Im_Spartacus wrote:you have inadvertantly hit the nail right on the head with your post. Its not about the number of chances we get, its about the type of chance it is. You said "how many times have we hit it over the bar or smashed it straight at the keeper"
This is the very crux of the matter, and i would argue that itis not wasteful, it is that the chances we create are usually from threading the ball through the middle, by which time the attacking player turns to face goal and has an onrushing keeper to deal with. The ball invariably ends up over the bar or hitting the keeper by simple laws of averages.
Compare that to many of the goals you see the rags score, sweeping move, ball goes out wide, crossed in, rooney or someone else is in acres of space with a free header/shot and an eternity till it reaches him to decide what to do with it. They also score goals from outside the area with regularity.
Goals from outside the area come from not having a sea of defenders in front of you. However we press so high up the pitch, there is always going to be is sea, and its going to be rare that a player either gets the space, and does not have bodies in the way.
We have to try to play a little deeper, to give the forwards space to run onto passes, rather than recieve a pass and expect them to do miracles with the ball at their feet.
I think this is starting to get it about right. The lack of urgency (for whatever reason that exists at the moment) allows the dynamic on the field to stack the odds against opportunity. Less chance to shoot on goal cos too many bodies, less space to exploit, less time etc etc etc. More urgency would solve that to some extent.
So why have we lost the urgency we had earlier?
My take is that the players know this and are trying to deal with it.. but trying too hard to be perfect and stuttering. Otherwise I don't have a plausible explanation.
I do think that there is an attempt to emulate barca.. obviously for good reason. But as i have been saying since the year dot, City/Mancini have to take the best and improve it, not just try to make a cheap copy. A high proportion of barca games are not worth the effort to watch, they know they are going to win, the oppo as well so you get this slow cat and caged mouse game where barca try to engineer the perfect opening for Messi or Xavi to run in and tap it in. It is fuclin boring and I for one seriously hope City do not go down that route.. and there are alarming signs that they already are.
Personally I believe the answer is in the excert I posted earlier in this thread. We played Bolton? I cant remember exactly now, but we closed them down very high up the pitch like we were rabid.. and totally wiped them out, great game full of energy, quick thinking, speed of play.
For me it starts there, if the team can't be bothered to close down they are not putting the effort in and are not fully awake to what they are doing and it is a slippy slope to mediocracy, uncertainty and mistakes.
As Spartacus points out it is the type of chances that football is all about. Winning the ball back nearly always leaves the opposition in some way with it's pants down..or at least on the wrong foot. Simple from trying to go forwards to shifting your weight to go back is a moment in time that, eg. David Silva, can have completely destroyed your teamwork.
I had expected City to go through a difficult patch while they try in earnest to click properly, during this time they try TOO hard. eez normal! I had expected that would have happened by now.. but maybe it needed the lead to go and the pressure to really fuclin kick in for minds to clear and natural ability and instinct to take over.
In short if we play with urgency the rest will eventually come, our players are too good a quality for anything else to happen.
Someone soon is going to get a tonking.. I think City and Mancini are pussy footing around still.. so it maynot be till we go to the Emirates that this happens. I wouldn't be surprised either.
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