Team vs Blackburn

Looks like Yaya won't be playing and I wouldn't want to risk Sergio from the start.

Pants
Zabba, Kompany, Lezza, Kolarov
Silva, Garcia, Fernandinho, Jimmy
Dzeko, Negredo

Think Dzeko might be rested too. I'd personally start with the following, taking Serge off after 60 and bringing Rowell/Garcia on.

..............Pants
Zab......Vince....Lescott...Clichy
Jimmy...Rodwell/Garcia....Fernando...Silva
..........Sergio....Negredo

I ageree, give Sergio the first hour, get the game won then rest him up.

shakencity wrote:Think Dzeko might be rested too. I'd personally start with the following, taking Serge off after 60 and bringing Rowell/Garcia on.

..............Pants
Zab......Vince....Lescott...Clichy
Jimmy...Rodwell/Garcia....Fernando...Silva
..........Sergio....Negredo

That'd be my team....but please, FFS, give Lopes some more game time. We could go with this:

...............Pants
Richards...Vinny..Lezza..Clichy
..Milner.....Garcia....Rodwell.....
..............Lopes..................
........Negredo...Aguero.........

blueboy wrote:

shakencity wrote:Think Dzeko might be rested too. I'd personally start with the following, taking Serge off after 60 and bringing Rowell/Garcia on.

..............Pants
Zab......Vince....Lescott...Clichy
Jimmy...Rodwell/Garcia....Fernando...Silva
..........Sergio....Negredo

That'd be my team....but please, FFS, give Lopes some more game time. We could go with this:

...............Pants
Richards...Vinny..Lezza..Clichy
..Milner.....Garcia....Rodwell.....
..............Lopes..................
........Negredo...Aguero.........

We could, but with Nasri not playing, i still think we need Silvas creativity blue.

I think strong team, then if we're ahead by 3 or more by the hour, introduce some younger blood.

shakencity wrote:

blueboy wrote:

shakencity wrote:Think Dzeko might be rested too. I'd personally start with the following, taking Serge off after 60 and bringing Rowell/Garcia on.

..............Pants
Zab......Vince....Lescott...Clichy
Jimmy...Rodwell/Garcia....Fernando...Silva
..........Sergio....Negredo

That'd be my team....but please, FFS, give Lopes some more game time. We could go with this:

...............Pants
Richards...Vinny..Lezza..Clichy
..Milner.....Garcia....Rodwell.....
..............Lopes..................
........Negredo...Aguero.........

We could, but with Nasri not playing,  i still think we need Silvas creativity blue.

Agree...but Fernandinho will need a rest at some point.

Isn't Zaba close to his tally of yellows? Does the FA Cup count towards (5) or (10) cards?

Drop Garcia, move Jimmy to the middle and play Navas on the right to use his pace and keep their full back occupied.
Aguero to start replaced by Lopez after an hour.

Silva and Yaya defo out, Sergio in squad. Guidetti going out on loan, probably to Stoke. Let's see what the lad can do.

Just can't see him starting with Lopes and I don;t think he should. We should be looking to be 3 up within the hour and then swap Sergio for Lopes (if Sergio starts)

I've got a sneaky feeling for Lopes to start as well.

Well, I can't say I blame them for wanting the opportunity. It's not like they'll come up against players of this calibre very often.

Emyr Huws and Lopes both in the squad for tonight.

Good to see another kid getting some bench time and 1st team experience around the squad.

Is Navas injured or being wrapped in cotton wool for the weekend??

Hmmm...bit of a different team!

CITY XI: Pantilimon, Richards, Nastasic, Lescott, Clichy,Navas, Garcia, Milner, Fernandinho, Dzeko, Negredo

TMG wrote:Think he'll start wi


...............Pants
Richards...Nasty..Lezza..Clichy
..Milner.....Garcia..Fernando.. Lopes...
........Negredo...Aguero.........

Off by one player TMG. Navas for Lopes.

This is nothing short of shite!

Make your minds up as to why.

Awful!

  

Dzeko 4 chances not even close, The beast only needs 1, says it all.

How devoid of creativity are we without Silva and Nasri

Well that was pitifuk apart from the Beast's goal at the end there

Nastasic Awful
Clichy Terrible
Dzeko Couldn't hit a barn door tonight
Garcia - I just despair

Great cross from Fernandhino, good header from Nedge ... but as you said , we have no creativity whatsoever. Lopes and Sergio on for Garcia and Dzeko...

Here lies the difference between Dzeko and Negredo as strikers. Negredo, even when he doesn't score, he works for the team.... Dzeko , after the odd few games , goes back to his usual wank self. Absolutely no consistency from him . Awful.

Pitiful I mean although pitifuk is actually a better description of Garcia & Dzeko

Man you lot make judgements quickly. Games are ninety minutes you know

Dzeko makes me look a mug again !   

meltonblue wrote:Man you lot make judgements quickly. Games are ninety minutes you know

Oh come Melton... You sound like Mr Nice!! We were shit in the 1st half FFS, we are only calling what we saw!

Sorry we don't have your 3rd eye!!   

meltonblue wrote:Man you lot make judgements quickly. Games are ninety minutes you know

And it seems you do after the event! Call it as you see it Melton...that's all we do. We don't wait until we are 5-0 up and then post a comment.   

We were blueboy, I fully admit that. I kind of expected it though, its a shit night and blackburn were always going to put up a bit of effort before we nackered them out. Pellegrini would have shot a rocket up their arses at half time, though, the movement was shocking. 

Just to put this season into context though (and it shows a bit how spoilt we are to be honest), we are now on 99 goals in all competitions. 99. That......is just fucking ridiculous!

Blueboy, 

Because there isn't anything to call until the game is either over, or effectively over.

I get what you're saying Melton, but some like to comment on here on how they see the game going, I'm sure JA606 had their own posts at half time as well.

I'm sure there were plenty of moans and groans at the ground as well.

This forum had more than me commenting on the performance at half time...that's what it's designed for, whether we call it right for how it turns out or not...a la me with Dzeko...but if anyone can tell me that what I or others posted at half time wasn't correct, then show me...some players were well below par..that's all we said.

Maybe we should hold our comments until full time and then we can all call it with hindsight.

I was only joking mate, hence the wink, you are completely right that we were pretty toss in the first half.

They were always going to tire. I think sometimes we play so well (and as I said, the goals scored tally is ridiculous), that our standards are higher than sometimes are possible too, that's all.

I get what you are saying and maybe we are a little too quick to judge...but we were only calling what we saw and it was just said by Lee Dixon "Dzeko's twin brother must have played in the 2nd half"

No offence meant.   

I admire it mate to be honest, shows you care! I'm pretty relaxed about it nowadays anyway, I think I'm still recovering from two years ago!

I only watched the last 35 minutes or so. Nasty was playing lazy balls and was could have been sent off after switching off. I thought he'd progress into something special, maybe he still can, but this season he's gone backwards. Kolarov is great going forwards until he thinks he can shoot all the time from anywhere he feels like. That's a bit annoying when he has so many better options available.

Navas played some great balls in, Dzeko finished brilliantly (and he even set up Sergio). Crocky Richards and shitty Garcia played ok. We were missing Silva, Nasri, Yaya and Kompany - let's be happy as it's unlikely we'd miss all those players in a big game.

 time to move on Melton.. Bigger things to come...surely?   

I concur
It was a completely different performance in the 2nd half
Kolarov made a big difference but Dzeko went from a pub striker in the 1st half to a world class finisher in the 2nd. Unbelievable !

Definitely, I just struggled a bit when suddenly we were expected to win every game, I think there is still a big part of the old me there that thinks we'll cock it up anyway so it tempers my expectations a bit!

I just try to sit back and enjoy the ride, and it has certainly been a good one

  [quote="meltonblue"]Definitely, I just struggled a bit when suddenly we were expected to win every game, I think there is still a big part of the old me there that thinks we'll cock it up anyway so it tempers my expectations a bit!

I just try to sit back and enjoy the ride, and it has certainly been a good one


   

I thought Garcia had a really good first half,shows how we view things differently but from the stands you could see how well positionally he was covering,perhaps it comes across differently on the tv?

I thought Garcia was ok tonight against poor opposition, maybe that's why.

Just watching the highlights and Navas was superb overall tonight.

That line up can beat the likes of Blackburn, but we would struggle against prem opposition. WE looked poor in first half devoid of any creativity. I think we wore them out in second half, and showed some quality finishing.

blueboy wrote:I'm sure there were plenty of moans and groans at the ground as well.

Yeah, there were. We had nothing going forwards. Fernandinho didn't seem to have the usual incision, although his cross for Nedge's first was sheer quality. And we really didn't have anyone else. Milner and Navas just don't seem to run at defenders.

blueboy wrote:I thought Garcia was ok tonight against poor opposition, maybe that's why.

Pretty much. Against Prem opponents, he'd have been taken apart.

The second half was much, much better. Kolarov coming on actually changed the game in our favour. He gave us some creativity going forwards and his long ball for Nedge was pretty much the pass of the game. Pushing Milner into the middle helped too, he was able to protect Garcia a bit more. Sergio coming on and scoring was great, but for me the best change was the one Lee Dixon mentioned - Dzeko's twin coming on. Seriously, how could he have been so cack in the first half and then be a goalscoring genius in the second? The two he popped in were the hardest shots he had all night. How does that even work???

Good win in the end, but we can't keep doing this poor first half thing as it's going to kill us eventually.

I agree that the first half was woeful and Blackburn were growing in confidence the worse we got, it was like the first game all over again.
While Dzeko was not great in the first half i'm not sure why he is being singled out for special attention, as far as i could see there were not many contenders for player of the half in blue shirts!
Dzeko missed a couple of shots that you would expect him to score with but that happens to even the best, Sergio and Negredo while clearly better strikers, do not score with every chance they get but nobody ever mentions those misses.
It seems to be fashionable to beat Dzeko up for missing chances that other players also miss but do not get the same reaction, just saying.
I also saw Dzeko make some great passes, one in particular was great crossfield pass to Cliche i think and he was back defending a lot, so he missed a couple of chances lets destroy the guy? He was no worse than others in the first half.
The second half was much better and we played with more confidence as you would expect after going ahead but we badly missed the midfield 3 amigos.

To be fair MCM....Dzeko was nothing short of shite in the first half...he had 4 shots that were either 10 yards wide or 20yrds over the bar, plus a poor header from 8 yrds out.

There was one in particular where he was 25 yrds out, with 2 or 3 options and he chose the laziest swipe at the ball that was 20 yrds wide and high....even Lee Dixon said he was awful.

Nobody is singling him out....just that as a striker, he will take more hits/praise than other positions when playing poor or well.

I think somebody else posted yesterday that Nasty was a liability at times, Clichy's distribution was woeful.....so I don;t think everybody is just talking about Dzeko....

Lee Dixon's comment of Dzeko's twin coming on in the second half, sort of sums up his night.

Like i said he was poor first half as was most of the team.
I just think that players like Cliche and Garcia are far worse and Dzeko scores 2 out of 4 or 5 chances and sets up Kun but he's shite? I have seen him play games where he just did not look interested and deserved all the criticism he got but sometimes he seems to the whipping boy no matter how hard he tries that's all.  

That's because he was shit in the first half why he got the criticism. Garcia did OK IMO, had a shot on target in the first half, which was more than Dzeko did out of his 4 or 5 chances...he more than made up for it in the second half though...

Dzeko 4 chances not even close, The beast only needs 1, says it all.

Nastasic Awful
Clichy Terrible
Dzeko Couldn't hit a barn door tonight
Garcia - I just despair

I think you'll see that some did criticise Clichy and Garcia at half time, not just Dzeko -