No stream for today's match?

First topic message reminder :

Haven't seen anything yet.

Kompany allows himself to get Mangoe'd

Good job he's not small willie or we'd be out

I wonder what shitty excuses the manager will come up with this week?

I wonder if Kompany will tell the fans that it isn't over yet?

Is it hit and hope time yet?

We're too slow. Borro had 6 players up and we ponder our way forwards, then sideways, then back

Dawg, you can guarantee that Crichton will be straight onto Twitter after the game and spout the usual 'it's not over' 'we will learn from this' 'it hurts us as much as it hurts you' bollocks!
Wank wank wank

Stream down, can't be arsed getting it back up.

To be sure he will TBW.

Apparently Crichton is actually spelt Kryten! The fact that I've just spent time checking the spelling shows how disinterested I am in this pile of shit.

Well, at least chelsea are losing at home to bradford

Not much consolation though

At least chelsea are losing, might deflect ours

For every useless fucking quote from MP, Kryten et al after this performance, I shall have a beer tonight. Should be pissed by 7

WTF is going on at City???????????

Absolutely shambolic

Let's here the bullshit spin on this one.

Best team won by far again. No complaints.

Sorry top 4 is a lnh way off on current form.

I say sack manager now and give Viera till end of season.

We are so much worse without Toure and, in particular, Nasri.

I miss Tiatto, Dickov and Morrison.
They were City, these tossers aren't.

I've always tried to stick up for him...but I said this morning, travelling over 2/3 time zones, 21 hours before a match, won't be good for the players.

However, regardless of that, we're the defending Champions of the PL....and MP clearly has no tactical or motivational skills.

His buys have been nothing short of shite.

Fernando and Navas - as poor a pair of PL players as I've seen.

No excuses - Boro easily deserved the win...and I'm sorry to say, we'll win fuck all this season under MP, and tbf, all we should have won last season was a Cup at best.

The forwards have been injured, granted, but the defence is one of the worst in the PL....Kompany leading the shiteness form the front.

He won't be sacked now - but unless we win the CL under him this season, I'll be happy for him to be sacked.

They aren't his buys, they are begiristains. I don't think Pellegrinis doing too badly (apart from today) given the squad they have given him.

I'm happy for top 4 on current form. We are simply shocking.

But you are right I would love to see where we would be with NDJ back instead of the Chuckle brothers we currently have at DM

Melton this manager can't change a game if the other team had 5 players sent off! He is simply clueless. I'd rather have mad as a box of frogs Bobby Manc than this clown.

I wouldn't, i just want us to buy decently in the summer for the first time in four years.

Fernando is shocking...he bought him.

We spent nearly £40m on Mangala...now I'm happy to give him time, but for £40m, I'd have wanted someone in the class of Ramos for that!!!

Navas is an awful player....who bought him???

Fernandinho is a shadow of himself. Kompany has so far had a season to forget...one of our worst players.

We continued with the useless Jovetic.....when teams have shown an interest in him.

Sorry, but MP IS responsible not the Directors....that's a crap excuse.

Win the CL:D:D:D:D
On present form we couldn't win a Sunday pub team competition
In our last 6 games we have comfortably lost at home to Arsenal & Boro & drawn against lowly Burnley
Drawn against an Everton team who hadn't won in about 7 games and had very nervous unconvincing wins against Sunderland & Wednesday

We are playing very poorly and unless MP sorts it the only thing left to play for will be a European place and I'm not even confident it will be a CL place

Fucking rubbish !!!

Of course he isn't, that's the complete opposite model of how we operate. Begiristain is director of football and accountable for transfers and Pellegrini is head coach. It's exactly why Mancini left, he wanted more control over transfers and kicked off publicly about it.

I completely agree we have bought poorly. We are in the exact same situation we were three years ago where if any of our key players (Kompany, Toure, Nasri, silva, Aguero) are missing, we are half the team for it.

That's not to say Pellegrini isn't blameless, particularly today. You can't put transfers on him though.

I can.

no point apportioning blame just prove you are good enough as players,Coaches, Managers , Directors of Football and anyone else to put it right before our season ends in tatters. Less bullshit heroic talk saying " how much it hurts them" let see some action & players playing to the best of their ability. That is as disappointing result as I have witnessed in along time, Especially given the number of chances we created in the 1st half. Dowd certainly should have given us 1 if not 2 pens. However with a defence  that looks as though  the personel have never met each other I certainly do not have an over riding amount of confidence going into the next game.

It was nothing short a massive fuck up. As you say, no excuses...the manager clearly can't motivate this team, we've been saying this since the 2-2 draw with Burnley.

That starting 11 should have demolished a poor Boro in the first half. By 60 mins in...the likes of Navas, Fernando, Kompany, the wank Kolorov, Zaba, Silva and Aguero looked fooked....

Guess it was nothing to do with the long flight home last night though...no, definitely not, no, can't have been.

It's not just down to the manager though being able to motivate the team - because we have been successful in prior years under him.  No good apportioning blame just to him - I have seen us play like this under Mancini too and Hughes.  Don't understand it - the players have to step up their game.  I think we were unlucky at times - and "Boro were not confident in the first half.  We should have been more clinical in the first half.

Think that's what I said Wensdi.
That starting 11 should have demolished a poor Boro in the first half. 

I've tried to defend him this season, but the lethargy in the way we have started and finished a large proportion of games this season, is clear to see.

If it's not the Manager's fault then, the players aren't good enough. Therefore, who isn't pulling their weight or earning their massive salary, if the players are to be blamed, and not the manager?

You can't apportion blame to the players without justifying your comments....those of us who have called out the manager have said why. It's easy just to say  "the players have to step up their game"....who are they and why?

Yes Blueboy but I'm allowed to give my version too and you need to read all of your posts again (carefully). LOL.  Other point is that we certainly miss YaYa and Nasri.

MP seems to have the ability to turn a group of very talented footballers in to a team of strangers, with no cohesion or ambition other than the belief that every other team is inferior and they will prevail no matter how little effort they put in.

We all call him tlf but compared to the dross we have served up since the Burnley game we should start to call him tof (only)

another Saturday night ruined

Thanks a bunch guys

Wensdi wrote:Yes Blueboy but I'm allowed to give my version too and you need to read all of your posts again (carefully). LOL.  Other point is that we certainly miss YaYa and Nasri.

And you need to quantify your comments with specifics...rather than generic, random statements that we all know about and agree with.

Fair enough if you don't want to do that, however, don't complain if others identify specific individuals and explain why they have an opinion as to why or how.

Guess we all have opinions and are free to comment as we see fit.

Today was the managers and some of the players fault.

Up to today though, this season we are running with a restricted squad that has suffered injuries to key players and our main rival for the title has strengthened with Fabregas and Costa when we bought Fernando and Mangala and lost Negredo. There was no point buying anyone else because of the sanctions, both monetary and squad numbers.

We've had Milner up front for four games and our defence has been chopped and changed due to injuries to both Mangala and Kompany. Despite that, we equalled a record that had stood for over a century for consecutive victories and caught up with (and now are still) in touching distance of a Chelsea team that has had no injuries to speak of, alongside progressing through another difficult champions league group.

Have the performances been great? Absolutely not, but for more reasons than can be put solely on Pellegrini. The players aren't performing through some not having a preseason (those that went far in the wc), some have lost form or confidence (Zabaleta, jovetic and fernandinho) or had issues off the pitch (Toure). Our best player of last season in my eyes and one pivotal to our current system has been injured (Nasri) and we have two players clearly still getting used to the speed of the pl (Mangala and Fernando).

All of those coupled with a natural drop in performance following a title win and then throwing in some poor choices from the manager, then we are doing as I personally expected we would aside from today.

It's less about apportioning balm but more what people that should happen as a consequence. To be second and in the CL the year after winning the title and a cup in his first season, I find it ludicrous that Pellegrini should be sacked or that he can't motivate the squad based on five games where we didn't have a striker for half of them.

If you factor all of that in and compare it to Chelsea and how little ahead of us they are now, I find some of the expectations a tad unrealistic. We will strengthen again in the summer when we will be free of the sanctions. If we get second this year though, that will still be an ok season. Not a great one (it can't be due to the cup performances), but far from needing anyone to lose their jobs because of it, and exactly where most people predicted we would finish before a ball was even kicked.

Blame rather than balm!

Chelsea will be 8 points ahead of us if they beat us which is highly likely when we struggle against Burnley Everton Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland and comfortably lose at home to both Arsenal & Boro

Ur expectations may have been where we are at but mine were that we wd and should be an improvement on last year 
We won the league last season and have still despite sanctions spent a lot of money in supposedly improving the squad Well it hasn't happened and we are being found out week after week by any team who puts up any sort of fight against us
It's cert worrying and either MP needs firing or he needs to sort out the massive problems in our whole squad at the moment

Melton, as always you give a well reasoned, well thought out opinion one I find difficult to disagree with. But I still have have problems trying to reconcile your comments with what we are seeing on the pitch week In week out.

There is no doubt in my mind that  something is amiss at our club, and it has to be laid at the door of those with the power to dictate what happens.
I for one do not blame any of the players

Even if we win the CL it won't be due to the manager.  He has good enough players but he can't get them to perform. I'm sick of shitty excuses and sick of players hurting and fughting to the end. Chelsea lose after 9 changes. We almost had our first team out there and we were a little better than rubbish

And I think that's where my opinion differs to be honest. I don't think we do have good enough players. Only one of our spine needs to be missing for it to have a detrimental effect on the way we play. We can beat anyone on our day, but our day needs to have Kompany Toure Nasri silva and Aguero all fit. Zabaleta and hart can be added but that's it for me, the rest are squad players.

Our last world class purchase was Aguero in 2011, we haven't bought a match winner since. I don't blame anyone as such (perhaps Platini) as it has still been a very lucrative time for us but look how much our peers have spent in the summer. Chelsea and United have outspent us over the past three years, the amount we have been spending is enough to keep level in relative terms, not improve.

Personally, I wouldn't have bought Mangala, at least not til next summer.

We've got rid of decent squad players such as Lescott and bought in expensive players who haven't done the business such as Mangala and, for the last 12 months, Fernandinho. I'd rather we had kept Lescott and bought Fabregas instead. Buy a couple of promising English defenders with the change. If you are spending £30M -£40M on a player,  he should be top class.

I think that's a pretty fair assessment Melton.

However, IF a Manager comes out with comments like "we take the FA Cup very seriously and we want to win it", 5 days before a home game against a Championship team, 1 week before we have to play the current leaders of the PL, and then brings the squad back from Abu Dhabi 21 hours prior to kick off...and our players put in such a poor, lethargic performance like that, who else does the 'balm' lay with?

MP is the Manager.

Yes, we have had the following players to bed in:

Mangala and Fernando. But if we have to rely on those players to turn our season into a successful one, then we're knackered.

Yes, TLMLF is away at the poxy-con competition and Nasri is injured, but that's surely saying our squad is very poor if we have to rely on 2 players being out and 2 new players having to have time to bed in?

Why are our defenders all performing so poorly as a unit?

We've only brought in one new player and a back up for Zaba, yet we look atrocious! Caballero is another who MP brought in and looks an absolute liability. And please don't tell he was signed on the advice of the Directors!!

The fact is - this season, MP has consistently stuck with a rigid formation of:

2 DFM's - a combination of TLMLF, Fernandinho and Fernando. Of the 3, 2 have been nothing short of shite, but he still persists with them.

The Manager consistently chooses Navas, who isn't fit to clean Adam Johnson's boots....or, is MP being told by the Directors to pick him? If so, then on that fact alone he wants rid of.

He's got cock all out of Jovetic and should have done everything to sell him this window....well in advance of where we are now - plenty of Italian teams would have bought him and we could easily have replaced him with some half-decent English forward who would have done a damn sight more - Berahino, Ings, Austin. Not that those players are who we should be buying, but then are infinitely more dangerous than he is. He's been nothing short of a disaster signing.

So all in all, MP (or if we are to believe you, the Directors) and the board have bought some absolute crap, therefore, it's no wonder we've been nothing short of pathetic so far. Yes, we are still in spitting distance of Chelsea, but we lose next week and there's no way back on our current performances...and we are out of both domestic cup competitions at early stages and have a last 16 draw of the CL against Barcelona.

So overall, once again, because teams have slipped up, we're still somewhere close to the leaders....but today's result and the decision to buy and keep certain players, means that either the Directors are useless and the Manager is weak, or the players and Manager are not doing their jobs.

I'd go as far as to say - if we don't win anything or at least get to the Semi-Final of the CL....the board and the Manager should go....or imo, at least the Manager should go, as it would be a massive step backwards...and it's nothing to do with FFP before anyone makes that as some excuse.
We've spent £40m on a CB, another £28m on a striker, £16m on another DMF....all on areas that were supposed to improve us, when in fact, they simply haven't.

Mangala is Prob the worst PL signing of the season
He looked poor last year the few times I saw him so whoever thought that he was worth 40 million needs firing. 1 million Wd have been too much
Lescott is still a better player than he is
Similarly Adam Johnson although not great is better than Navas, NDJ who we sold for a scandalous 4 million is better than Fernando & Fernandinho put together
Pants is better than BigWilly
We have some excellent youngsters none of whom are getting a chance Many are out on loan scoring for lesser teams but we all know most like Guidetti will be sold on

Kolarov is dire
Boyata should be moved on
Jovetic & Fernando have been a waste of money
Nasri has been out before and we haven't missed him that badly
Yaya is according to most on here a lazy MF so it seems strange that we miss him so badly
I am sick of losing to teams who put in more effort than us. I would rather give a chance to a youngster who will play his heart out for the team rather than some of the effing primadonnas we currently have in the squad

I agree with a lot of that blueboy

"I'd go as far as to say - if we don't win anything or at least get to the Semi-Final of the CL....the board and the Manager should go....or imo, at least the Manager should go, as it would be a massive step backwards...and it's nothing to do with FFP before anyone makes that as some excuse."

It is to do with complying with FFP though. Khaldoon said as much when he said it was a blip. The difference being a blip nowadays is second in the pl rather than second division.

Half of the players we shipped out were due to wages as much as a perceived improvement. Bony is a like for like with Negredo (who himself was a like for like with balotelli), Fernando with Garcia, jovetic with (supposedly) Tevez, but all on cheaper contracts. That was what they were brought in primarily to do as well as raise revenue and keep us competitive.

If they don't buy very very well in the summer I agree with you. As it currently stands, we have won the pl and improved in Europe whilst operating through financial restrictions and then sanctions and will be free of them at the end of this season, at the same time increasing revenue to ensure we can give the team the continuous investment that our competitors will.

Are we saying that any time from now on, regardless of any restrictions or what our competitors do, any season we don't win a trophy someone should lose their job, even if that blip is only from first to second? Shall we just change our name to Chelsea and try and lure Abramovich over?

I've already said I thought Pellegrini was to blame for today (as well as whoever organised the friendly with hamburg), in the greater context though I would be more than comfortable with him still being here next season.

"Yes, TLMLF is away at the poxy-con competition and Nasri is injured, but that's surely saying our squad is very poor if we have to rely on 2 players being out and 2 new players having to have time to bed in?"

This season I think it is, I said at the start of the season I thought Chelsea would win the pl as they has the better squad (as they should have given their spend compared to ours this last three years). The only thing I thought that hasn't happened was that United would be closer to us than they are given the money they spent in the summer.

Great read above guys and I can see all sides.

I'm personally so disappointed with City right now, but a win at Chelsea.....(and we could well do), will change that. Here's hoping.

Sorry, let's call a spade a spade.
The manager has been shite, and the players have been shite, and the cleaner (or whoever) that bought the new players has been shite.
Everyone in that club, stay off social media, stop blaming others, stop making crap statements that mean the square root of fuck all, and start earning your wages.
Not good enough, sort it out and stop embarrassing yourselves.
Goodnight.

TBW. succinct and to the point. Bang on fella.

Sorry, I cannot accept this FFP bullshit as an excuse for our dismal performance yesterday, against Everton, Stoke, Burnley, and on and on and on. 

It's such a lame way of saying "if we could spend another £250m, we'd still be in both cup competitions and 5 points clear in the PL".

Really, let's stop buying this crap about FFP. 

Ipswich have spent fuck all...not a single penny under Mick McCarthy and they seem to be doing well.

Soton sold nearly all their best players in the summer, Shaw, Lallana, Lambert, Lovren, Chambers and have had Rodriguez out so far....that's the whole spine of the team which brought in nearly £90m, yet Koeman comes in and spends a fraction of what they got for those players, Tadic, Pelle, Forster, Mane for less than £40m and has them gunning for a top 4 place.

The justification that "we sold Garcia, Tevez etc" to reduce our wage bill doesn't stick either. Garcia was crap...yet the Manager/Directors have replaced him with equal crap...but managed to spend £12-14m on him in the process. Koeman bought Wanyama for??? (edited, as I think Wanyama was bought just prior to Koeman, but for £10m)

We brought in Sagna on a free and gave him £130k pw. 
Koeman has Bertrand on loan on a quarter of that who is twice the player.

Pants wasn't on massive wages, but we get rid of him on a free and spend £6m on some shitty keeper from Spain...who'll be on the same if not more wages than Pants.
Mangala for £40m, Lescott out on a free. Barry out for £2m, spend £12m on Fernando.

The Manager or the Directors allowed Negredo to leave at the end of the summer transfer window...and his replacement will be here sometime mid to late February!! Good signing, but Bony will cost us more in a transfer fee and wages than Negredo would have if he stayed. I know we had to submit our CL squad and he was injured - but FFS, we've had to scrape through playing Milner up front - and yes, he's done OK, but to allow him to leave and not replace him for 6 months is baffling.

So all in all....FFP is some smoke screen nonsense that people use to hide behind when the team is basically playing poor.

I think we can all accept that results like Boro/Bradford can happen in the FA cup...but the team must:

A.  Be prepared in a professional way in the lead up to it
B.  Be prepared to play to a certain standard to win it

Both didn't happen yesterday...B can sometimes happen. A though, is unforgivable and is something we've heard on numerous occasions from this Manager already this season "we didn't prepare well".

Our performances have been fairly mediocre this season. As I said, yes we are still in spitting distance of Chelsea and no I don't want Abramovich, and maybe you and I thought Chelsea would win the PL...but what I certainly didn't expect at the start of the season was for us to be out of both cup competitions so early, in addition to being 5 points off Chelsea.
I'm sure we all would have said 2nd or top 4, a good run in the CL and a domestic cup.
So far, we limped disastrously out of both cup competitions to Newcastle and Boro, both at home, both whilst supposedly playing a strong first 11.
We've scraped into the last 16 of the CL and now face Barcelona.

I think what it shows is that we have potentially a great starting 11...but the squad quality is average. Problem is.... those squad players aren't loan signings like Ryan Bertrand, or £6-8m buys, these are £23-26m players earning £150-180k pw, and most are absolutely robbing the club of their weekly wage.

Last season, we got a massive slice of luck. All 3 title contenders slipped up and we remained the consistent one. I know we can have another whole debate on what's needed to win the PL...but basically, it was handed to us by default. Any other year and we would have finished 2nd by at least 5 points. (I know we won it!). So last year would have been a year we won a League Cup under Pellegrini.

As it stands this season, we're not winning any cups, I cannot in any way see us winning the CL, so all that's left is the PL, which most of us predicted Chelsea to win.

So really, 1 League Cup win in 2 seasons and we've still got 4 months to go of this one and we're out of this seasons cup competitions.

The Manager's comments after yesterday:
“We will continue to work hard and try to win at Chelsea. The problem we have had is that we have to change our style of play because we had no strikers before Christmas. “Now the strikers are fit again, we have to change our style back, and it takes time.”

Sorry MP, but didn't you win Manager of the Month by changing to a 4-5-1 formation in December? Now suddenly we have the useless Jovetic back in the team and a returning unfit Aguero, you decide to accommodate both of them...so it was down to your selection, your tactics for yesterday.
It would be nice, just once, for you to come out and say "It was pathetic, I'm ashamed, I apologise for fucking up with coming back late from Abu Dhabi" instead of the usual crap you come out with after every poor performance...it's never you or the players faults.
FFS...even Jose came out and said congratulations to Bradford and I feel ashamed for this result. He didn't say "look at all the chances we created, we had most of the possession in the first half" like MP did, and at least Chelsea scored 2 goals, we scored cock all!!

FFP is an issue, but it's not the excuse this season. The Manager and too many players have been poor.....but they still pick up their FFP restricted wages every week.

I have to agree Bluey. That team put out yesterday should have been strong enough to beat Boro. We had 8 so called first teamers playing. We've lost 5 at home this season already. To the likes of Boro, Newcastle, Stoke , CSKA and Arsenal. The central point was that those teams outfought us to some extent. We are only good at talking a good game, bigging ourselves up.

I've said several times that we've got players in their late 20s early 30s on long and lucrative contracts. We've not got enough HG or younger players fighting to make it to the top. Where's our Kane or Ings, Stones or Clyne?

We've got a good enough first team/squad to be much better than we currently are. We don't need to spend more money to solve whatever problems we have.