Pellegrini Satisfometer

[Original Dub]

Overall, what were the fans reactions and thoughts about Mancini's firing?

Due to the limited EPL news coverage in the States, I was never able to ascertain this information.

I suppose it was the opposite of baconface's surrender.

Most of us felt we were moving towards the next stage of becoming one of the great teams.

While the rags knew they were on their way to mediocrity.

[JamieMCFC]

Overall, what were the fans reactions and thoughts about Mancini's firing?

Due to the limited EPL news coverage in the States, I was never able to ascertain this information.

Plenty of coverage over here. You just have to go out and find it.

[Ted Hughes]

However strongly I feel the Count seems to have no fucking idea about defending, I also have to admit that his team always looks like scoring & we have won two away games in Europe, creating enough chances to have won by a cricket score.

We can say what we like about the quality of the oppo, but we have played v some real mediocrity & indeed shite in Europe in recent times, & struggled, even at home v some of them, & indeed been knocked out by some.

The pitch was diabolical tonight & the oppo was hardworking. We won & for the first time ever, we are looking like qualifying for the next stage of the Champions Lg.

The Count has done this before & he is doing it again, whatever our reservations.

I still can't go into the 'satisfied' camp when the defence looks so fucking awful though.

[Sideshow Bob]

I am still a bit dissatisfied. I think I may still have a Mancini hangover and am wondering why he was sacked (I understand the sub-par relationship with some players). I miss the press conferences under Roberto. Manuel's are sheer monotony. We have dropped points to teams we should have walked over due to Pellegrini's eye for Champion's League, keeping key players out of the starting 11 to rest them for Tuesday or Wednesday's CL match. I am, however, enjoying some excellent attacking football, which seemed to be lacking under Mancini. I do not, however, credit Pellegrini for this attacking style. Instead, I think it has more to do with some new acquisitions.

Pellegrini really needs to straighten out the back 4. I'm definitely glad to see Micah back! If short of defenders (like now), I'd rather see Milner at RB and Micah at halfback. How many times do we need to see Garcia get burnt?

I just hope Pellegrini learned from the Villa, Stoke and Southhampton matches. Its been ok so far but certainly room for improvement.

But surely you give him the credit for these 'acquisitions'?! Negredo has made the biggest difference and it was very canny of the manager to spot that he was exactly what we needed - and at a good price. Nasri's form has also picked up under the new boss.

Also, I know Micah's a big lad but I'm not sure we should be deploying him as an NFL player.

haha. "halfback" wtf?

[Tru_Blu]

However strongly I feel the Count seems to have no fucking idea about defending, I also have to admit that his team always looks like scoring & we have won two away games in Europe, creating enough chances to have won by a cricket score.

We can say what we like about the quality of the oppo, but we have played v some real mediocrity & indeed shite in Europe in recent times, & struggled, even at home v some of them, & indeed been knocked out by some.

The pitch was diabolical tonight & the oppo was hardworking. We won & for the first time ever, we are looking like qualifying for the next stage of the Champions Lg.

The Count has done this before & he is doing it again, whatever our reservations.

I still can't go into the 'satisfied' camp when the defence looks so fucking awful though.

Still baffles me how people can blame Pelle for Kompany and Martin D. getting injured and inheriting the likes of Lescott and Javier to fill in at the back. But I guess the cliche is and will always be true...You can't please them all. Moving along nicely Pelle keep up the good work.

[Ted Hughes]

However strongly I feel the Count seems to have no fucking idea about defending, I also have to admit that his team always looks like scoring & we have won two away games in Europe, creating enough chances to have won by a cricket score.

We can say what we like about the quality of the oppo, but we have played v some real mediocrity & indeed shite in Europe in recent times, & struggled, even at home v some of them, & indeed been knocked out by some.

The pitch was diabolical tonight & the oppo was hardworking. We won & for the first time ever, we are looking like qualifying for the next stage of the Champions Lg.

The Count has done this before & he is doing it again, whatever our reservations.

I still can't go into the 'satisfied' camp when the defence looks so fucking awful though.

Still baffles me how people can blame Pelle for Kompany and Martin D. getting injured and inheriting the likes of Lescott and Javier to fill in at the back. But I guess the cliche is and will always be true...You can't please them all. Moving along nicely Pelle keep up the good work.

You mean not signing a cb & leaving out one of the best defenders in the Premier League over the last 3 seasons, Premier League Champion, FA Cup winner & bloke who helped restrict Utd to zero, that's ZERO attempts on goal in the title winning derby, for a midfield player who looked out of his depth every time he's played cb, & was so bad last season when Mancini put him there v Wigan, that he had to take him out again ?

No I blame Marwood.

[Cocacolajojo1]

You mean not signing a cb & leaving out one of the best defenders in the Premier League over the last 3 seasons, Premier League Champion, FA Cup winner & bloke who helped restrict Utd to zero, that's ZERO attempts on goal in the title winning derby, for a midfield player who looked out of his depth every time he's played cb, & was so bad last season when Mancini put him there v Wigan, that he had to take him out again ?

No I blame Marwood.

Pretty much it yeah. The discussion for the last year has been which two out of three CBs should play and now one of them's injured. To play Garcia instead of Lescott is either genius or mad. I'm going for the latter. With Lescott in the defence we'd at least have some experience.

[Ted Hughes]

You mean not signing a cb & leaving out one of the best defenders in the Premier League over the last 3 seasons, Premier League Champion, FA Cup winner & bloke who helped restrict Utd to zero, that's ZERO attempts on goal in the title winning derby, for a midfield player who looked out of his depth every time he's played cb, & was so bad last season when Mancini put him there v Wigan, that he had to take him out again ?

No I blame Marwood.

Pretty much it yeah. The discussion for the last year has been which two out of three CBs should play and now one of them's injured. To play Garcia instead of Lescott is either genius or mad. I'm going for the latter. With Lescott in the defence we'd at least have some experience.

The thing is, I understand he wants to pass the ball out from the back etc etc, but the midfield players now tend to come & collect the ball more than they did under Bob anyway, so it's not so important that we have the next Beckenbauer playing there, & for this system to work properly, we should be pressing & winning it back further up the pitch anyway, but we don't, so we have a shit defence, constantly having to do the kind of full on defending which requires proper defenders.

It's not easy & it's understandable that both Garcia & Nasti are struggling , Vinny & Lescott would, but not ALL the time.

[blues2win]

If we're sharing out blame the utter shiteness of our defending is partly down to playing a system where the full backs are pushing forward all the time and we don't have a natural holding midfielder. Partly. The defending is still utter shite. Tonight we had a pathetic apology of an aerial challenge by Garcia compounded by Nastasic and Zabaleta being incredibly slow to react to the loss of that aerial challenge. No doubt they thought Garcia would out jump Honda and one can see why. However, both defenders reacted incredibly and inexcusably slowly to this and it resulted in a goal. That's just one of many examples of awful individual and collective defending.

[Beefymcfc]

Apart from playing Football Manager, did we win, away from home?

[Cocacolajojo1]

Apart from playing Football Manager, did we win, away from home?

After the melt down you had after bayern Munich I'd go easy on the smugness mate ;-).

[Ted Hughes]

If we're sharing out blame the utter shiteness of our defending is partly down to playing a system where the full backs are pushing forward all the time and we don't have a natural holding midfielder. Partly. The defending is still utter shite. Tonight we had a pathetic apology of an aerial challenge by Garcia compounded by Nastasic and Zabaleta being incredibly slow to react to the loss of that aerial challenge. No doubt they thought Garcia would out jump Honda and one can see why. However, both defenders reacted incredibly and inexcusably slowly to this and it resulted in a goal. That's just one of many examples of awful individual and collective defending.

And two years ago, when we had a basically settled, organised back 4, stuff which has started to cause us nightmares in recent times, used to be routine bread & butter to our defence (apart from Savic).

It started with Mancini not giving the back 4 a proper pre season & then making favouritism/panic changes, & it's getting worse under Von Krolock. There is absolutely no reason for it other than managers choosing to dick around.

If we just went back to where we were defensively, but played with the kind of attacking combinations we have now, we would be good enough to at least get close to Bayern & we would destroy the Prem.

No need to change everything so quickly in all areas of the pitch, we can evolve into whatever, when we have the right players to do it.

[kinkylola]

If we're sharing out blame the utter shiteness of our defending is partly down to playing a system where the full backs are pushing forward all the time and we don't have a natural holding midfielder. Partly. The defending is still utter shite. Tonight we had a pathetic apology of an aerial challenge by Garcia compounded by Nastasic and Zabaleta being incredibly slow to react to the loss of that aerial challenge. No doubt they thought Garcia would out jump Honda and one can see why. However, both defenders reacted incredibly and inexcusably slowly to this and it resulted in a goal. That's just one of many examples of awful individual and collective defending.

And two years ago, when we had a basically settled, organised back 4, stuff which has started to cause us nightmares in recent times, used to be routine bread & butter to our defence (apart from Savic).

It started with Mancini not giving the back 4 a proper pre season & then making favouritism/panic changes, & it's getting worse under Von Krolock. There is absolutely no reason for it other than managers choosing to dick around.

If we just went back to where we were defensively, but played with the kind of attacking combinations we have now, we would be good enough to at least get close to Bayern & we would destroy the Prem.

No need to change everything so quickly in all areas of the pitch, we can evolve into whatever, when we have the right players to do it.

Don't know what lescott has done to fall out of favor with pelle, but I feel for him. Lescott is good at the tackle and strong in the air ... and even though he's not quick by any imagination, he's usain bolt compared to Garcia.

I don't get the Garcia selection over Lescott. I can only assume it must be because nasti and lescott have demonstrated that they don't fit together, and Pelle is going with Nasti at the moment. Unfortunately, Nasti and Garcia have also done a good job of demonstrating that they don't go together. The only defender we have that the others can play with is Vinnie. When he is injured we have no chance of a solid defense at the moment. Not with lescott, not with nasti.

In a perfect world, I think we would have another world class CB to partner vinnie, and lescott and nasti would be backups at this time. I don't rate Lescott as world class, but I think he is a good player and should get more time than he does. He's hurt most by the aforementioned Vinnie problem.

I think we'll address this again in winter, personally. And I wouldn't be surprised if lescott left, he'll want game time ahead of the WC, and it doesn't seem like Pelle wants to give it to him. I'll be sad to see him go, though i'm had my share of criticism for him. so it goes.

[Slim]

I don't rate Lescott as world class

-chortle-

[kinkylola]

I don't rate Lescott as world class

-chortle-

-guffaw-

[Bridge'srightfoot]

I'm very satisfied.
The most important thing is that I'm getting enjoyment from our matches again. Something I could hardly say at all last season.
The football we are playing is fast paced and far better to watch. To me playing entertaining football is as important as anything. The defence will get better in time i'm sure.


And we've already doubled our points total in the CL from last season with 3 games left..

[Ted Hughes]

I'm very satisfied.
The most important thing is that I'm getting enjoyment from our matches again. Something I could hardly say at all last season.
The football we are playing is fast paced and far better to watch. To me playing entertaining football is as important as anything. The defence will get better in time i'm sure.


And we've already doubled our points total in the CL from last season with 3 games left..

I agree with all of that & imo, the Count has almost solved all of our attacking problems which made me pull my hair out when Bob was here, but my dissatisfaction comes from the fact that, imo, there is absolutely no reason for the defence to need time, it could be sorted to an acceptable standard in a few games.

Ok, perhaps not sorted to Champions Lg wining standard, or to guarantee that we won't lose the odd game v top 4, but the defence is as bad or worse now than it was when Savic was playing for us & literally any fucker could score v City at any time.

It could & should be much better, easily, & I can't see any reason for it to be this bad other than the manager, fucking about, AGAIN.

[johnny crossan]

No Milner therefore no marks for last night - we were too crumbly again principally thanks to Garcia being used at CB- there is no explanation for this continued stupidity except perhaps that Manuel and Cheeky will always back their Spanish boys through thick and thin. Joe was the only native English speaker in thirteen players used.

[Pretty Boy Lee]

No Milner therefore no marks for last night - we were too crumbly again principally thanks to Garcia being used at CB- there is no explanation for this continued stupidity except perhaps that Manuel and Cheeky will always back their Spanish boys through thick and thin. Joe was the only native English speaker in thirteen players used.

No offense, but who cares?

[johnny crossan]

No Milner therefore no marks for last night - we were too crumbly again principally thanks to Garcia being used at CB- there is no explanation for this continued stupidity except perhaps that Manuel and Cheeky will always back their Spanish boys through thick and thin. Joe was the only native English speaker in thirteen players used.

No offense, but who cares?

Richards, Lescott, Rodwell?