Rodwell gets a start

Good to see new players given a chance, with Barry still out, a defensive midfielder with a good engine is just what we need, not sure what DeJong will think of it tho'! Atleast Savic isn't starting in a 3 man defence!! phew!!!
Claudio Reyna's sons are mascot today, good to see the old players back, speaking of which I see Eyal Berkovic is also in attendance...
6-0 to go top after yesterdays goalfests at Fulham and QPR!

Come on city real football is back at last

Shocking start, still on holiday a few of our players! Silva isn't upto speed yet, and that penalty! my 3 yearold could have done better! hope he gets upto speed quickly.
Worried about Aguero, terrible luck for the lad, he was red hot in the preseason, hope it's not to serious, he did walk off the pitch, but was carried away on a stretcher, time for Dzeko and Mario to pick up the slack. We may rue not buying RVP now, but all the same Mancini may want to strengthen if he's out for a few months.
Rodwell looks assured, doing the NDJ role, which if it's true about him going, makes the signing a good one.
Showed signs at the end of the 1st half of our old form, early days yet and we score 70% of our goals in the 2nd half.....

Re-run of last season's match against QPR - nailbiting to the end. Typical. LOL

Apart from the second goal Rodwell did quite well,and will only get better.The result was a bit frustrating and I hope that David Silva does not have another game like that this season,he really was awful,apart from the penalty he should have had another two goals,I just hope he gets it out of his system now.We are not going to win the league playing at that standard:)

Thought we'd blown it there for a few minutes!!!
Consider that a wake up call boys!! Should have been a few goals clear by half time, and Silva!, think he had 2 left footed boots on today....
Well, a win is a win, the home record stay's intact.
Aguero's knee might not be as bad as it looks, hopefully, needs a scan, fingers X'd!

I think you can put Silva's play down to not being 100% match sharp, he had a cracking Euro's, even scored a classy header! not trained too much with the squad, and it showed, no more penalties for him me thinks!

My take:

Agree with all of the above. Silva was shocking throughout and his penalty was one of the piss poorest ones i have ever seen but Rodwell looked decent enough in the holding roll, which allowed Yaya to sod off up-field and play with attacking intent more often.

Imo Yaya and Nasri kept us ticking, Carlos went awol for too much of the 2nd half for my liking but Dzeko did ok for his 1st outing. Mario would be half decent if he had a left peg and Clichy's a complete dick for missing that sitter (he's in my FF team ).

King Sergios injury's a worry but we proved we can still cope without him, let's hope he's back sooner than later though .

Overall i think we can all agree we looked a bit rusty but let's be honest we should have been out of sight before they scored their 1st..........but we still won. I'm pretty sure performances will get significantly better and mistakes will be cut out, but 3pts is 3pts and we can ask for more than that.

it was a anxious match to watch. we kept missing chance after chance and i was sure southampton would score at somepoint, probably on the break. we can look pretty ragged when a team breaks against us. how we had 3 against 5 at one point i can't understand.

we showed enough quality that i'm confident we will have a good season again, though the loss of sergio is a body blow.

silva was really piss poor. i'm not sure if his penalty miss was worse than shane long's the previous day. i'll give tevez the credit for the effort he put in but i still don't understand why some player try to make 70 yard passes and fail.

I was so angry when they scored that second that i threw the remote at the armchair across the room and it bounced off and broke the small lamp beside it, that was tough to explain to the gaffer

It was far too similar to the QPR game, I just sat back and said 'Don't worry'.

I'd still rather we put the game to bed, but what an amazing start to the season once again.

Clichy was MOM for me Den (hardly a dick) with Nasri a close second. Rodwell did well for his first outing - certainly played better than Silva - what a terrible penalty kick and a sitter in front of goal that he also missed. Why didn't Carlos or Ya Ya take the penalty?

Thought Edin did well too - scored the equaliser - just as he did in the QPR game.

It's a bit baffling why he took the penalty in the first place? I don't really understand it....

Carlos, Yaya, Nasri, Dzeko and even Little Joe are all much better penalty takers. I bet Zaba takes a cracking pen, and Vince.

I made my "dick" remark to Clichy Susan, as the sitter he missed cost me 6pts in the Fantasy Football (that's what defenders get for scoring). He had a decent game overall .

Ah So - Den - let you off then.

Nasri was MOM for me, I thought his work rate and effort all round was superb, and he deserved a goal in the end. Not to take anything from Clichy, he was rock solid the whole game and really should've scored himself. Dzeko was... okay. I thought he could put in a bit more of a shift, there was one ball into the box that he just stood there and watched while Soton's keeper and CB were trying to figure out why they didn't appear to be in much danger. His goal, anyone could've scored, plus the one he fluffed after Nasri worked so hard to get it across to him was just rude, frankly. Not expecting it is a piss poor excuse; if you're stood on the edge of the six yard box, you should be ready.

Leo,

Don't you think Dzeko would be a lot sharper if he just got more game time? He was shit hot for Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga which is a tough league, the trouble is that he will always play third fiddle to Tevez and Aguero for a starting place. He's probably even behind Balotelli in Mancini's plans but hopefully they will both get a chance in the next couple of games to get some match time and sharpen up while Kun recovers.

I don't doubt he would, MCM. He spent the whole of the last pre-season away with the team, forged some good relationships and started the season on a flyer. I mean, sticking four past the spuds in their back yard, he was unstoppable! Except, of course, he wasn't, because Bob decided to park him on the bench for the next game.

But my complaint for both those situations I mentioned is, he didn't need to be sharper, he was in the box for long enough both times. I just get the impression he can't be bothered.