City vs Arsenal - Live Thread

[blueboy]

First topic message reminder :

Ok...so no Nasri today. Team? For me:

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

Zaba...................Vinny.......................Manga.................Clichy..

...............................Fernando..........Fernandinho......................

Navas.................................Silva............................Milner.......

.........................................Aguero.........................................

Navas and Milner can track both Sanchez and Walcott/Oxe out wide and Manga has the height with Vinny to challenge Giroud in the air.

The two DFM's will need to pick up Ramsey's runs and we need to start very quickly against them and press them high up the pitch - no slow tippy tappy crap, get the ball quickly into Sergio and Silva's feet and press them with pace.

[Topdawg]

But we can't be arsed.

[Topdawg]

Another corner. Did it beat the first man?

[Topdawg]

Another poor cross.

[Topdawg]

Will the corner be any better?

[Topdawg]

Is that 17 corners? Has any been any good?

[Topdawg]

Poor corner from Arsenal.

[Topdawg]

This has been wank of the highest order.

[Topdawg]

They're taking the piss now.

[Topdawg]

Another corner....please make it a good one

[Topdawg]

Hey, it beat the first man!!!

[Topdawg]

Kompany saved us

[Guest]

A good corner, behave.

Terrible performance, they better learn from it.   Chelsea next and we lose that and it is all over, plain and simple.

[Topdawg]

Well, we can focus on the CL now....

[Topdawg]

Since we'll take Boro lightly in the cup and they'll beat us.

[Topdawg]

Bony will win fuck all with this manager.

[Topdawg]

We were lucky last season with both Chelsea and Liverpool imploding.

[Guest]

He will Dawg, come on, it's been a bad string of games since Burnley.   We lost, we move on to Chelsea and knowing us we will probably win that one and we forget all about this.

[Topdawg]

All the things we've been complaining about and nothing has changed. A slow start just thinking we'd have to turn up to win. No invention, no craft. Navas can't cross for toffee and can't beat his man. Heck, he doesn't even try. Awful defending for the 2nd goal. They were lining up to score. We hardly had a shot at all. We still give silly free kicks away near our area. We don't learn.

[Topdawg]

BB, I just hate the way we look like we are strolling. We strolled against Burnley, taking it easy. We didn't take our chances against Everton and we were utter shite today.
Like most fans, I don't expect to win every week, but I want to see effort, intelligence and some decent tactics from the manager. Is that too much to ask?

[Guest]

I know but I am a realist.  I still maintain while this very lucky manager is still in this job we will never be the team we all want us to be.   He cannot change a game if his life depended on it.   So while he is still here this is where we are.

Navas simply is not good enough, why continue to play with 2 holding mid-fielders while we are losing and chasing a game?

Sergio wasn't 100%, Vinnie the same, but more games and they will come back.

It's not all doom and gloom but lose to Chelsea and it is really all over and we are looking over our bastard shoulder at the fecking Rags which is probably even more annoying.

[Guest]

I daid it before... I though Mancini was a crap tactician...this guy is on another level!

Is it so hard to find a decent manager with tactical awareness with all the money they have?

Lucky last season and we have never played as a team...its all about the individual brilliance of a few players and when they hit a dip there is nothing. ..

[Guest]

Why bring Kompany back after 2 months off! Why have Aguero from the off??

This common bast* sense!

[Topdawg]

If they were fit enough, they had to start.  Fernandinho is a shadow of the player from last season. Way too many basic mistakes. They must think the hard work was to claw back Chelsea's lead. We are letting ourselves in for a fight for just a CL place if we lose to Chelsea.

[Guest]

No you ease the player in so they get their confidence back not put them in a game of this magnitude against carzola and sanchez from the start! It was Kompany being rusty that gave a nervous Arsenal team that has been spanked by us many times the push ...

[Wensdi]

Most people on here didn't want Aguero coming on for the last 30 minutes though - they felt we needed to go at Arsenal from the start.

It's disappointing of course - but not as bad as you guys are making it out to be.  We did miss YaYa in midfield, no Nasri and Aguero is not back to his old self yet neither is Vinnie.  Vinnie's foul was the catalyst and we just didn't click today.

[Topdawg]

It was a terrible performance Wensdi. We were out thought too. We wanted Aguero to start if he was fully fit. Arsenal haven't been great this season and have struggled badly at times but this was a pretty comfortable afternoon for them as they were prepared to work hard. We needed to go at Arsenal at the start, that's what a fair few of us wanted, but we didn't.

These comments are remarkable similar from match to match especially when we play poorly.

[TMG]

Kompany was obviously a little off the pace but Id still rather have him then Mangala

Wensdis right It just wasn't our day. Arsenal weren't great They just did what they had to do, got a very soft penalty and killed us off with one of their only other attacks. We were poor but had 65% possession and 16 corners to 2 but didnt do a great deal with the possession and only 1 corner troubled a normally shite Arsenal defence. If Stoke had 16 corners against us they'd probably score at least 6 !!!

We have to play at our very best against Chelsea and maybe get the breaks otherwise the title is gone cos they won't slip like Loserpool did

[blueboy]

I can't contribute too much to this debate (sure Wensdi is pleased lol), but I can only point out these opinions:

1. There's been a slating of Mangala on here...and today we started with DeM.

2. We all wanted Vinny back ASAP. He was on the bench last week but didn't come on, so therefore, naturally, you would assume, apart from match fitness, as our Captain he should start today. I'm sure 90% of people on here would have said yes to him starting. Whether he was fully fit, had a good/crap game...I'm not sure as for once, cooking came first today. Not that it was worth it!!

3. Aguero...he had 30 mins last week, trained all week and MP said he was 100%....so if anything, he should have started. Again, as per Vinny, it'll take time to get back to match sharpness.

For me, when I heard he had taken Milner off for Jovetic at half time (and I did post ???), i couldn't be bothered to watch the second half.

Lose work ethic for....? I'm not really sure.

What annoys me is this

1. We are at home at he persists with 2 DFM players, who, quite frankly, have been piss poor IMO. But we all called it, such is MP's predictability...even Wenger looked at tactical genius today compared to MP by all accounts. Why he can't be a little ore adventurous against a poor defensive team like Arsenal I'll never know.

2. Navas...I only saw 4-6 mins in total of the game and saw Navas hit 3 crosses at the defender. Why he persists with him is baffling. He's nothing short of shite. And, we see another brilliant performance from Brandon Barker today in the EDS, yet he can't get a place on the bench???? WTF?

3. Jovetic isn't a top class PL player. He never has nor never will be. Neither is Navas.

4. Maybe we missed TLLMF today...but its no excuse.

5. The 2 DFM's are poor to average at best....but not the first time I've said that.

6. We are still only 5 points behind with a possible 3 point swing if we beat Chelsea...we've turned a 9 point gap into 5 and that's after losing and drawing in 7 days. We can do it again, but it'll need a radical re-think of how we play in the future as it may have to be shit or bust to claw back those points, so MP may have to throw caution to the wind and play a little more attacking.


Oh...and FFS........get some of those EDS kids on the fucking bench!!!!! The likes of Navas keeps getting a regular start when I can't think of 1 single game this season that you thought "great game by Navas, MOM"...not a single one.

[Wensdi]

Still think it was just a bad day at the office for us - we weren't shite - but we were out done by Wenger tactically.  He made the right call - instead of massive attack he usually comes up with.  We need to get back to firing on all cylinders.  It will be good to get everybody match fit and Wilf and YaYa back ASAP.

[shakencity]

I refrained from commenting yesterday, as i thought i'd be lambasted.....but i agree with Wensdi.

We have no god given right to win every game and yesterday we just weren't at the races....and got done by a decent (not great) Arsenal team. Despite us being pretty poor (by our standards), we still didn't get out-played or out-fought....we just gifted them both goals, with makes the result all the more annoying.

Both Vinny and Dimi were poor, but they're the 2 i'd have preferred to start, so i can't moan too much. Sorry blue, but i felt Milner was shocking yesterday and couldn't complain about getting the hook. Ok, i accept you could argue Navas was just as bad and could have come off with Milner going on the right......but Milner was still crap. However, the introduction of Jovetic changed nothing and only went to prove how crap he really is.

I think overall it was evident just how much we missed and rely on TLF and Nasri, throughout the game we just seemed to be lacking something they give us....plus the addition (or loss ) of Bony will certainly add abit more UMPH up top, as Serge looked like a lost puppy up there on his own yesterday.

We also have to remember that that was the 1st defeat in 12, so i don't think we can complain too much, all runs come to an end eventually....and to be fair, i think we've been a tad lucky it's not ended before this.

Anyway, a better performance next week will bring a better result...and hopefully this game'll be forgotten.

[Topdawg]

I wanted Vinny and Dimi, but I thought Dimi was poor yesterday. 16 corners and we couldn't do any damage? That's incredibly piss poor. I thought Jovetic made a difference and we were more at them in the 2nd half. You can't simply say we were outdone tactically. Let's say you approach the game expecting Arsenal to attack us but, surprisingly, they decide to soak up pressure and hit us on the break instead. What do you do? Sit on your hands and do nothing? Or re-jig things around realising that you need to change your own strategy a little to counteract theirs?

Agreeing with Blueboy, Navas seldom crosses past the first man. He rarely takes on the man even if he's the last man.

We can't turn around and say we missed Yaya and Nasri. I'm sure Nasri hasn't played much this season due to injury and we were winning. Yaya won't be here forever and gets injured or suspended. We've coped in the past without him.

That team yesterday, on paper, was just about as good as we could put out, yet it looked laboured and out of ideas. 65% possession is what? Nothing without end product. If we want to pass the ball around in our own half and increase our possession stats, then that's easy. It won't win us games though. Arsenal looked comfortable and they should never have had it so easy.

[blueboy]

Can't remember all the stats, but I don't think a team has won the PL and lost 6 games in one season.

Well that's 5 losses so far for us and Chelsea to come.

[blueboy]

This is why I don't think we will win the PL this season. None of the defenders have reached a level of last years consistency...and you just wouldn't see this in a Chelsea defence:

[Topdawg]

Amateurish at best. Our defence is poor, especially under what would normally be deemed a little pressure. Hart didn't have a chance. Isn't that 3 games on the spin at home where we've let in two goals?

Lose to Chelsea and the rags could be just 4 points behind us. That's poor.

[shakencity]

I was always taught, center halves/forwards should mark opposing center halves/forwards at corners and free kicks.....and the next tallest in your team marks their next tallest and so on.

So, why wasn't Demichellis marking anyone.....let alone Zab and Clichy doing fack all.

As i said in my post....we gifted them both goals

There's even another Arsenal player all on his own infront of Giroud .....and who's the dick on the edge of the box with his hand up claiming offside??

[blueboy]

Silva I think....Navas and Aguero out on the right...maybe Jovetic top left.

I'd love to know who works on our defensive drills mid-week, as he wants sacking immediately we've been that awful.

[Topdawg]

Maybe it's the same guy that works on our corners...

[skyblueoz]

agree with den why the fuck was demichelis not marking Giroud???

[skyblueoz]

Bring back Mangala ASAP!!!!!!!

[blueboy]

I watched Goals on Sunday last week with Peter Reid and Kammi and they were talking about defending from corners and set pieces....and Peter Reid  said "I just don't understand why coaches insist on marking space. We used to always say that's your man - if he scores, it's your fault and the defenders would then do everything to stop the player getting his head on it....space doesn't score goals"

And he's absolutely spot on. This whole zonal marking hasn't and isn't working for us, so why persist with it?

[ManCityMan]

Kompany and Aguero not match fit and should never have started, Demi and Navas were woeful, we missed Yaya. MP tactically inept again first half but changed it for second half but too little too late..

[Sponsored content]