Man City vs Blues - Match Report and Man of the Match Poll...

[stamullenblue]

Stek of course for MOTM but good performances all round. Williams immense again and I thought cleverly did well for us again .. Don't understand the hate for him on here but he got a good send off when he subbed yesterday from all of us st the game .. Better option than Ross in yesterday's game !

 

[Blue Cheese]

The point was good, the performances of certain individuals was outstanding (GK and Williams in particular). To me though I look at that game and see only one manager who could have done nothing more than he could have done...and it isn't Koeman. City stretched us and when the pressure was too great we gave away a couple of pens that should have been dispatched. Shots outside the area are a sign that the defence have been solid enough, yes. But they did find space in and around our box, got their goal and we rode our luck big time.

I just dont go with the flow on sitting ten back behind the ball and being happy because we eked out a draw. The only time we worked any quality going forward was when we scored, so that shows how much of a missed opportunity it was to come out and play. Holding off a siege never impressed me under Moyes and I'm not going to be inconsistent on that now under Koeman. The game plan was like something Sunderland or Boro could have been forgiven for adopting.

We got away with that, just, yesterday. But the last four games on the bounce have shown almost zero in the way of creative attacking play.

Agreeing with everything Dave.

 

[Old Blue 2]

Couldn't get a stream yesterday so had to settle for what I saw on MOTD (and the virtual running commentary live on here!).

So what did I see? That we knew they would be climbing all over us, and set out our plan of action accordingly.

We defended well, but you're not going to keep a team of City's quality out for 90+ minutes.

When called upon, Stek did brilliantly. Had no chance for their equaliser - Nolito just had too much time and room.

Bolasie came in for a lot of stick on here yesterday. Obviously, as I stated above, I only saw the minimum highlights last night, but one must give him credit for holding off the City player and playing a perfect pass to Rom to head off up the pitch and score. A first-time touch to perfection - credit where credit's due. What other midfielder yesterday would have laid the ball of to perfection...?

Jags: has he lost the half yard of pace, half second of thought, finally. A shame if so, as he has been a loyal servant.

Pep got it wrong. Should have had Aguero on from the start to try to kill us off after 60 minutes, rather than bringing him ON after 60 minutes to try to rescue the win for them.

A hard-earned point, which Shearer acknowledged on MOTD, pointing out our tenacity; that would never have been said last season...!

 

[Blue Cheese]

Back to plucky old Everton again then, sigh.

 

[davek]

Back to plucky old Everton again then, sigh.

Exactly. MOTD's pundits repeating the word "resilient" about five times. Patronising pat on the head they dole out to the Hulls of this world.

 

[Khalekan]

Why won't people just say what they saw and that was man City attacking for 90 mins. A world class performance from our keeper and defence and a worldie from Rom. We weren't great, good or anything of the sort. We got pummelled and LUCKILY took a welcome point.

I cba watching that performance everytime we play one of the big boys, it's boring as f and utterly embarrassing to watch.

A simple truth, my friend.

Couldn't get a stream yesterday so had to settle for what I saw on MOTD (and the virtual running commentary live on here!).

So what did I see? That we knew they would be climbing all over us, and set out our plan of action accordingly.

We defended well, but you're not going to keep a team of City's quality out for 90+ minutes.

When called upon, Stek did brilliantly. Had no chance for their equaliser - Nolito just had too much time and room.

Bolasie came in for a lot of stick on here yesterday. Obviously, as I stated above, I only saw the minimum highlights last night, but one must give him credit for holding off the City player and playing a perfect pass to Rom to head off up the pitch and score. A first-time touch to perfection - credit where credit's due. What other midfielder yesterday would have laid the ball of to perfection...?

Jags: has he lost the half yard of pace, half second of thought, finally. A shame if so, as he has been a loyal servant.

Pep got it wrong. Should have had Aguero on from the start to try to kill us off after 60 minutes, rather than bringing him ON after 60 minutes to try to rescue the win for them.

A hard-earned point, which Shearer acknowledged on MOTD, pointing out our tenacity; that would never have been said last season...!

And yet we emerged with a point after a similiar barrage in January last

 

[Blue Cheese]

Exactly. MOTD's pundits repeating the word "resilient" about five times. Patronising pat on the head they dole out to the Hulls of this world.

Seems the majority of the fan base are happy with it, sad times.

 

[Amw79]

Martinez record v Man City

P8
W1
D2
L5
For 6
Against 14

Would have liked to seen more going forward yesterday, but that record over the last 3 years is poor so happy to think about getting points first and performances second against these.

 

[Barnfred 55]

The point was good, the performances of certain individuals was outstanding (GK and Williams in particular). To me though I look at that game and see only one manager who could have done nothing more than he could have done...and it isn't Koeman. City stretched us and when the pressure was too great we gave away a couple of pens that should have been dispatched. Shots outside the area are a sign that the defence have been solid enough, yes. But they did find space in and around our box, got their goal and we rode our luck big time.

I just dont go with the flow on sitting ten back behind the ball and being happy because we eked out a draw. The only time we worked any quality going forward was when we scored, so that shows how much of a missed opportunity it was to come out and play. Holding off a siege never impressed me under Moyes and I'm not going to be inconsistent on that now under Koeman. The game plan was like something Sunderland or Boro could have been forgiven for adopting.

We got away with that, just, yesterday. But the last four games on the bounce have shown almost zero in the way of creative attacking play.

But we didn't play a 451 yesterday Dave, we played a 433. The wide men gave very little defensive cover and was quite a bold move by Koeman I thought. But it didn't work out as the front 3 were too isolated and I thought Koeman could have done something earlier to change it by changing to a front 2, and putting either Bolasie or Del into a slightly withdrawn and more central role to try and link up play.

The very adventurous format City played left them open to counter attack, as evidenced by Rom's goal. Had our front 3 been on their game we could have won yesterday, but Mirallas, Bolasie, Ross and Del are all completely out of sorts at the moment, which is also the reason why we have shown almost zero attacking play in the last 4 matches. It's not Koeman's tactics at fault, our forward players are under performing.

Kone and Valencia don't appear to be the answer so, if it carries on much longer, he may be forced to give a run out to the likes of Calvert-Lewin and Dowell from the under 23s. Not great really and links back to a below par transfer window.

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

Seems the majority of the fan base are happy with it, sad times.

I all honesty do we have the squad to have a real go at city on the road? That would be suicide. We need to crawl before we can walk and run, right the ship this war, and hopefully each transfer window we've made enough progress since the last one to entice real talent to come here.

FFS

 

[Eggs]

....my main issue this season is our lack of goal threat, more specifically I want us to create lots of goal scoring opportunities home and away against all types of opposition. Saying that, I accept that we are work in progress and it will take time for RK to bring in the 'types' of player that best fit his team model.

There are signs of progress, though. Like all good coaches he appears to have us much better organised defensively. Williams and Jagielka love to defend but more importantly our full backs are not continually caught 'grazing' in no mans land leaving us exposed to a single long ball.

 

[Barnfred 55]

This is the way 9 out of 10 teams will set up against City this season, because it's the achievable way of beating a Pep team.

The other one is to have loads of star players/money yourself and go toe to toe, but neither we, nor anyone in this league really, can do that this season effectively.

I mean, perhaps we couldn've done better, yeah. Perhaps we could've had other players on the pitch and not Deulofeu who forgot how to play, Cleverley who never knew how to play and Bolasie who is either boss or absolute trash with no inbetween, and maybe if it wasn't them our counters would be more effective and we could've scored more, but options are limited.

Agree. City were there for the taking on the counter yesterday as the goal showed, but our front players, apart from Rom, are out of form. If we had a go like Bournemouth, they'd have torn us one good style.

One of the reasons I was pleased we got Koeman on board is that he plays results football and will pick a team/formation to suit particular opponents. Seeing as we don't have the personnel to press high up, the tactics he played yesterday were the next best option to get something out of the game. It's not his fault his forward players are crap at the moment.

It's not as if he'll play these tactics against all the top teams. Probably only City and maybe Arsenal away.

 

[Barnfred 55]

....my main issue this season is our lack of goal threat, more specifically I want us to create lots of goal scoring opportunities home and away against all types of opposition. Saying that, I accept that we are work in progress and it will take time for RK to bring in the 'types' of player that best fit his team model.

There are signs of progress, though. Like all good coaches he appears to have us much better organised defensively. Williams and Jagielka love to defend but more importantly our full backs are not continually caught 'grazing' in no mans land leaving us exposed to a single long ball.

Apart from Rom, all our attack minded players are out of form though Eggs. That's the problem. Bolasie has been either brilliant or crap and you have no idea which is going to turn up. Del, Kev and Ross are all having mares at the moment. Even average 7/10 performances from them will make a huge difference.

 

[TyphooToffee]

A very good point considering two penalties saved and the pressure City applied.

We have something resembling a defence forming there.

Weird that I originally put it down as 3-1 to Citeh, and even made it my banker (Selco Predictor) but changed it to 1-1 before it was too late. Maybe I'm psychic!

 

[Eggs]

Apart from Rom, all our attack minded players are out of form though Eggs. That's the problem. Bolasie has been either brilliant or crap and you have no idea which is going to turn up. Del, Kev and Ross are all having mares at the moment. Even average 7/10 performances from them will make a huge difference.

....I suspect it's lots to do with players not fitting the way RK wants his team to play. That's why I emphasise 'type' of players, it will take a number of windows to find and recruit the footballers he wants but he has at least got us better organised defensively.