City v Dortmund

Having watched a fair bit of the bundesliga,i know they will be a serious threat to us at the Etihad on wednesday night. Unlike a lot of european teams they will come and attack from the off,its how they always play whether they are home or away.
Last season we very nearly came unstuck with Napoli launching seriously quick counter attacks and i dont feel like we had done our homework on them,tactically we were all over the place.Dortmund are fairly similar in the way they break with pace so its imperative that we have runners in tracking back to help the defence out.
----------------------------------------------hart-------------------------------------------------------

----------zabaleta------------kompany-----------------------lescott------------clichy-------------------

-------------------milner------------------------------------------------barry---------------------------

---------------------------------------------yaya-------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------tevez-------------------------------silva--------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------aguero-----------------------------------------------------

Absolute must win game,anything less will probably see us back in the Europa league

You're right, this is a must win game. If they're all fit, i reckon he'll go with these:

.....................Hart

Maicon......Vince....Nastasic.....Clichy

Nasri.......Yaya.......Barry......Silva

.............Dzeko.......Aguero

Although there's every chance he could pick, Zab, Lescott, Milner, Tevez, Kolarov, Garcia, Rodwell, Balotelli, etc, etc, instead

I really want 2 DMs because our goals against this season is truly shocking.

I'd also like Dzeko to get a chance, but Tevez and Aguero make us tick up front with all their chasing.

Hart
Maicon, VK, Nasty, Kolarov
Garcia, Barry
Silva, Yaya, Aguero
Tevez

I've given up 2nd guessing Bobby. I really hope Maicon and Balotelli are nowhere near the team though?

I say PPLFs team is by far our best, with Dzeko on for last 20 mins

As much as I agree wi PPLF s team I think he'l go for very attacking with
Hart
Zabba Vince Nasti Clichy
Nasri Yaya Silva Kolarov(Hope not)
Tevez Aguero

This would be fatal as we need some solidity in midfield otherwise we will concede yet again

I think he will play Barry before Kolarov

I am not going to play the guessing game,but we really do need our strongest team out tonight.If we do not get a result we are in deep dodo,and the Europa league beckons!!

Maicon is 10 days away from being fit - Rodwell is fit I believe.

..................................................Hart...............................................................

Zaba.......................Kompany......................Natsasic...........................Clichy...

...............Garcia......................................................................Barry.................

....................................................Yaya............................................................

......................Silva........................................................Tevez..........................

...................................................Dzeko............................................................

IMO..........this'll be the team for tomorrow night with:

Rodwell, Aguero, Nasri, Kolorov, Milner, Balotelli, Pants all on the bench.

It's tomorrow Bob - its that other Manchester team tonight - LOL

Blueboy,

you reckon Lescott wont even make the bench?

If Dortmund come to attack, that will suit us fine, we proved against Madrid we could counter well, and Dortmund aren't Madrid, and we've had a few more games under our belts since then, Silva is starting to shine, Yaya, Tevez, Dzeko will all be a menace, we just need to watch those Polish geezers down the wing and upfront, Lewandowski, Blaszczykowski and Piszczek.

Nastasic is starting to find his feet too, and think he'll be in infront of Lescott, in the CL it's all about ball retention and quick, accurate passing, not Lescott's forte I'm afraid. Lessons will have been learnt after the debacle in Madrid, apart from the very dodgy penalty at Fulham, I thought we contained them pretty well, showed signs that we've finally shaken off the slow start, and at home we should, should be too much for Dortmund.
Dzeko will most def start, as he's been in the best form since this time last season, and we all know what happened then eh Roberto? ( you dropped him) plus against German opponents, he'll be well fired up.
I'll go for a 2-0 City win, Dzeko and Garcia both from set pieces.

Is it me, or does it sound like you've got the flu when you say Blaszczykowski?

Whatever team comes on tonight, they need to be up for it. Anything less than a win and we're stuffed. I can only see Madrid winning tonight, which means our direct competition is Dortmund and I want us to do to them what Napoli did to us last season.

ManCityMan wrote:Blueboy,

you reckon Lescott wont even make the bench?

Ok - add Lezza as well - the new 'forgotten man'.

Touche~Wensdy-I get soo excited these days I get mixed up!!

Team for tonight

..................................................Hart...............................................................

Zaba.......................Kompany......................Natsasic...........................Clichy...

...............Garcia......................................................................Nasri.................

....................................................Yaya............................................................

......................Silva........................................................Aguero..........................

...................................................Dzeko............................................................

Yep...not far off mine, Nasri in for Barry - good attacking selection, but a little surprised he went for Aguero ahead of Tevez, I called it the other way around.

Still - we need the win and I'm sure we will see Tevez on at some point.

Come on City!!

Looks like Lescott and Milner both left out in the cold (a little too often for me). Where's Barry?

No score at HT - anybody out there watching it?

Poor
Poor finishing by City in the 1st half, Aguero had 3 chances to just slip it past the keeper, but hit it at the keeper everytime.
Silva missed an open goal
Hart was outstanding, man of the match
Dortmund were fantastic, pressed everytime we got the ball, marked Yaya out of the game, they did their homework, Mancini didn't, he just doesn't have the chops for CL, sorry to say, but it's true, no plan B

To do list for Mancini

Get a plan B
Do your homework
implement plan B quicker
get the players playing like they were last season

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

Well, another 2 points wasted from a game we could have gone out and won.

Dortmund are a good side with a couple of decent fwds, no more than that. They just worked like they wanted it.
Smothered Yaya all game as soon as he touched the ball with 5 across the middle. As we are too slow to manipulate around this pressing it is an effective tactic.

Solid ish 1st half followed by the self-destruct double whammy of 3 at the back plus Kolarov which somehow only served to further isolate not just Yaya but the whole midfield afnd attacking group.

Didn't see Dzecko nor hardly Silva second half as they couldn't get a touch - hell they couldn't even get within camera shot of the ball for most of the time.

We robbed them of a point with the one decent attack of the second half. Definite penalty, super-cool Mario gave it to the keeper good and proper.

Not happy, but we are still in the game by the skin of our undeserving teeth.

Mancini just needs to play a settled side, keep Rodwell out of the side, and get them playing like they were for the start of the season when we played one touch quick passing football, for some reason we are just not doing it now, why?
Dortmund were fantastic, Mancini needs to take note, A BIG NOTE!!!!

That was the difference, they were fantastic as they worked their backside off like we did start of last year. For some reason we expect games to be handed to us now if we just amble along at half speed all match.

To say I am bloody annoyed is an understatement.

I used to see this a lot in teams I played who were far more technically able than us but whom we always beat due to work ethic. I looked down on those guys as inferior due to the waste of talent caused by their arrogance.

We were blitzed by a team prepared to work much much harder than us. We are finding that teams work much harder than us too often. We rely on holding onto the ball easily and don't like it when we are put under pressure. Our players aren't anything like as good as, say, Barca at holding the ball under pressure and passing it around in tight situations.

No Barry and no Milner in the side - why Rodwell - he should be cutting his teeth in a domestic game rather than a CL game. No Tevez and no Lescott although the first half we were unlucky not to score and didn't look too bad. Thought Zabaletta played exceptionally well - or Zabaletto as Warren Barton kept calling him - sheesh. Who makes the selections - think PPLf's pick would have done it for me. Bet Rodwell feels like a prat - awful time to make a mistake.

Had to go looking at High Schools last night with the family, so missed the game last night (turned a ticket down too ). By the sounds of it though, i had a lucky escape. Saw the highlights this morning, looks like we were indebted to Little Joe, as he seemed to pull off save after save.

Team selection is always criticizable (have i just invented a word there?) when the team produce a poor performance, worryingly though, this seems to be a continual trend this season. Wonder if a great big thumping win against the Black Cats this weekend will change our perspective?.............maybe a little i reckon .

Had they done their homework on Dortmund?
The team selection and substitutions would suggest otherwise.
They are a high energy team that will look to attack home or away and look to get in behind the defense using runners down the channels.I cant believe that wasnt the scouting report so why on earth set us up without the graft of Milner Barry & Tevez?
Perhaps we all watch a different game to mancini and the odious platt creature.Football has always been a simple game made complex by simple men.You need to graft and earn the right to play against the opposition.We didnt and were played off the park

According to the stats, we had 64% possession. Which, if true, means we were truly wasteful in control of the ball. Not good enough.

After two games, I'm drawing some parallels to our campaign last season. Last year we had one leviathan who looked to go through comfortably (Bayern), one whipping boy (Villarreal) and a straight fight with Napoli. This season, on the current state of play, we're in exactly the same position, with Real Madrid looking to be the comfortable winners, Ajax being the strugglers and us in a straight fight with Dortmund. And given our fortunate home draw last night, it's like Napoli all over again.

We need three wins minimum, and one of those wins needs to be over Dortmund. Anything less and we're out again.

Why is it that we are all of the opinion that Barry, Milner and Tevez should have played some part last night. Yes - Edin deserved a start - but we needed grafter sand there were 3 of them to choose from. Only Zab and Silva really grafted. Why doesn't he allow YaYa to push forward - we've seen it work time and time again. Do you think there's a mole in the camp - deliberately selecting the wrong players for domestic/CL matches.

Yeah, Mancini

Wensdi wrote:Why is it that we are all of the opinion that Barry, Milner and Tevez should have played some part last night.

Because we're all football geniuses, that's why!

LOL - Leo

Personally we just played our "Get out Of Jail Free Card". We were outplayed by a very industrious team. Yes we had a couple of chances in the first half but they had 6-7 excellent chances we have to thank Big Joe for.

The stadium was so quiet though, it was like we knew we were not going to stop them from scoring. You look at their fans and they must really give the team a buzz.

We lost that and we were out, plain and simple. A point and we are still in it.

We've Ajax now home and away, anything less than 6 points and it's Europa again for us. Assuming Real take 6 points from BD in the reverse fixtures and we could be 3 points ahead of them and the story is completely different. It will still need a point in Germany but we will be back in it.

We need RM to take 6 from Dortmund to be sure of a shot. Last season, Napoli got a cheeky draw from Bayern and that cost us.

Of course, we could still make our own destiny and win the four remaining fixtures, we'd not be going home with 13 points in the bag!