it was, why not a red if the letter of the law is applied as it was today. The ref was allowed to use common sense or not? Cuntenburg clearly has none

We can't really complain about that red, I would have been pissed off if it was the other way round and their player would have stayed on.

As for the game, no complaints, no worse side to loose man too IMO than the Arse. I thought they were very professinal and got better as the game went on. I'm sure we will come back strong next week with the bit between our teeth.

Except that against Newcastle, their player was booked. The letter of the law was applied, but sometimes it seems (with cause) that the letter only gets applied when it suits our opposition.

By the letter of the law Clattenburg had no scope not to book Fabregas for card waving. The cards that he didn't give then and to Song for his first bad foul simply allowed them to hack us down later. We lost Tevez to a bad challenge, they were given too much scope. Barry was booked for a nothing tackle on Fabregas, card could have gone either way, in theory. In practise, only one result. Ditto Kompany, in no way was that obstruction. He wasn't really even between Sagna and the ball. Sagna ran away from the path of the ball and towards Kompany, who had no chance of avoiding him. It was Sagna simulating a foul, he could have been booked for it.

Ultimately, there were more than enough aspects of our performance that can be used for analysing where we failed so it's not necessary to blame the ref. But it certainly didn't help that all the marginal decisions today were called against us and discretion always favoured Arsenal. When they were in foul trouble late in the first half we failed to take advantage and put them under pressure to be forced into attempting more risky challenges, so they stayed at 11.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

Can't say I feel proud of the display but I don't feel overly upset given the circumstances. I expected us to battle hard and we did and even carved out a few decent chances and on another day blah blah.

What I want to see now is strong character in the next 2 away games with a minimum of a win and a draw to show we are real contenders.

[Michigan Blue]

I was surprised to learn that after 9 games last season we had 18 points on the board. This season we have 17 points. Thought this season was going better than last until I read that.

We took 16 points from the corresponding fixtures last year. So it has been going better by the slimmest of margins.

[Piccsnumberoneblue]

Yeah we played a gutsy game. Yes we even made some chances when we were down to ten. But that just makes Bobby's selection all the more frustrating. A still raw kid should not have been picked ahead of an experienced international for a game v Arsenal. And they were were weak enough at the back to feel that a proper attacking line up would have overwhelmed them. They were poor defensively and with three on form attackers (Ade, Silva and Carlito) we would surely have caused them plenty more problems.
Bobby got it wrong again. Now put an attack on, we are good at it when we do it.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Dont get me wrong because i do like Mancini as our gaffer,but i think he got it wrong today on a couple of counts.

1: Why did he play Boyata instead of Lescott? It was a big game today and we needed experience in defence.He did the same thing playin Boyata at CB at the swamp last season in the cup and we lost that one.

2: Ade IMO is the last player you would bring on to replace Tevez when your down to 10 men.We needed a grafter to help in Mf and attack so why not bring AJ on.

Am i makin any sense or has the beer gone to my head ;-$

i think boyata is better than lescott, and mancini thinks so too. he was magnificent against chelsea, and how else is he going to get experience unless he plays against these big teams? he learnt a valuable lesson today.

ade was a handful when he came on, and AJ is no grafter, mate :)

Good that someone else dared to say it after his sending off! Honestly, when I saw Boyata there instead of Lescott, I didn't think it was wrong decision. While he may not be better yet, he certainly isn't far from Lescott and my money is on him eventually becoming completely different level player. Lescott is at his peak and in fact has possibly already peaked considering all his knee injuries earlier in his career. There's also the point that Kompany is apparentluy good mates with Boyata and perhaps Mancini thought it'd be excellent experience for Kompany to help Boyata out in tough game.

Boyata will have learned a lesson today. You probably get away with challenges like that in reserve games but not in modern Premier League. They will look at his timing and decisionmaking in training ground. Unfortunately you sometimes have to learn these things hard way. Shame it was 5th minute challenge rather than 85th minute though.

[marvin]

I haven't watched the game again on TV and don't intend to

I am not sure about the sending off as it was at the far end of the pitch, but I was proud of the way City played after that.

Our finishing could have been better, and we made some mistakes, but for the first 60 minutes we were the better team, and that's some going for 10 men. Clattenburg gave the harshest possible verdict on every City challenge, whilst being extremely lenient with Arsenal.

Against Blackburn he allowed them to get away with their time wasting tactics and cheating, and he did the same yesterday. An early yellow card to Fabregas for simulation would have stopped it all.

I thoght it was odd to start with Boyata. In hindsight perhaps that was a mistake, but lets support our players and build them up, not knock them down.

[Ted Hughes]

Did really well before & after the red card imo. Silva was magnificent & imo City are far to strong for Arsenal to live with 11 v 11. Even if Arsenal had scored, I recon we would have scored more. The only way they were going to beat us was, unfortunately, the way it panned out.

The person I hope learns from it is not Boyata but Mancini, because he's got away with murder with some of his experimental team selections & this may prevent him from doing the same thing & taking needless gambles v the rags.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

First thing to say is that I like Boyata and think he has the makings of a top class centre half.He did get it badly wrong yesterday both in giving Chamack a yard to start with as well as the rash challenge that followed. I also recall that he got it badly wrong twice against Chelsea and we got away with it. He could( should) have given away a penalty and with the 2 bad challenges in that game could have seen red again.

That's life and part of the learning but I am surprised that Mancini took the gamble of playing him when he had other options.There is no doubt he wasn't originally selected to play as Boateng was supposed to partner Vinnie so when Zaba dropped out it was a big decision not to go with Lescott for a couple of reasons.Right or wrong is all down to opinion.

I think it was the wrong decision as I think Lescott is a good centre back and doesn't' deserve much of the negative press he gets here.He hasnt been great this year but I do feel he was getting back to where he was before the injury last season when I thought he was playing very well.I was ok with Boateng getting the spot but when it was decided to move him it had to be Lescott for me.

I actually would have left Boateng at centre back and played Lescott at full back so that it was only one change and not two. lescott isn't the best full back but I do think he is better defensively than Bridge.