MAN CITY vs BAYERN TEAM

Hart

Savic
VK
Lescott
Clichy

Barry
Yaya
Nasri
Silva

Aguero
Dzeko

Edited sorry - Milner on the bench - Silva in.

Now..........Bayern have dropped pretty much EVERY top player for this game to the subs bench, including Noyer. Mancini may have been out-thought with his selection by trying to play a defensive formation of:

Clichy RB
Savic CB
VK CB
Lescott LB

Clichy to defend against Ribery...but he is on the bench, therefore, Zaba would have been a better option.

We'll see!!

i don't like the messing with the defenders. when was the last time lezza played LB? has clichy ever played RB?

Not sure that is the formation - but if you look at it....i can only see that playing Clichy at RB would have been the only sensible thing, IF Ribery would have been playing, but he isn't.

Unless.......Savic has suddenly shown Mancini he can play at RB - but we have Zaba there.

Hmmmm........the one thing that worries me is that Mancini has admitted he has made mistakes in the CL......well, he clearly hasn't learnt anything if he sticks Savic or Clichy at RB and Zaba is available.....I just think he has been out-thought, thinking Bayern would play their best team...and they haven't.

Savic IS at RB...Zaba has a knock.

Would rather have had Ned at RB than Savic TBF.

i just hope that we stuff them good and proper. then bobby can lash out at them afterwards for treating the competition with disrespect and disrespecting naploi and villareal.

rummenige can then say, well we can do whatever we want....

Der Kaiser will slag us off whatever happens

Steady now Blueboy - remember the last match - you were so mad you had to "leave" for a while

i'd forgotten about bluey's wobbly.

stay calm fella

what were you saying?

Can see Ribery coming on as Savic is getting forward when we attack and keeps drifting inside as a CB when they get the ball!

Great goal by Silva.....no way was that a foul on the keeper.

Offside goal for Villareal? Very close.

Napoli seem to have bossed it though. United getting beat as well.

Cannot think that Bayern will keep some of their stars on the bench for long....so we need another IMO.

Anyway......RANT OVER!!!!

Come on City....Come on Villareal!!!

Shame villareal couldn't do their bit but at least the rags are out and Vidic injured too

Well done City....lets hope Mancini doesn't get carried away on the Europa League......the PL, CC Cup and FA Cup are more important.

Typical Spaniards.....fucking useless...apart from our David of course!!

Villareal were the worst team in the competition so it was no big shocker that they lost tonight. Good performance by us, should get us seeded in the next stage of the Europa

The blow was softened somewhat by the Rags going out of probably the easiest CL group ever !!!

Great performance tonight, damage done in Naples. No shame going out with 10 points.

Lets all laugh at Scum though

i agree with saying the europa is just a side issue for us (unless it is worth enough points to get us seeded next year in the CL).

I want trophies, starting with the PL and any cup. If progressing to the latter stages of the Europa will get us seeded in the CL next year, I'd place it above the domestic cups.

having said that, the europa doesn't start until 16th feb, so we can focus on the other cups until then.

PS. Although slightly galling when Inter win their group with 10 points and the CSKA got through with 8 points in 2nd.

as i said to john earlier, we had two decent penalty shouts in munich before they scored.

decent = stonewall

At the end of the day we just haven't been good enough. It was always going to be tough in our 1st season, but realistically we should still have qualified with the players we now have.

Our head to head record against Napoli has proved to be the difference. We needed atleast a draw in Naples but we didn't do enough to earn it but more importantly we couldn't beat them at home.

Would winning the PL not get City seeded next season Dawg?

i dunno shaken. I thought it was all to do with coefficients over the last 5 years - i'll do some research on it as I'm not sure what value winning the PL has and progression in the Europa Cup.

We'll all await your research results then

stoke city have already got 10 points for this season (we have 11 so far).

Winning the PL doesn't count towards the European coefficient. we get 20% of the association coefficient on top of whatever we achieve so united's good runs over the last few years will help us.

we are currently in 33rd position and would need that to move up significantly to be top seeded next season (no chance).

we have 55 points and need that to be about 96 to be top seeded.

getting to be a 2nd seed is also tough but more achievable because some of the teams above us won't qualify for the champions league.

even then, i'd expect us to need about 70 points and i can't see that happening.

i can't find out how many points we get for winning games from now onwards. all the uefa site says is that you get a point for getting to the q/f, s/f or final.

if we made it all the way to the final, that is only an extra 3 points putting us on about 58 points - not nearly enough to be 2nd seeded.

a good run next season might see us 2nd seeded for season 2013/14. the year after, though, we will lose the 20 points we gained from the europa league run 08/09 so we will have to do well again just to stand still in the rankings.

Tbh mate, it really shouldn't make a difference what "seed" we are next season. If we're using this season as a learning curve, then there can be NO excuses for non qualification next. I fully expect City to be pushing for a CL final birth next year.....that's right, final. Anything less imo will be a big disappointment.

Cheers for your detailed research though Dawg, very interesting mate.

thanks shaken.

the euorpa league is very valuable for the coefficient.

braga (losing finalists last year) got 25 points for their troubles. porto manage 31 points (probably won a few more games in the league stage).

a good run for us in this competition just might get us 2nd seeded in the champs league next year.

i like your optimism. the minimum i'd expect from us next year is to get through the qualifying group. after that, you don't know who you'll draw.

blisteringblue wrote:PS. Although slightly galling when Inter win their group with 10 points and the CSKA got through with 8 points in 2nd.

True, but then they didn't have a whipping boy team in their group giving everybody 6 points.