Last Nights Game

Well, good morning all, Vince here.

I know back in the day I used to have a right rant at times about team selection and players on 606, and yes I've been away but I'm sorry I have to vent.

Last night I thought was a strange game. We YET AGAIN conceded a schoolboy error style goal, for the 5/6th time this season. We looked out of sorts with 3 at the back AGAIN. We tried to start with Dzeko who failed to impress AGAIN.

Kolorov is shite, end of story, its fucking embarrasing how fucking useless, slow, uninterested and lacking that guy is.

Maicon, legs are going, at times he looked OK yet his engine was empty 50mins into the game, his concentration worries me, his recovery pace is lacking and 8/10 crosses go skyward. It was Maicons fault at the goal as he turned off for a few seconds, oblivious that Benzema was lurking, he should have marked him, or at least try to mark him.

Kolorov, as I mentioned was a complete and utter bag of steaming shit, fucking pointless.

I thought Hart did well, but is let down by our fairy defence AGAIN.

Vinny and Nasty are looking good together, played well keeping that fucking digusting queer Ronaldo quiet and in check (Loved those bodychecks on ladyboy from Vinny).

Zab was slow last night, looked up for it, yet didn't seem to know where to be at times.

Nasri? What the hell does he bring to us, someone please help, Im unsure what the actual role is he is supposed to be filling??

Yaya - AGAIN too deep and lacked influence, seemed slow aswell and off the pace, no driving runs, not much to offer to be honest.

Silva - OUTSTANDING - My MOM just nudging out Vinny, as David was exceptional, looked dangerous, full of invention, looking to break through, without him we are severely limited, creatively.

Dzeko - I mentioned earlier, was shite, he thrives off crosses, which we don't put in, so he gets it to feet, he lays it off ALWAYS (to then try and make his run) then due to him being as slow as a piece of shit coming out of my arse, he gets man--marked and tracked, and thats the end of the move.

Augero - Superb, never gives up, always on the front foot, great player and did the job of 2 people as Dzeko was asleep. Good pen again.

Tevez - looked half asleep when he came on too, seemed like he left his touch on the bench, wish he had legs that were 2inches longer. Lacked the impact he tends to have.

Garcia - to be honest I thought he did well when he came on, I was worried at first, but he did a good job of hassling and breaking up play, and at times I'm sure I saw him pass forward. Did well.

Milner - looked sharp too, had the energy to run them ragged, should have been on earlier I thought, the kind of engine that runs the 10 men down.

I get that Real are a class side, but SO ARE WE!! We should not be content with this mediocre showing in the CL, its been schoolboy stuff we have let ourselves down with. Yes we will learn from it, thats the key, but I felt we should have done more to break teams down, and we have been average at best.

I'm still angry, as you can tell.

You beat me to it Vince .

To be honest, i'm still undecided whether that was good or bad.

In the 1st half i thought we under-performed to say the least and didn't set out with enough/any intent, but i guess that could have been down to the stupid formation we started with again. To conceed the goal like we did was very disappointing, what the fuck Maicon was thinking about god only knows. I don't really think we could have complained if we'd gone in atleast 3 down at the break.

The 2nd half showing however was much better and we deservedly got something out of the game, but why did it take 45 minutes for us to have the belief that they weren't actually that good. Overall, i think a draw was the fairest result, but i still feel the "what if" factor this morning.

With regards the players, again it proved Edin should only be used as a sub, we don't need his height if we keep it on the deck. Maicon's great bombing forward but naive at defending. Yaya annoyingly still sits too deep. Silva again impressed, long may that continue! Milner coming on after 88 minutes....was it really worth it Roberto?

Ok, i know Madrid are a tremendous team but we proved over the 2 games we're not far away from them, i just wish RM had a bit more self belief in his players to attack from the off.....like we did last season and things may well have been oh so different. Our home form in the CL has ultimately cost us again (not won any), imo this HAS to be put right for next season if we're to progress.

Den, yeah sorry, I was so deep in my rant I actually forgot to state we played much better in the 2nd, after the formation change really.

I was so pissed off at the 1st half, I expected us to be at leats 4 - 0 down by half time, yes Ronaldo is world class, but we had less to worry about than Mancini thought we did.

We could have been more direct yet we didn't and that is the main gripe I have, we hold off for too long and then play when its too late.

Mornin Vince,

sorry if it's a bit similar to yours but i just copied and pasted mine post, as i was doing a summary too.

Looks like your not happy this mornin fella.lol

Morning pal, haha thats fine fella.

Yea, a bit pissed off, to say the least.

Oh well, tis only football aint it?

Pissing about with endless formations that dont work instead of keeping and improving on what we were very good at last year has been the achilles heel for me.We dont have the team to play this 3-5-2/3-4-3 with the current playing staff so it makes no sense to contemplate it yet again.
Last season' success was built around 4-2-3-1 and im sure if we had played the formation
Hart
Zabaleta Kompany Nastasic Clichy
Milner Barry
Nasri Yaya Silva
Aguero/Tevez

in all the games we would have progressed much further in this competition.
We have a squad with too many players who simply arent good enough to be considered of the right quality to be play champions league and need shifting on
kolorov - bought as a left back and is arguably the worst defensive left back ive ever seen at City and ive witnessed some real shite over the years.The fact he can take the very odd good free kick shouldnt disguise how awful he is as the complete package

Balotelli- beats Gerry Creaney as the biggest waste of space to enter our hallowed turf,just needs fucking off hes not a character hes a prick

Maicon- seems to get a pass in some peoples eyes for the odd bit of attacking weve seen from him but this guy is supposed to be a defender which he clearly isnt.Very poor player

Mancini is very fortunate that the club doesnt have owners as ruthless as Roman but i feel he needs to retain the PL if he wants to keep his job because if aguero hadnt score the winner against QPR,he wouldnt be the manager this morning

Yep Paul, Balotelli out for defo.

Glad you see my points regrading Kolorov and Maicon.

If Mancini ops for 3-5-2 again, I will happily call for his head. Needs to sort out this stubborn and tinkering attitude he has. We finished last season on an absolute high. We should have built on that, but rather than that we've gone backwards.

Luckily Chelsea and United haven't been on fire otherwise we'd be trailing I think.

But still unbeaten in the league so it's not all bad. Just hate this messing about with a formation that works for us.

Once again....it's that old manta....if it's not broke, why try and f*****g fix it? Baffling.

Maicon, awful player. Not for us. Especially against an attacking team like Madrid. Can't defend for squat. Is it me or does it look like he's carrying a bit of timber?

Dzeko, feel sorry for the guy. Thought he played relatively well but just doesn't have the same impact.

If it was me last night. Once we were back to all square, bring Milner and Sinclair on to run at their tired defence. Why bring Milner on at 88mins? Ridiculous.

We look brilliant in the 2nd half I thought. But Yaya to deep and Nasri just not pulling his weight. I think we're playing him in the wrong position. He is an attacking player he needs to sit behind Aguero and Tevez.

Maybe like this

-------------Aguero
----------------------------Tevez
-----Nasri-------------Silva
-------------Yaya---------------
---------Garcia-----------------

Anyway, we'll see how Sunday goes. Good news is Aguero getting back to full fitness, and Nasty and Vinny looking good as a partnership. Although still think Lescott should be in.

Silva and Vinny looking back to their best as well.

I think Kompany may be injured for Sunday? Am I right?

Vincents' Shadow MCFC wrote:I think Kompany may be injured for Sunday? Am I right?

I've not heard anything but maybe. Looks pretty sore when the nancy boy fell on his knee. Hopefully he'll be fine.

Cheers Joe just read this aswell:

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11679/8266795/Manchester-City-skipper-Vincent-Kompany-injury-doubt-for-showdown-with-Chelsea

Good to read arguably our 2 biggest players (Serge n Vince) are still hungry to strive for success in next years CL.

"No sad faces, just a hunger the hunger to improve". Great comment Skip!!!

Lescott for Vinny, easy peasy swap.

I wouldn't say Champions League qualification was a given in any shape or form yet. This our first tough game of the season.

I would

Yea, Joe I hope you don't think that through my rant I thought it was a given, thats not the case, I expected us to do better, as we had the personel to do so, thats all.

I am happy to wait as long as it takes, its just I wish we would apply ourselves better in the CL.

Yes yet again in the CL Mancini's tactics were poor
Ridiculous 3 at the back thing again. Thought he might have learnt from all the other times it hasn't worked but no

Dzeko starting WTF is wrong wi Bobby. Everyman and his dog knows that when Dzeko starts he is shit. Should have started with Tevez. Dzeko could have come on in the 2nd half and won the game for us

Have to agree with others on Kolarov. He has had 1 good game for us, the rest of the time he has been woeful. Milner is 10x the player and he is only average !!

Unfortunately with Micah & Clichy injured we had little option to put Maicon in. He is out of his depth in the CL I'm afraid to say Bit like the manager !

Tony woooooooooooooooooooo controversial!! lol

This is not going to sit well with people but,Maicon,Nasri were really poor.I did mention that Big Joe does not command his six yard box as he should,and last night I think proved it.He shoud have taken the ball before it reached Benzima.and Maicon should have taken Benzima before he reached the ball!Nasri has not realised his true potential since he arrived and needs to do something about it!!

Hahahaha...........Vince, I can now longer be called the grumpy bastard on here after that post..................but totally agree with everything you're saying!

I've thought Nasri is a lazy fucker....great if the nets were either side of the half way line...then he'd be passing forward!

Dzeko....hmmmm, as soon as he was picked picked ahead of Tevez I honestly thought - "no goals tonight then"

Maicon - I picked him in my starting 11 to play ahead of Zaba - and that's what he started as.....but WTF is Mancini doing with this 3-5-2 bollocks against seriously good wide players?? Thought Maicon was shite all night, regardless of the wank defending for their goal.

Kolorov - thought he has been playing better of late - and i am one of the one's who has never rated him...last night though...??

Agree, Tevez looked like he couldn't be arsed when he came on...guess it started when Mancini said "come and do the pre-match interview with me"...he obviously knew that it meant...SUBS BENCH!!

I thought we'd be battered after 20 minutes...but think that through wasteful final balls around their box......we deserved to win the match.

Great to see that fuck-wit diving all over the place and bemoaning being out-muscled at every turn....he really is a nonce!

Oh well...we'd only have been battered at Dortmund...so let's concentrate on retaining this PL trophy!

The difference was apparent, Madrid had a better collective of players, we still need to add more quality to that of Silva ( who was fantastic last night) Aguero, Tevez etc.. only Maicon really penetrated with any success, we need swift attacking wing backs, otherwise at this level the door gets closed quickly.
Thought we could have scraped a win if our finishing was better, Aguero could have had a couple easily, I think we are still a bit star struck at CL level by the speed of play.
Still, at least we didn't get drubbed, and held our own.
Lets push on for the title now

I honestly think we have the personnel for 3-5-2, and it is very attacking so I can kind of see Mancini's view on it. Let's be fair, Zaba, Micha, Kolorov and Maicon especially are not out and out LB/RB, they pretty much in essence Wing Backs. But we can't play 3-5-2. We aren't used to it, and we don't need it because 442 or 451 etc works so well for us.

Zaba certainly is not a centre back. I think we did actually used to play 3-5-2 in a way. Vince and Lescott as CB and De Jong as an extra CB but just in front of the back 2, zaba and Clichy always played a bit higher up. But that worked for us. Now we've got rid of, who I think is the best DM in the world, and trying out a new system. I'm as to how we are top of league. We've been pretty woeful to be fair.

But, let's go for league again, FA cup and what another great season we've had.

I agree with Tony, but wow, Maicon is an ex Inter Milan right wing back for fuck sake! How much more experience in the Champ League can you get!

Yaya! Had enough of this guy! He turned up for I reckon 45-50% of the games last year, but he must have this clause in his contract, no matter how shit he is playing, as long as he is fit or not at the ACN then he HAS to play! Drop him! Drop Kolarov, Maicon, Dzeko (from start) and lets give the passionate hard working guys a go. Sinclair, Milner, Barry!

Sorry for the rants guys! I've been on a client event with a free bar and dodgems so had to let rip!

If all else fails....look at the badger!

joemanton wrote:
If all else fails....look at the badger!

+1 Rep

That badger is a bit hypnotic, it's starting to worry me...

I guess I'm the only person who thought Nasri didn't do too badly then. I was expecting him to disappear completely, but he was there, getting stuck in, winning a few balls, causing a fuss in midfield. I think our main gripe is we're expecting a right-footed version of Silva and he's not as good as that. He needs a bit more self belief that he can take players on.

I can see what Bob was thinking with the 3-5-2 and it's a formation I think would work if we employed it properly. Having Maicon and Kolarov out wide, peppering the box with crosses for Dzeko to knock in is a good plan on paper. Only in practice, Maicon messed up half of his balls, Kolarov was even worse, and on the odd occasion it appeared in a spot ripe for a poacher, Dzeko was nowhere to be seen.

I suppose it was no accident we looked better going to a 4-5-1, at least everyone knows where they're supposed to be. The problem with 3-5-2 is it's largely untested and the players clearly can't get to grips with it. I applaud Bob for thinking about a plan B as last season we were caught out by wide teams (the scouse pair) and any team that parked the bus (Sunderland and West Brom spring to mind). But we need a pre-season to test it, doing it when games matter is suicidal unless we're left with no choice.

As for the Madrid goal, that's the fourth or fifth time I've seen that happen already this season. Letting the ball bounce freely on the edge of the six yard box? My son, aged 14, said to me, "You don't stand around watching the ball bounce there, you get rid of it!" And he's totally right. Now if a fourteen year old can see that, why can't these professionals paid a bastard fortune? Standing there, watching it bounce, honestly... You're in a crucial football match, not watching a bit of modern art in the Tate Gallery, you halfwits!!!