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Tevez dropping off should benefit Silva.

Anyone remember the analysis of Valencias game? Villa use to peel off all the time, draw a defender or 2, Silva would move into that space, and either smack one in or set one up from the space that was made.

It will start to pay off.

Tevez usually always seems to start the season off shiite. Im hoping Milner can come in and do Barry's job but actually offer something to the whole team. Better passing, better energy, pace, skill, shooting.

Ted Hughes wrote:i thought we played it almost perfectly tonight considering how little time we've had & that some players have had no pre season. We kept it tight for an hour, got a bit of practice in & then fucking took them to the cleaners. The only down side was that we were a bit greedy & showy in front of goal when a simple pass would have got us 4-5. We were so on top we started to treat it like a training game & with it being City, we should never take anything for granted!

Agreed Ted.

They never looked a threat and but for a little bad luck for Touré (Y) it would've been several goals.

The first aim of an away leg is not to concede and the second is to win. Job done. That team of ours that struggled with the Faroe whale-hunters would've got slaughtered last night. How this result can be critcised is beyond me!

john@staustell wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:i thought we played it almost perfectly tonight considering how little time we've had & that some players have had no pre season. We kept it tight for an hour, got a bit of practice in & then fucking took them to the cleaners. The only down side was that we were a bit greedy & showy in front of goal when a simple pass would have got us 4-5. We were so on top we started to treat it like a training game & with it being City, we should never take anything for granted!

Agreed Ted.

They never looked a threat and but for a little bad luck for Touré (Y) it would've been several goals.

The first aim of an away leg is not to concede and the second is to win. Job done. That team of ours that struggled with the Faroe whale-hunters would've got slaughtered last night. How this result can be critcised is beyond me!

Cos we didn't score three goals and have no playmaker.
The fact we had 63% posession and about 10 shots quite far away from home is no excuse.

Rag_hater wrote:

john@staustell wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:i thought we played it almost perfectly tonight considering how little time we've had & that some players have had no pre season. We kept it tight for an hour, got a bit of practice in & then fucking took them to the cleaners. The only down side was that we were a bit greedy & showy in front of goal when a simple pass would have got us 4-5. We were so on top we started to treat it like a training game & with it being City, we should never take anything for granted!

Agreed Ted.

They never looked a threat and but for a little bad luck for Touré (Y) it would've been several goals.

The first aim of an away leg is not to concede and the second is to win. Job done. That team of ours that struggled with the Faroe whale-hunters would've got slaughtered last night. How this result can be critcised is beyond me!

Cos we didn't score three goals and have no playmaker.
The fact we had 63% posession and about 10 shots quite far away from home is no excuse.

Yeah - they look like 'a side in transition' to me!

:-)

Grob wrote:

Niall Quinns Discopants wrote:

avoidconfusion wrote:Tevez is still dropping off far too often and crowding the midfield.

that's because there's a gap between midfield and attack. Gap that should be occupied by a pla.... Never mind.

The midfield and defence should be further up the pitch in my opinion. When the gap between our defence and furthest forward attacker is big, we look worse as we dont play the long ball well enough. Shorten the gap and the fluidity comes back.

In reality, if we are to be good enough, all the attackers should be playmakers in a way.

In truth we have loads of playmakers or potential playmakers now, maybe not in the traditional mould eh nqdp! They need some time to get up to speed that to me is obvious.
The other thing that i am thinking we will see more of is the two fullbacks positioned well up the field.. hovering around the half way line. Maybe not so much in away games, but that is what i am imagining Bobby is trying to do. It echoes what Barca do and it helps the mids get closer to the attackers. It is my belief that is why Bob got Kolarov and Boateng. We will see.

And we need patience.

Total passes made last weekend - pretty impressive considering Chelsea and United were at home and dominated their games against promoted sides and we were away to a champions league side playing as a so called bunch of individuals.

Man Utd 564
Chelsea 555
Man City 534
Arsenal 511
Everton 417
Wigan 369
Aston Villa 368
West Brom 367
Tottenham 331
Fulham 325
Wolves 304
Birmingham 291
West Ham 293
Blackpool 277
Newcastle 269
Liverpool 263
Bolton 259
Sunderland 237
Stoke 198
Blackburn 125

Blackburn with just over a pass a minute shows how horid they are to watch, completly dominated by Everton and when they did have the ball it was booted up the field at the first oppourtunity.

Also Yaya Toure made 70 passes, he made 68 sucessfull ones. Outstanding.

Does united's stats include the 7 mins extra time ?

Seriously, when this team gel - which i hope will be on monday night, we are in for some great football.

I think we have been unfortunate to get Spurs and L'Pool so early in the season, Epecially this season with so little chance for players to get to know each other. I think it may be several games before we see City's potential starting to show. Late WC returnees, lack of pre-season preparation, the international friendlies and now injuries to Balo, Boateng and Kollarov make it that bit harder.
Not expecting too much early doors but expecting us to rip lots of trees up when we get up to speed.

fed up of seeing 3 players isolated on their own up the pitch - 3 defensive minded midfielders is overkill - effectively putting 7 defenders out
and we still had an alamo to contend with at white hart lane - nope... mancini has yet to convince me I am afraid - hope he does though, and soon

Wooders wrote:fed up of seeing 3 players isolated on their own up the pitch - 3 defensive minded midfielders is overkill - effectively putting 7 defenders out
and we still had an alamo to contend with at white hart lane - nope... mancini has yet to convince me I am afraid - hope he does though, and soon

Like I said earlier, I haven't been best pleased with it either. Three players up front on their own, million mile gap and then seven players defending. Let's hope that's something that will change soon. If we even think about cracking the top four, we need to win games away as well and this way we will lose more than win.

i get the feeling that what we saw at WHL was a replication of a tactic we saw last season, where we sit back, absorb the pressure, let teams run out of steam then, have a go at them.
Effective sometimes and with the better quality players we have now, it should be even more effective...even though it can be a bit heart stopping.
An example being, SWP to wear em down and then Johnson to rip em to shreds as they tire.

It was done a number of times last season and seemed to be our ploy at Spurs. Tonight when we play another possible close rival, it will be interesting to see what strategy Mancini employs....and when we play a lesser team, will he have a plan "B" that goes for the throat.