Out fought...Out thought....

Chelsea were excellent tonight. FACT.

Point One:Out fought

We lost all the major battles in MF.....we all knew that a DMF pairing of Yaya and DeM was never going to work against a Chelsea team that would add extra MF players.....and it didn't. What did MP do? Not a lot.

Point Two:Out Thought

Pellegrini completely lost the mind battle by adding a player in MF, who is positionally awful at CB, but thought, because he has had a decent game against lesser opposition, could do a job against a team/manager, that would flood the MF area....and he lost that battle....but furthermore, did nothing about it.





A couple of further points:

We've all said we need a CB and maybe a LB.

Nothing was more evident tonight. We've had all January to sort this problem out. Lezza is clearly a 3rd choice CB...but he's been allowed to stay....even though I'd much rather have him than Nasty.

DeM....is nowhere near good enough for this team....yet MP now accommodates him as a CB and a DMF player......he makes the odd good tackle, but we all know, positionally, he's awful in both roles....but yet again...we've done nothing about it.

Now - in his defence, Fernandhino was absent.....BUT, if DeM is our next to go to guy, ahead of Milner in a role that will need masses of energy and discipline.....then I'm not sure WTF MP is thinking.

DeMechelis is nothing short of a Championship player at best....a PL player for 45 minutes.....he's got no stamina, no positional sense, no height, no aggression. His tackling is ok at times, then awful at others....but still, MP allowed him to play a full 90 mins against a  team full of young, hungry and energetic Chelsea players.....very bizarre.

Milner.....he must only be 50% fit....otherwise, why keep him on the bench?

Our bench.....looked a bit of a joke compared to Chelsea's tonight....best squad? No way.

Dzeko - I'm sort of lost for words on how shit he was...I don't want to pick on him, as Negredo was awful as well....but the chances he gets and the touch he has....it's poor, simple as.

Yaya....I'm sure with DeM next to him...he just couldn't unleash the chains...as at least with Fernandhino, they have an understanding..but I'm sure may have thought that on the break, we'd be exposed, and to be fair..it didn't matter whether DeM was there or not....as he was bypassed easily.

Zaba...never seen such a poor performance with and without the ball from him...very unusual.

The CB's.....this is where I think MP has his biggest weakness. He fucks about with his pairing with Kompany.....now he needs to stick with one, the other, or the other......and stick to it FFS....as Nasty looked all over the fucking place tonight...and he and Vinny just didn't gel.

Kolorov....we've all said it...great in attack..but cannot defend for toffee and always caught out of position...well tonight, he provided the odd good cross...but if that's it for 90 mins, and he doesn't do his primary role...what's the point?

Overall...we were out fought, out thought by Jose and his band of merry men. We could have been on the end of a 4-0 battering tonight but for the post...they were far more effective in the final third than we were. due to them getting their tactics spot on, and us fucking ours up.

We've clearly not got the squad that all have been going on about....we haven't got enough consistent players to pull it out when up against the big teams, especially when key players are missing.....a fact Barca will be looking at...and rubbing their hands.......

But it's our fault.....we've known our weaknesses.....and had a month to sort it out, but we didn't.
Just like tonight, our Management team sat on their hands, didn't identify what was needed, and this result was one that was coming...and frankly, needed.....as last time we got beat, we went on a 3 month unbeaten run, but without relying on 'key' players.....
I just don't see where our B players can step up to the plate...they're not good enough, as tonight proved against a decent team.

Upside.....we are second, 2 points off the top and we don't have to play Chelsea again!
MP MUST learn from this...but will he....and what effect has that result had on the team morale?

It was a bad evening by the players, the management, all concerned....a good night for Mourinho and his team.....and he will make sure he milks every single bit of it, talking about our weaknesses, and how other teams can now come to the Etihad and beat us.......and on tonight's shit display...they can.

Still, we're still ruining football!  

We might not have Chelsea to play again, but we do still have Arsenal, Liverpool and the rags coming up, all away from home. This is what's worrying me now. We need to step up and now, thanks to concentrating on Mangala and Fernando exclusively, we've missed the chance to get some cover.

We shouldn't be missing Aguero and Nasri this much. We should have better cover and we just don't. It could well be that, come the end of this month, we're out of half the competitions we're in.

Nah....I just think tonight was down to one thing.....Mourinho out-thought Pellegrini and got his selection right, where MP got his ALL wrong.

And that happens from time to time.....but he got punished for it.

What did surprise me though, was that he sat there like he was Mancini's twin brother, as if he thought, "ah fuck it, we're only 2 points behind".....very very odd.

Not sure what game MP was watching:

Manuel Pellegrini believes that his side were unfortunate not to register at least a point against Chelsea.
Pellegrini’s side went down to the Chilean’s first home Premier League defeat but the City boss believes that an injury list including Fernandinho, Samir Nasri, Javi Garcia and Sergio Aguero contributed heavily to the narrow loss.
“Well I think that of course Fernandinho is an important player for us,” the 60-year old reflected.
“Not only him, you have to add Aguero, Nasri and Javi Garcia – Milner was not 100% so he couldn’t start, Alvaro Negredo wasn’t 100% either.
“That’s too much of an advantage for an important team like Chelsea.
“We lost today against a good team who played well and I thought we deserved at least a draw but they had the luck to win it.
“They scored a beautiful goal, not an easy goal, he hit it from a long way out with the outside of his foot but before their goal we had clear chances to score, so I don’t there was a problem with the way we played.”

Pellegrini defended his selection of Martin Demichelis in central midfield under questioning from the assembled journalists in the post-match press conference.
The City boss believes that the Argentine played well but hinted that he had no chance but to field him there – due to the condition of the rest of his squad.
“Jack Rodwell is coming back from injury, Milner’s just worked with us properly for the last day. I think that the only option I had was Demichelis in that position,” Pellegrini explained.

...Manuel Pellegrini...

“Fernandinho has a muscle injury, we’ll see tomorrow how long he’ll be out for. I think it’ll be a matter of three or four weeks.

“This game was not a problem of the midfielders. I didn’t make the other two substitutions because I didn’t think we could change the game by doing that.
“For Chelsea it was an essential game. It was important because we could have been six points ahead but we’re just two points behind Arsenal in second.”

Pellegrini also added that he doesn’t think the defeat will have any negative mental impact on his players going into their next few games.
“I remember that we won all of the other big games,” he stated.
“This is the first time we’ve lost a big game with five or six less players – maybe this defeat will have no psychological effect on our players.
“We’ll see in the next game how we continue.”
Pellegrini’s counterpart Jose Mourinho was delighted with how his side performed and declared that Chelsea had just beaten the best team in the league.
“We lost once at home to West Brom, we lost two points against West Ham, we lost at Stoke, we lost at Newcastle – we are a team in evolution but this is the kind of performance that helps the team to grow up a lot,” Mourinho asserted.

...Jose Mourinho...

“Today we won because we were the better team – I’m not saying we’re better than them, I’m not saying that.
“We just played better on the night. I think we deserved it.”

We needed bobby for that game, but only that game. Jose is MPs bogey man, don't think he has ever beaten him.

Only 3 points and let's hope it spurs them on.

Bad day at the office..we've been superb most of the season....but tonight we got it wrong...another lesson on our road...simple as.

We had 3 key players out they only had Torres - and I don't class him as a key player.  Bloody hard lines that Fernandinho picked up an injury - I had a feeling when I heard that news that we would slip up - particularly when DEM was playing in midfield.  Barry would have been a great back up.  Oh well.  No use crying over spilt milk.

Oh dear, who really saw that performance coming. We were 2nd best all over the park....at home too, but fair play to Chelsea, they exploited this and fully deserved their win.
Defensively i thought we were awful throughout, it looked like a scene from the Keystone Cops on more than a few occasions. Nasty looked way out of his depth, Kolarov got caught too far forward and Vinny kept giving away needless fouls....still don't know why Lescott didn't play.
The midfield (especially in the centre) was exposed throughout, Demichelis was poor beyond belief and Yaya reverted back to the days of Mancini, collectin the ball on the edge of his own box......fuck off up field and stay there you dick!! And i don't accept he had to be that defensive to help Demichelis out either. We literally had no-one pushing forward helping out the front 2 from this area.
As for the 2 up top, i think it showed how much we miss and need Sergio back. They were woeful with a capital W. Dzeko.....sorry, but he's utterly pants and frustrates the hell out of me, i honestly wouldn't have him in the Bury team he's that bad. And as for Negredo, apart from an early shot wide (when he should have atleast hit the target) he did absolutely kak all. I'd have took um both off at half time, telling um how shit they'd been and put Jovetic and an extra midfielder on....pushing Yaya abit further up.

Anyway, 1 loss isn't the end of the world but some of those City players seriously need to up their game if they want to win that league. The next 5 league games should (on paper) yield 15pts, so hopefully we can put this performance down to a blip.

Suppose we can also thank that alleged racist fucker, John Terry .....after the match thinking he was gloating about coming here and having a go, how other teams should do the same against us...let's hope so John, let's hope so.

Look at my prediction Den, I thought we'd have it tough and I wasn't just double bluffing myself.

I thought Chelsea would set up to defend at just about all costs. That's what they are especially good at. No one gives them a really good hiding. Then they rely on the front 3 or 4 to cause all the problems. Hazard ran us ragged, it was far too easy for him. I remember the Community Shield 18 months back and he was total bobbins. How he has improved since then.

We don't like to be pressed. In fact, we can't handle it. We were not being allowed time on the ball to bring it out and resorted to long punts upfield which was meat and drink to their defenders.

Fernandinho would have made a huge difference as would a better CB.

One bad performance doesn't mean that we are going to struggle for the rest of the season, but there are plenty of tough matches to come (Liverpool, Barca and Chelsea spring to mind) where the other teams will press us once again and will cause us problems.

I thought it was a real throw back to last season.....very slow in midfield getting forward and when we did have the rare chance to break on them it was passed backwards and the chance to was gone. The game was screaming for Milner.....a box to box player that carries a threat......
It seemed like a bloody long drive back to Milton Keynes last night.
I was very impressed with hazard......he caused problems all over the pitch.......ho hum
They will just have to lick their wounds....realise where it went wrong, fix it and go and tear Norwich a new one..!!

Exactly, you go on a run like we did and complacency must set it, it's human nature.   Hopefully that's knocked the stuffing out of them and we kick on now.   If there was a game to lose it was probably that one.

However we MUST and I mean MUST put up a better showing in the FA Cup against them.   If we wilt again and get another lesson it will cast some serious doubts.

Problem is....fixing it is easier said than done. Fix with who?

Is Garcia the answer to the next 3 weeks in place of Fernandhino? No.

Is DeM the answer? No.

Is Nastasic the answer at CB? No.

Like I said last night.....31 days MP and his team had to fix a problem that may have existed if we lose major players.
We didn't.

Milner was on the bench, but not fit. Negredo was 75% apparently.

Chelsea bought the perfect player in Matic that can be deployed against teams like us, we dithered in January, believing our squad had enough quality to cover any future injuries.

We've had a week to forget on the injury front, but if we are to win the league or progress in the CL....we can't use that as an excuse....other teams (United) (Arsenal) have had similar injury concerns...

Let's hope Fernandhino is back soon, Milner stays fit and Sergio and Nasri are back soon....because relying on DeM in MF is not an answer against the better teams.

Sort of sums up last night:




Even the best teams can sometimes learn lessons very quickly. On Monday night at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester City learned just how vulnerable they can be when their best players don’t play.

Ahead of their two-legged engagement with Barcelona in the Champions League, City attempted to take on just about the best the Barclays Premier League has to offer – with respect to Arsenal – without their Brazilian central midfield player Fernandinho.

To say they struggled at times is to understate matters. At times during this game, they were cut adrift by the dexterity of Chelsea’s play in the centre of the field. Dangerous when they had the ball, they were nevertheless embarrassed in their own defensive third.


This season there has been much talk about YaYa Toure, Sergio Aguero and Alvaro Negredo.

They are part of City’s stellar cast. Early on in last night’s contest, before Chelsea got hold of the game, Toure was particularly impressive.

Those who watch Manuel Pellgrini’s team regularly, though, know how things really are. They know that without Fernandinho alongside him, the giant Ivorian can struggle a little bit. For all that he is irresistible when he goes forward, Toure is not so great when City do not have the ball.

Hence the anxiety among the more knowledgeable City supporters last night when news broke that Fernandinho wouldn’t play. A muscle strain ruled him out of the game and, the longer the night wore on, the more City missed him.

The Brazilian is not only a gifted technician, he is an astute reader of the game, a rhythmical passer of the ball and a work horse. It’s not a bad combination.

On Monday night in his place - with the Spaniard Javi Garcia also injured - Pellegrini fielded a central defender, Martin Demichelis. With the exception of Garcia, Demichelis is the weakest member of City’s squad, and that is when he is playing in his own position.


On Monday night - playing in an advanced role - the Argentinean started moderately and got worse, not helped by Toure’s tendency to gallop forward without much thought to what was happening behind him. 

It was easy to wonder last night just what James Milner or Jack Rodwell had done wrong not to find a way in to this team.

'They were both returning from injuries,' explained Pellegrini. 'I had no choice but to do what I did.'

More pertinently, though, Pellegrini’s decision to send Gareth Barry on loan to Everton continues to baffle.


Pellegrini has been asked many times about Barry this season, though somewhat less frequently as City’s form has moved through the gears to its recent extraordinary level.  His answers, it must be said, have been inconclusive.

Barry would not have played every game this season. Things in his area of the field have, after all, moved on apace at the club.

However, the England player - now at Everton - did not ask to leave and would have played his share of games, given that City remain in all four competitions. Certainly he would have played last night and he would have helped.

Here, on a night many expected them to overpower Chelsea, City started well enough, full of energy, running and bombast. But once Chelsea survived early scares and began to impose themselves City’s midfield lost its way alarmingly.

They began to give the ball away. They lost track of Chelsea’s runners, lost control of the game utterly and hopelessly.


It will not be lost on City’s fans that the best player in royal blue during Chelsea’s dominant period in the middle portion of the game was the Belgian Eden Hazard.

For all Jose Mourinho’s recent talk of City’s powerful spending, his opponents last night actually withdrew from the battle to sign Hazard two summers ago because his wage demands were too high.

Last night at times Hazard - afforded too more space - proved too good for City, who really should have been two or three goals behind by the hour.

In the end this was not just a defeat for City but a lesson. It will place doubt in the minds ahead of the Champions League resumption. For now, the steam train has been derailed. Barcelona will have watched with interest.

If Milner was on the bench, then surely he was fit to play. That said, why didn't Rodwell play in CM?

Clearly MP has run out of patience with him, as he tried to off-load him to Everton on 31st....but Fernando didn't come.

You only had to take one look at that bench last night and compare it to Chelsea's.....ours looked pretty embarrassing.

Jovetic, Milner, Rodwell, Boyata, Clichy, Lopes......really?

Compared to:

Mikel, Ba, Oscar, Cole, Lampard, Salah

IF Rodwell and Milner were returning from injury, then play them for 45 minutes each. Start with Jimmy and if he starts to falter, replace with Rodwell.

Here's your answer:

“This game was not a problem of the midfielders. I didn’t make the other two substitutions because I didn’t think we could change the game by doing that.
“For Chelsea it was an essential game. It was important because we could have been six points ahead but we’re just two points behind Arsenal in second.”

That's a very negative statement....and clearly, Rodwell and Milner are nowhere near fit enough, and were clearly filling spots on the bench.

Then how the fuck, only 4 days into Feb, have we got Nasri, Aguero, Fernandino, Milner, Negredo, Garci and Rodwell injured whilst keeping the shite DM playing???

Granted that Fernandinho got injured after the window closed but surely we should have had an extra body or two. Bollocks.

He may become a great manager for us, but he don't half make some fuck ups like subbing Negredo instead of Dzeko, not going for the 4th against Bayern, letting Barry go, getting DM, continuing to play DM and Garcia (when fit) etc.

I've just watched the highlights .....and DeM was fucking awful and lazy at tracking back.
3 or 4 occasions when they hit on the break, he was just walking on the edge of the area whilst they had 4 against 4 or 3 against 3.....meaning other players like Kolorov, or Navas, had to try and cover his player...meaning their players were left alone. A classic example was when Eto hit the post.....Willian just ran passed DeM into the box, but because DeM just stood there watching what was happening, Kolorov had to come across and cover Willian, leaving Eto all alone at the back.

This wasn't the only time.....he did the same thing pretty much consistently throughout the match.....

As for the goal...Yaya went to block it and pulled out of it...shit bag.

We had so many good chances though...the finishing was garbage.....Silva was again very poor in front of goal and Dzeko??

This is what I wrote last week

'With the squad we have at the moment I can see us falling short on 2 maybe 3 out of the 4
Chelsea have a better all round squad than us & Mourinho is a wiley old fooka & I think that those 2 things combined will make the difference'


This applies even more so now with injuries to Sergio, Nasri, Garcia, Milner, Negredo, Rodwell, Fernando et bloody cetera


I am now concerned for the next few weeks where we could fuck up massively ! Even Sunderland will be fancying their chances in the League Cup final

Sunderland are on a high at the moment stringing together a few good results and looking tight. They are going to prove very difficult to beat especially when they are in our faces and giving a few ankle taps.

Agree.....but how many times and articles were wrote during December and January, identifying where we are seriously lacking in quality - all at the height of how we were playing, we could all see that our weaknesses could be exposed by better teams.....yet we did nothing about it.

I know we were in for the 2 players from Porto....but on the last day of the transfer window??

Still, we have to hope Nasri and Aguero will be back soon, Fernandhino's isn't as bad as 3 weeks....and the likes of Rodwell and Richards now start contributing to the team after 2 years of non-stop 'nothing'.

Nasri, Aguero and Fernandinho would have been huge last night. We'd have had far better ball retention and Silva would have had a bit more space and time with the Chelsea players chasing Aguero and Nasri. They couldn't have been everywhere and we'd have been in the game.

I know it's not about what ifs, but what if Silva had put his chance away (very similar to one Aguero put away not so long go), things would have been very different. Just no clinical enough.

well I have now seen the game after reading all the posts on here I was dreading it. To be frank I was quietly surprised we were not as bad as I had expected. I can't fault most of the analysis on here but the fact Chelsea did not put away their chances gave us a modicum of hope the 3 that hit the woodwork had they gone in it would be all over, however they did not so if we had buried a couple of early chances it could have been a totally different game. I actually thought dzeko was far better than negredo and I understand why Negredo was subbed instead of dzeko. That said when dzeko did have the chance to finish as usual he fluffed his lines only this time he did not get his customary 1 out of 6. Heplayed a number of good lay offs in the game and was generally looking to get on the ball a bit more than past games. My main criticism which I don't think has been mentioned is the number of times yaya, negredo & dzeko went to ground either clutching their leg , face or other parts of their anatomy without being touched. I do hopethis disease is not starting to creep into city's players as diving does to the rags. I do hate players feigning injury & diving more than anything else.

Yeah, some fair points there Oz.....BUT, for me, after watching the highlights again.....what if, Yaya would have gone to ground in the box after he was clipped by their defender...but instead, stayed on his feet and put in Silva, who shot wide?

If he would've gone down, it would have been a nailed on penalty...but he didn't, got a great cut back to Silva....but as per usual, Silva's finishing was garbage.

Just a thought on the flip side of what you said.

But can you imagine Whingerino if he had gone down in the box? "They got a point because they were lucky again."

Except we wouldn't, because refs still pay attention to manager comments like this. They'd be like, "If I give the penalty, is it luck or warranted?" and in that split second, they decide to not give it.