Ted Hughes wrote:You don't neeed to be fucking Barca to turn in a decent performance against an injury ravaged Liverpool team. Just being as good as Wolves or West Brom will do. We have been shite in most games we've played against even half decent teams all season. Our only convincing performances have been against the weakest teams or teams in the middle of an injury crisis or slump.
Look at our recent away performances (the rags defeat was a triumph performance wise compared top the others) Liverpool a: shite, Chelsea a: shite, Kiev a: shite, Aris a: shite, Utd a: ok Birmingham a: shite, Notts County a: shite Villa a: ok but shite up front, Leicester a: shite, Arsenal away: desperate backs to the wall point.
Manyt of these dreadful performances are since Bob has tried to put his 'strongest' team out; Dzeko or Balotelli into formations that don't suit them or that weaken the team. He's made an absolute fucking arse of the job & has been blundering from one mistake to another whilst using every excuse in the book. Luckily for him, he has some of the best players on the planet enabling him to get away with it just enough.
We have a poor away record. We are, however, not the first team to have that. Real madrid had a poor away record this season. Rags Utd were poor at the start. Chelski had an amazingly poor form this season after an amazing start. I again state the question: "Who are we kidding?" We're acting like we're supposed to be world beaters when we've only recently got the finances to build such a team. I agree that we have to play better away, though that is definitely not down to just Mancini. He makes mistakes, but the players have been lacking as well. Like how Silva picks up the ball from the defenders, dribbles into the opponents half and gets surrounded by 11 players, thus forcing him to play back.... AGAIN. Johnson, instead of curling the ball in high, driving the ball in low. Tevez not passing to opponents when this is a much better option, or like Silva, running near the defenders. Nigel de jong not passing the ball forward at all, Kompany's recent lapses in concentration. We've got great players, but we're not a team yet. Teams like Rags Utd, Barcelona, AC Milan, Liverpool, Juventus didn't got such a rich history by buying 11 players each season. They had a strong team and build upon that. We now have a strong team and we need to build on this. But let's not delude ourselves and think we were actually going for any silverware this season. If we win the FA Cup, fantastic! If not, it wasn't meant to be. I expect a lot more from next season than that I am from this. As long as he reaches 4th spot, I am pleased.
People seem to think we HAVE to play better, because of our players, we HAVE to play entertaining. Bogus. Play to win. At the World Cup, Germany played entertaining, Ghana played entertaining, Spain played entertaining, yet it was the pragmatic Dutch that was facing Spain. There is no rule that a team has to play entertaining. That's just media dripe. We have to player BETTER, away, yeah. We don't have to play entertaining.