***city v barca official match thread***

[Bleed_Blue]

Busquets slams Manchester City: Excuses are for losers

Its an article from Goal.com, not posting it because I dont want people to read all the shit being spouted by cunts.

These bastards really need to be taught a lesson, a lesson they will remember for life. If Bayern can hit him 7-0 aggregate, we can very well do it with Aguero and everyone in top form.

[Mase]

The fact that Busquets is a footballer at all absolutely amazes me. I genuinely don't think he'd be good enough to play for QPR so how he gets in the Barca team I don't know.

[Wonderwall]

Just watched the game on TV, away from the adrenaline and uncertainty of watching it from the South stand.
I was pleasantly surprised.
The result is a real disappointment, but I think it's actually another step on our journey to one day winning the league. And I can't concur with any view that says we wimped out or bottled it.

The negatives:
- we were too sloppy in possession, especially the first half
- we were not smart enough on the pitch in the first fifteen minutes. Whenever Barca dominated possession it was when Iniesta drifted in to make a three with Xavi and Fabregas, up against our two of YaYa and Fernadinho. The need was for Navas to step inside and help out. He struggled to do this at first, whether due to orders or his own awareness and the result was we were overrun in the middle and were overmanned on our right. By way of example of this I don't think Barca mounted one attack down our right flank in the first half. Later in the half and in the early part of the second we wised up to this and consequently saw more of the ball.
- we were punished for errors. On the first I'd hold both Vinny and Demi accountable. Vinny ran back to play Messi onside, without a glance at where Demi was. Demi in turn was too slow and then made the rash challenge. On the second then Fernandinho and Clichy were either too knackered or lost concentration to let git face in to score.


The positives:
- we showed we had learned from the games versus Chelsea and Bayern. We were a lot more disciplined and avoided both the outnumbered counter attacks and closed down potential shots from the edge of the box.
- after the first ten or so minutes we came back into the game well, and by my reckoning had at least as good chances if not better than they did until the sending off
- we played some really good football, albeit with much less possession than we are used to
- we showed we could hurt them; whereas Joe had one save in the first half we rattled their defence much more
- we showed massive fight from all players; this was throughout the game and especially in playing for nearly 40 minutes with ten men against one of the best 3 teams in the world.
- our 'flair players' both created and worked hard. Compare and contrast Silva and Nasri with Ozil and Santi C last night!
- with a couple of further additions you could see this team making even better progress in Europe; possibly this year but definitely next.

The hand of fate:
- we were unlucky not to have Milner and Aguero. Milner would have done a much better job than either Kolarov or Navas and Aguero would have hurt them.
- we were unlucky with the decisions around the penalty
- Barca have some fantastic players and it would have been so much easier to get acclimatised to the knock puts by playing virtually any other team.

I think we are on a journey to become the best team in Europe. I'm really gutted we lost two nil but for me we showed that we have spirit, that we can play with the best and that we can learn to adapt as we play against the best. More experience and strengthening the squad will mean we will have a much better chance of success next season.

good post match analysis that, cheers