What were we like?

Unfortunately I had to be driving during the city game and had to listen to a very crackly 5 live in central france only catching the odd word here and there.

managed to watch the last 20 minutes in a hotel room, lousy reception and my kids playing havoc so not the best viewing conditions.

from what i gathered, we weren't very good 1st half (nothing new there) and we nicked a couple of goals just before half time.

we didn't seem that bothered when we were strolling it at 3-0 and i always expected to concede (nothing new there).

our games seem to be quite similar. slow off the blocks, relying on one or two pieces of luck or individual brilliance to get a breakthrough. Then we get another and coast along creating many decent chances as the other team come at us.

is that a reasonable assessment?

We played shit from 30-40 minute of the first half, the rest we dominated. Newcastle defended well and attacked a few times when they could. Fair dues to them they look like a decent side...

I didn't think we were shit in the first half G-Sus - we played against one of the best defences in the league (apparently). We just didn't settle for about 20 to 30 mins (like we do). We missed Mr. Silva's flair and creativity. I always thought we would win.

It was just a matter of time - we missed a lot of chances - we need to work on that!!

Obviously there are still weaknesses. Because we create so many wonderful chances, we score plenty of goals.

Against good defensive teams we need to be more clinical and stick the first chance away. That opens the team up and we can then carve them to pieces. Chasing a game against City isn't easy as they are far more likely to punish you again, and again and again in utd's case, than you are likely to score.

I tend to agree with Wensdi - didn't think we were shit, just struggled to play around them and through them. I think Richards was the key - he had acres on the right and when somebody closed him down, City just passed across their back 4 making them chase and chase (which I think was the game plan).

Richards and Lescott were superb, so was Hart.

We maybe missed that extra little bit of craft from Silva, but good to see him getting a decent rest, along with AJ and Dzeko for Napoli.

Overall, they had 2 chances, we had 2 others as well.....so 3-1 was a fair result without us being at the top of our game and putting 3 past the meanest defence in the league - sort of says it all really.

We coasted. We spent much of the first half passing the ball around in midfield and not letting Newcastle have a touch, whilst not really engineering anything ourselves. A few sets of tired legs and Aguero wasn't really on it either. Nasri played well, I thought, he worked himself into some decent positions, but I wish he'd have a shot now and again - he had a golden opportunity in the first half and seemed to panic a bit.

Not an amazing performance, but a win's a win and if we're going to achieve anything we need to be winning games like this.

And at least we're doing better than United. They looked poor again against a Swansea side that's crying out for a decent striker.

Missed the first 15 because my brother was late with the tickets, but other than that I agree with Wensdi, didn't think we were shit, we're definitely capable of going up a couple of gears, but I was always confident we'd get the result.

Milner & Richards were both quality, and it's good to see Hart remaining focused when he doesn't have much to do (one of his weaknesses last season). Newky had enough chances for a goal, just a shame the one they put away could have been the one we avoided really, they seemed to get a lot of soft decisions as well, Ba always looked like he wanted to go down when he had posession.

Thought VK was off colour though, made a few uncharicteristically poor challenges.

Suprise of the day has to go to Yaya being subbed at the end, and on the plus, we've managed to rest key players for the Napoli game after a busy international break.