DM City Player Ratings

Think Chris Wheeler is a little harsh on some. Mine in bold.

MANCHESTER CITY (4-2-3-1)

JOE HART 7 – Justified his late inclusion with fantastic penalty save. No chance with either PSG goal. 7

BACARY SAGNA 6 – Penalty decision seemed harsh, but he should know better not to leave his foot in. 7


ELIAQUIM MANGALA 6.5 – Got away with clumsy challenge on Matuidi in the box but recovered to make several key tackles. 7.5

NICOLAS OTAMENDI 6 – Also had a difficult start but settled and played his part in stopping potent PSG attack scoring more. 6

GAEL CLICHY 6 – Dealt capably with the threat of Di Maria but booked for rash challenge on Aurier. 7

FERNANDO 5 – Interception led to City’s goal but undid his good work with awful lapse of concentration. 5 - only because of his mistake.

FERNANDINHO 7.5 – Had a hand in both goals even though he failed to track Rabiot’s run for PSG’s second. 7

JESUS NAVAS 6 – Faded after good first half which included a sublime 40-yard cross onto Silva’s head. 7.5 - thought he was very good.

KEVIN DE BRUYNE 7 – Underlined his importance to City with excellent strike. Two goals in two since his return. 7.5 - gave us that momentum.

DAVID SILVA 5.5 – Disappointing. Two good chances but planted free header wide and tame shot straight at Trapp. 7.5 - not sure what game he was watching, thought Silva with Mangala were our 2 best players.

SERGIO AGUERO 5.5 – Bright opening but struggled to make the impact and became a peripheral figure. 5 - pretty non-existent. Not seen him be so quiet for a very long time.

Referee: Milorad Mazic 5 – Failed to punish Mangala for his early challenge on Matuidi and then seemed to be making up for his error by penalising Sagna for what looked like a lesser offence on Luiz. 4 - and Mangala didn't foul Matuidi. Luiz should have seen a second yellow for a blatant dive.

Didn't see the game, but good to see Navas pleasing you blue. I'm pretty sure Serge will be more influential at our gaff too.

I've found Serge is looking very isolated up front on his own of late.  Spanish Dave isn't the player he can be at the moment (probably still struggling with his injury), Spanish Jesus can't put in a decent cross and Kev Brown is only just back and, frankly, he was a much bigger threat and usually in a better position than Serge.

Serge seems to be running around trying to create something, in the mould of Tevez, but he's not that kind of player.  We need him to be a goal threat, not a CM.

Trouble is, I don't know how we fix it without breaking something else.  Kolarov is an option, but who do we replace?  Sterling, when he's on it, can feed Serge all day long, but he's too inconsistent.  And we've no idea what the kids are capable of because this belligerent manager won't give them a chance.

Hard one.

I'm not so disappointed with Sergio's overall form. Against Norwich and United he run his nuts off. He played well against B'Mouth, just last night, he seemed a little lethargic and didn't make as many runs as he normally does. He didn't seem to want the ball to feet like he normally does, which then allows him to bring in KDB and Silva.

I'll always forgive him a poor game, as we know that is a rare thing...let's hope next week he makes up for it.

the thing with aguero I feel is he always had a foil in Negredo, Dzeko, Balotelli & Tevez also to a lesser degree Jovetic. Bony or itchy could be that foil if you play them as the top striker & Serge in behind. When serge is the top striker he is often left chasing causes & waiting for support to arrive & with City that can take time by then chance has gone. As the lone striker it also means he accepts more responsibility to score. So we call him greedy for taking on players & shots which looks like lost causes.

Finally as the lone striker it means being marked by two to three defenders whereas when he has that foil it is one on one for the majority of the time. Just my take on why Aguero seems a wee bit jaded..

Yeah, maybe you've got a point Oz. The thing is, we've seen playing a 4-4-2 in the CL against better opposition is suicidal. So I guess we have to sacrifice a little of his runs for that.

However, for example, I do believe the likes of Kelechi could easily play up there with him against WBA, take a bit of pressure off him, possibly even allowing him to be brought off with 30 mins to go if we are doing well, and resting him for next week.

BUT, we all know it won't be Kelechi, it'll be Bony, which means Sergio will have to do all the work, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Not if we can get Bony to hold the ball up with his back to goal allowing serge to run past him. The problem with Bony I feel is when he plays behind aguero he ambles about as the midfield are behind him serge ahead , he looks lost and really doesn't appear to be on the same wavelength as he in my opinion is not a second striker or midfielder. He should be the target man as he was at Swansea. Then we may see him move a bit more.

Definitely, but we've seen him as a target man and he's be woeful.

That said, I think we may be both in the same camp, I don't think with his injuries, we've been able to give him enough game time to see him shine...and sadly, as it stands at this point in the season, I'd prefer Kelechi for his effort, goals and movement over Bony.

skyblueoz wrote:the thing with aguero I feel is he always had a foil in Negredo, Dzeko, Balotelli & Tevez also to a lesser degree Jovetic. Bony or itchy could be that foil if you play them as the top striker & Serge in behind. When serge is the top striker he is often left chasing causes & waiting for support to arrive & with City that can take time by then chance has gone. As the lone striker it also means he accepts more responsibility to score. So we call him greedy for taking on players & shots which looks like lost causes.

Finally as the lone striker it means being marked by two to three defenders whereas when he has that foil it is one on one for the majority of the time. Just my take on why Aguero seems a wee bit jaded..

I'd agree with that, chiefly because it's what I think is the issue as well.  The problem being, we've offloaded strikers and replaced them with MFs.  Aside from KdB, this hasn't worked as Navas has been all show and no go, Dave has been clearly under par with injury, Sterling is woefully inconsistent, Yaya has been hopeless, Delph hasn't been given a chance and Dino has been forced to play deeper more often than not.  Nothing has been getting to Serge when he's run into the box, hence why he doesn't bother.

But like I say, what do we do that doesn't break anything else?  If we deploy another striker, that would help us against teams ripe for the picking, but it's hard to deny that 4-5-1 has worked better for us in Europe this season.  Christ knows how, though...