City vs Roma

We simply have to win this game. Jovetic, Fernando and Nasri all out.

Willy
Zabba, Kompany, Mangala, Kolarov
Fernandinho, Milner
Navas, Yaya, Silva
Aguero

I'd play Yaya off Aguero since we can't rely on him helping out the defence. I'd prefer to drop him entirely and play Dzeko, but I don't think we will ever do that no matter how bad he plays.

Yaya was excellent v Chelsea last week and thought he was ok yesterday,other than a dismal performance in Munich he's played very much the same as last season when he takes time to build up his match fitness.
I think he gets a lot of undeserved stick personally

Against Roma,who are flying at the moment,I would play

Hart
Zabaleta Kompany Demichellis Kolorov 
Milner  Fernandinho
Yaya Silva
Aguero Dzeko

........................Hart......................

Zaba.....Vinny..........Manga....Kolorov

...........Fernandinho...Milner.............

Silva................Yaya..............Aguero

....................Dzeko........................

Can't drop Dzeko after scoring 4 in 2 games and Yaya is beyond dropping, but I'd put Milner next to Ferdy as Yaya lumbers through the game at the moment and we can't have Ferdy doing the job of two players again like Munich.

Thought Aguero looked a lot sharper yesterday, but tired towards the end....and Silva was excellent on the ball.

thought you said Silva didn't deserve to stay on the pitch yesterday?  Or were you ranting about someone else Blue?

The main issue here seems to be Mango. Keep him in there 'to get back on the horse' and he may be a bag of shit again, never to recover. Drop him and he may lose his confidence and be a bag of shit next time out and he may never recover.

Wensdi wrote:thought you said Silva didn't deserve to stay on the pitch yesterday?  Or were you ranting about someone else Blue?

Ouch Wensdi....bit bitter there. Nope, the only thing I said yesterday was our corners weren't great again. If you were to read what I said after the game, I said Silva was excellent in possession yesterday.

"Let's all be nice and dare not criticise any player eh...?"

They only get paid in one week what most earn in a year or two.

Topdawg wrote:The main issue here seems to be Mango. Keep him in there 'to get back on the horse' and he may be a bag of shit again, never to recover. Drop him and he may lose his confidence and be a bag of shit next time out and he may never recover.

Keep him in. He just a bad day at the office.

Last year, in this very same fixture, I remember another CB was a bag of shit and he got back in asap.

Yep....thing is, we've spent £32m on him, not a few £m.

He was excellent against Chelsea, but just had one of those days...the header could easily have gone anywhere, rather than in, the tackle, he just lost his SA. Wasn't sure where he was, or who was close by.

I'd be tempted to throw him back in as his pace is excellent. I just think that own goal blew his confidence...and he is still very young.

Phil Neville said he was in a bad position and the only place it could go was goalwards. Also, Gullit and Neville said McNair could give him lessons on how to do it!

I'd play him again, though I can see the temptation not to. We need the win.

For me, I'd rather has his pace and presence against Roma than DeM's positional play.

if he has a good game (at home), then yesterday is forgotten about. If he has another shocker, he gets dropped for DeM for the next game...for me, it's that simple. Dropping him could knock his confidence....he'll be itching to go out and atone for that performance, just like teams do when they get beat, the next game can't come soon enough.

Confidence seems key these days. Just look at Dzeko...

Not bitter at all Bluey - who were you referring to then - on the Hull live thread?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29362609

.......................Hart
Zab.......Vince........Mangala......Kolarov
..........Yaya..........Fernandinho
Navas........Lampard/Aguero..........Silva
..................Dzeko

Wensdi wrote:Not bitter at all Bluey - who were you referring to then - on the Hull live thread?

Are you referring to the point where I said "does Silva ever shoot?".....sorry, is he beyond questioning now? I know one thing, his corners are shit. But as mentioned, after the game I said he was excellent.

I questioned Dzeko's control and Yaya's effort at tracking back in the first half....and as per many others, Mangala having a shocker.

It's a live thread Wensdi, so when you post during the game you are posting with emotion, not 24 hours later when the dust has settled. Still, I ain't changing my opinion to please you.  

Play nice, you two!

I'd agree that Silva is hopeless at taking corners - he hardly ever gets the ball over the first man.  And I'd like him to shoot more often, but I suspect he's not as confident at that as some of his colleagues.  But then again, he's not there to score goals, he's there to create chances and in that he's exceptionally good and, when he's really on form, he's utterly unplayable.

Silva is frustrating at times,he had 2 or 3 really good opportunities to take a shot against Hull but looked to pass instead. 
His corners are simply shit

Still a great player to watch, some of his touches and control were simply brilliant.

Maybe we need to isolate the DNA of him and Dzeko and mix it up a little.

Ok, so his corners are shit......why don't we put someone infront of the 1st defender to flick it on then?

I wonder that myself, Shaken.  Just have someone ahead of the man on the near post to ping it up.  How hard can it be??

It's been like that all season though. It's not just Silva. Nasri, Navas and Milner are just as bad.

What made me laugh was watching this training session on crosses. I know they are not corners, but nearly all the crosses were perfect and the finishing was seriously impressive (including some top save from Willy)....so why not work on corners too?

Navas is too variable and Milner has a tendency to overhit them, but I disagree about Nasri.  I've always thought he was pretty decent at corners.

Ok, maybe Nasri is the best of a bad bunch....but he won't be around for at least another 6 weeks, and when we win so many corners as we do, and the likes of Kompany, Yaya, Manga, Kolorov, Dzeko all in the box....it wouldn't take much for them to win a header against a lot of CB's.

Yep, point taken.  I notice Wenger made his team stay behind to work on corners (oo-er  ), so perhaps we should be doing the same.  Right now, teams just bundle out for a corner against us because we're so incapable of doing anything from them.

See more and more of the lower teams are playing zonal as well at corners....so anything decent and we should be getting a run on them...if, the corner is decent.

Not got a good feeling about tomorrow, Roma are a very good team and we haven't got any where near fully clicking for me yet. 

I'm feeling quite pessimistic in general about this season though so is take a very scrappy win straight away!

Silva said in an interview, that he thinks the team are now starting to pick up and will get stronger each game.

Agree though, Roma look decent, so not expecting an easy game.

It's funny though, when you listen to the likes of TS and they always talk about Chelsea being favourites due to Costa and how well they are playing, and we're obviously their rivals....if you think about it, we've not played great so far, played Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, who've they played apart from us?

Also, Costa is on the brink of remaining match fit. IF, Chelsea had Remy, Hazard and Matic out....would they still be where they are?

We've had Jovetic, Fernando and Nasri out for the past 3 weeks or so...not saying by any means, Nasri is as good as Hazard, but Jovetic was on fire before his injury, Fernando looked very impressive in the Matic role and Nasri on his day can be excellent on the left.

I think the table doesn't quite show how small the gap really is, if any at all between us and Chelsea. One or two injuries to Costa, Matic or an Oscar...and I think they'll struggle.

Strangely enough, I am very confident about tomorrow. I've seen slight improvement in each game so far (apart  from Stoke).
We are getting very close to clicking.
We are one great performance from hitting a run, and this could be the match that starts it.
Not like me to be confident, so maybe I need a lie down?

I agree TBW....I think the cup game showed we can score plpenty of goals...I know it was a cup game, but 7 in the second half? Didn't see other 'big' teams destroying their opponents.

I think the way we started, then came out in the second half against Hull shown us more in the light of last season...Silva was pulling strings and for 60 mins, Sergio looked more like himself.

I think Silva may be right...maybe they feel like things are clicking into place...I think Milner has been impressive with his run of games and Dzeko? Well, I might think he's lazy, and has a terrible touch, but if he keeps knocking them in, then all the better with Jovetic and Fernando due back soon.

I'm going, so we'll win

Enjoy!!

Surely we have someone on the team that can take corners. How about Zabba taking them and Milner dropping back or even Sergio. Ive seen Van Pussy & the granny shagger take them for the scum

Jeez, i daren't tell my daughter that the Vamps will be in City Square tonight, she'll go absolutely ape at me....as i'm taking the owd fella instead of her (as it's a school night).