Man City (H) - Post Match Thread

[LCFCJohn]

Can’t see much wrong with the set up and way it went today and this from a firm ‘Rodger’s Outer’ in myself. Possibly could have gone for it a bit sooner but Man City are excellent all over the pitch including closing games out. 
 

Daka could have brought that ball down but had he done this no doubt Ederson would have cleaned him out by the neck or something and gotten away with it like the numerous times he has before.

 

On another note, how entitled are their ‘fans’. Their fan base must be made up of people who are newcomers and don’t remember what they used to be or those who have forgotten. The amount of times they look down on teams approaching games like we did, and it comes from Guardiola too, and call us shit and say we deserve to go down because we didn’t ‘try to play’. Not everybody can have minimum 2 players per position that cost at least £50mill and spend multiple billions of oil money on the team. Just needed to get that off my chest and their superior complex really bugs me to the point I’d rather Arsenal win the title!

[demon_dog]

Missed the game!

Rushed into A and E at 9:30 am 

Spent the day being looked at then told they were keeping me in overnight.

Managed to watch MOTD on my phone last night (good job I had some buds)..

Seems like we played well enough and deserved a draw.

[dannythefox]

12 hours ago, drofmor55 said:

Grealish won that free kick at the end of the first half as they walked to the tunnel,haranging the ref over a dubious corner decision. The free kick wasnt a foul to me ..both had their arms up but Grealish threw himself to the floor and the ref gave in . Sometimes putting a ref under pressure works in your favour

No it was definitely a foul. Have you seen it in the TV?

[Arkie Bennett]

I understand the need to set up defensively. Going toe to toe with Man C from the outset would risk a thrashing. We had two well-prepared defensive rows who kept their discipline and concentration and limited Man C time and again. I wanted to see Rodgers make the substitutions as soon as we went behind as we then had nothing to lose, as proven by us being the better team in the last 20-odd minutes. To restrict Man C to one goal, a world class free kick at that, and to feel we genuinely deserved a draw, it was a commendable performance given our recent woes.

[Beachyboy]

10 hours ago, Guppys Love Child said:

Wow, this post match HYS is quite split.

 

Half thinking Todgers got it bang on with his holding tactics the others including journalists wanting more attacking intent more often.

 I'm leaning more towards the second. 

As Dames posted earlier  "The points in the game we did dare do something different we worried them"   I agree, as I feel we gave them too much respect 

I didn't see the game just a few select highlights but having read a few comments, if there was 20 mins wasted between say mins 50-70, did the crowd urge the team to attack? Probably not, I'd imagine the whole atmosphere in the ground was to use a boxing analogy get to the 10th or 11th and then go for it.

[Solihullfox]

1 hour ago, demon_dog said:

Missed the game!

Rushed into A and E at 9:30 am 

Spent the day being looked at then told they were keeping me in overnight.

Managed to watch MOTD on my phone last night (good job I had some buds)..

Seems like we played well enough and deserved a draw.

Hope you’re doing ok bud

[demon_dog]

Kept in overnight for observation.

Just seen surgeon and been given all clear so it's back home today.

Thanks for asking.😀

[st albans fox]

2 hours ago, demon_dog said:

Missed the game!

Rushed into A and E at 9:30 am 

Spent the day being looked at then told they were keeping me in overnight.

Managed to watch MOTD on my phone last night (good job I had some buds)..

Seems like we played well enough and deserved a draw.

on the balance of play it was a fair result. 
we played to make a twenty minute mini match at the end and we didn’t have a cutting edge nor the energy left to push the midfield far enough forward to nick a goal.  we defended brilliantly, with great concentration throughout. 

[Ashley]

3 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

on the balance of play it was a fair result. 
we played to make a twenty minute mini match at the end and we didn’t have a cutting edge nor the energy left to push the midfield far enough forward to nick a goal.  we defended brilliantly, with great concentration throughout. 

A fair result? 

 

Other than Gundogan or Bernardo Silva smashing one from a tight angle and forcing Ward to save with his feet I can't recall Man City really ever troubling us. 

 

Have all the possession in the world, we frustrated them massively. Other than a moment of brilliance from arguably the world's best central midfielder a point would have been deserved yesterday.

[Ric Flair]

2 minutes ago, Ashley said:

A fair result? 

 

Other than Gundogan or Bernardo Silva smashing one from a tight angle and forcing Ward to save with his feet I can't recall Man City really ever troubling us. 

 

Have all the possession in the world, we frustrated them massively. Other than a moment of brilliance from arguably the world's best central midfielder a point would have been deserved yesterday.

I agree, yesterday's tactics were fine. Defensively we did well and I thought we countered well but the usual wastefulness and lack of composure from our attackers who tend to be like that under pressure. 

 

I'm hopeful this upturn in tactics and positivity from the players gets us a minimum of 4 points from these next 2 games because we have to stay bang on it now for quite a while.

[st albans fox]

Just now, Ashley said:

A fair result? 

 

Other than Gundogan or Bernardo Silva smashing one from a tight angle and forcing Ward to save with his feet I can't recall Man City really ever troubling us. 

 

Have all the possession in the world, we frustrated them massively. Other than a moment of brilliance from arguably the world's best central midfielder a point would have been deserved yesterday.

being a bit pedantic, I see a difference between deserving a point and a draw being a fair result.  If it was a boxing match and it had been 1-1, then we would have lost on points because they just kept jabbing and jabbing, granted they made few connections with our chin but on the balance of punches thrown with some connection, they would have got the decision.  Of courset our defensive performance was excellent but the game is about scoring more goals than your opponent and we only tried to do that for twenty minutes. If all teams who feel the opponent is better than them lay a low block as deep as we did yesterday then the game will not survive as a spectator sport. 
 

 

[coolhandfox]

6 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I agree, yesterday's tactics were fine. Defensively we did well and I thought we countered well but the usual wastefulness and lack of composure from our attackers who tend to be like that under pressure. 

 

I'm hopeful this upturn in tactics and positivity from the players gets us a minimum of 4 points from these next 2 games because we have to stay bang on it now for quite a while.

I think we seemed to have turned a corner mentally both the manager and the players.

 

Manager seems to be making more logical calls, against Wolves and Man City I think 75% of fans would have made similar subs.

 

Defensively we see to have find a way to defend set pieces and have gone form averaging 3.14 goals against per game in first 7 to 0.5 goals per game in the next 6.

 

If Ward and the defence can keep this up we will climb the table nicely. 

 

Shame we had those two dodgy 20mins at home vs Brentford and Southampton, we would be sitting pretty with 16 points. 

[Matt]

1 minute ago, st albans fox said:

being a bit pedantic, I see a difference between deserving a point and a draw being a fair result.  If it was a boxing match and it had been 1-1, then we would have lost on points because they just kept jabbing and jabbing, granted they made few connections with our chin but on the balance of punches thrown with some connection, they would have got the decision.  Of courset our defensive performance was excellent but the game is about scoring more goals than your opponent and we only tried to do that for twenty minutes. If all teams who feel the opponent is better than them lay a low block as deep as we did yesterday then the game will not survive as a spectator sport. 
 

 

That's arguably what's happening, isn't it?

 

For the record, I thought we set up fine yesterday and played well, but this is what I mean when i'm constantly banging on about allow opposition some possession, possession isn't everything, allowing opposition possession, allowing them to come on to you allows space, allows you to force them into mistakes.

 

The game is in a bad place where in many games you find one team wanting to dominate possession but don't actually do anything with it meanwhile the other team is happy for them to have possession because they know the opposition aren't a threat and won't do anything with it. Stalemate. 

[st albans fox]

4 minutes ago, Matt said:

That's arguably what's happening, isn't it?

 

For the record, I thought we set up fine yesterday and played well, but this is what I mean when i'm constantly banging on about allow opposition some possession, possession isn't everything, allowing opposition possession, allowing them to come on to you allows space, allows you to force them into mistakes.

 

The game is in a bad place where in many games you find one team wanting to dominate possession but don't actually do anything with it meanwhile the other team is happy for them to have possession because they know the opposition aren't a threat and won't do anything with it. Stalemate. 

yes agree that teams play to reflect their opponent but yesterday was about as far as you can go to one extreme - we weren’t set up yesterday to exploit them over committing forward - it looked like our planned out all was the long diagonal to Barnes but we weren’t able to use it (for whatever reason). we wouldn’t be this negative against any other side in the PL 

[casablancas]

Are we the first pl team to stop haaland bagging? 

[Wymsey]

4 minutes ago, casablancas said:

Are we the first pl team to stop haaland bagging? 

If he doesn't assist nor score in his next game, am sure the press will criticise and put pressure on him.

[BKLFox]

Don’t Man C players and Pep moan, they even blamed us for them not being able to adapt in that final 20mins when we upped the anti.

They really do believe that teams should just turn up come at them from minute 1 so that they can pick them off & score a hatful with their billion £ squad and say look at us we are the entertainers.

[Chelmofox]

4 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

Don’t Man C players and Pep moan, they even blamed us for them not being able to adapt in that final 20mins when we upped the anti.

They really do believe that teams should just turn up come at them from minute 1 so that they can pick them off & score a hatful with their billion £ squad and say look at us we are the entertainers.

Same entitlement we saw from Chelsea with the Fofana transfer. Because Chelsea came calling we should just roll over and give them what they want at the price they want.

 

The harder everyone makes it for the big boys the better. 

[David Hankey]

The woodwork was so kind to Man City, a great pity it couldn't have been kinder to us.

[MPH]

21 hours ago, An Sionnach said:

If , " I'm far too good for Leicester ", Fofana had stayed we almost certainly wouldn't have tightened up the defence. We desperately needed an old school defender , so it has worked out well.

 

got a feeling we will go for Dawson from West Ham. 32, experienced and out of contract in the summer. Evans should be our old head but we can’t keep him fit! Dawson has had a couple of injuries himself but seems to be past all that. Chances are we’d be able to have one of them fit at any one time! 

[Clever Fox]

2 minutes ago, MPH said:

 

got a feeling we will go for Dawson from West Ham. 32, experienced and out of contract in the summer. Evans should be our old head but we can’t keep him fit! Dawson has had a couple of injuries himself but seems to be past all that. Chances are we’d be able to have one of them fit at any one time! 

I'd take Dawson all day long and felt we should have got him from West Brom before West Ham.

He's a whole harted player brave and strong in the tackle who also scores Goals.

 

Then again if we could pick up another young player like Faes with a longer term future would also be ideal.

[MPH]

6 minutes ago, Clever Fox said:

I'd take Dawson all day long and felt we should have got him from West Brom before West Ham.

He's a whole harted player brave and strong in the tackle who also scores Goals.

 

Then again if we could pick up another young player like Faes with a longer term future would also be ideal.

 

I think that might be a summer deal. Young players with potential go for a premium in January… I’m beginning to wonder if Evans would be offfered a new deal  as he’s out of contract in the summer and he’s really struggling  with injuries.. Dawson would likely be his replacement..

Edited 30 October 2022 by MPH

[Number 6]

Thinking we should go toe to toe with Man City because we managed to beat Leeds and Wolves is an interesting take.

[filbertway]

Still think we treated a weakened Man City team with too much respect. Akanji at right back and Stones and Laporte can be got at. Grealish and Silva are solid enough, but not exactly close to Foden or Mahrez when it comes to making stuff happen.

 

Sitting in is fine, but we did it to such an extreme that there was no out ball.

 

Watching with a few neutrals and they also thought it was a weak attitude to adopt against a weakened Man City when playing at home. Rodgers made the changes I was hoping for, but annoyingly much later than he usually makes his subs

 

Shout out to Danny Ward who commanded his box fantastically well. It's so nice having a keeper that actually prevents chances from happening by not being terrified to leave his line. If we can find someone that combines the commanding of the area with top notch shot stopping then that's the dream.

 

Fair play to Cags as well. Given the cold shoulder for the best part of a year and then randomly thrust back into the team and put in a fine performance.

 

Ultimately though, I came away from watching the game feeling that if we'd been a touch bolder, we could well have taken something from it. 

 

One final note, that Tielemans shot and the Ederson save were both absolutely phenomenal. 2 pieces of excellent play from both players there.

[messerschmitt]

1 hour ago, coolhandfox said:

I think we seemed to have turned a corner mentally both the manager and the players.

 

Manager seems to be making more logical calls, against Wolves and Man City I think 75% of fans would have made similar subs.

 

Defensively we see to have find a way to defend set pieces and have gone form averaging 3.14 goals against per game in first 7 to 0.5 goals per game in the next 6.

 

If Ward and the defence can keep this up we will climb the table nicely. 

 

Shame we had those two dodgy 20mins at home vs Brentford and Southampton, we would be sitting pretty with 16 points. 

Yeah hopefully all of this, did anyone notice the totally different body language from Brendan before the game, seemed a different bloke to the previous matches.