Yaya in the holding role..

First of all, another fantastic win today for us, and very excited about watching Nasri and David Silva link up this season.

One thing I did pick up from the match today, and the Bolton match too really, is Yaya playing in a more holding role, obviously in the absence of De Jong. Just interested to see how you lot rate him in this position, as I have to say, I'm not fully convinced.

Looking at our attacking midfielders now, it looks like Aguero, Dzeko, Nasri and Silva will make up our strongest starting eleven (which is shit hot I'm sure anyone would agree!), so that leaves two other places available in the midfield, which will probably be taken up by at least one more defensive player.

Although we've played some brilliant football in our opening three games, you can see where we miss De Jong, and we have looked a little frail defensively at times in our opening fixtures. De Jong, when fit (have little info on his injury, but assume he should return to face Wigan?), simply has to be in our strongest line up, which then leaves one spot remaining in the midfield.

Now Barry has his critics, but I think he's been absolutely fantastic in our opening fixtures, and although you don't really get as much creativity from him as you do Milner, Mancini would be mad to drop him going off current form. Yaya on the other hand, hasn't really impressed me so much when playing a little deeper, he's not awful by any means, but we miss his driving runs and I just think Barry and De Jong are better defensive midfielders than he is. So for me, it has to be De Jong, Barry, Silva, Nasri, Aguero and Dzeko in our strongest XI going off current form.

Thoughts?

I agree but I can't see Bobby dropping Yaya to the bench. He seems untouchable. Yet again he played 90 minutes



Also I don't think we will need Barry & NDJ for games such as v Wigan & Yaya offers more going forward

You mean that there is no place for Tevez or Balotelli?
Still there is always the Champions league for them.
What a set up the "noisy neighbours have"

Hard to say... I think Nige should be there for any matches where the threat of conceding goals will present us with problems, like we had against Bolton, but leave him out when it's not likely to be an issue, like against Wigan. Or, oddly, Spurs!

That said, if that front line keeps scoring like that, maybe we don't need to worry too much any more.

Mancini hates conceding though doesn't he, in his post match interview today he even said he wasn't happy about conceding -much to the suprise of the interviewer! So I can't see him having a change of heart and adopting the old Keegan 'you score four we'll score five' principal. Plus, we need the goals for our goal difference, and it undoes the work our attackers put in when we concede avoidable goals as I think all three we have conceded so far this season have been (albeit Spurs goal probably shouldn't have stood anyway due to Defoe obstructing Hart).

You could see the system on MOTD tonight, the two holding players essentially allow our four attackers to have a free roam in our opponents half, I think this is Bobby's preferred formation and I don't see him dropping that either. So if he has to pick two holding players, it has to be Barry and De Jong for me, on current form anyway. It will be interesting to see if this is the approach he adopts against Wigan, which two of Barry, De Jong, and Yaya he chooses, because like you say TM, Yaya does seem untouchable - although we have our first CL match four days after Wigan, so perhaps we will see some regular starters rested for that.

I wouldn't say that's Yaya's best position by any means but it shows another permuation that works which is what we'll need when the games start coming thick and fast.