Douglas Higginbottom wrote:BobKowalski wrote:john68 wrote:Bob,
I find you quite a quick witted and amusing poster mate. You use your wit to good measure when putting down others' arguments or points and it is a very effective strategy.
However you do seem to exagerate what others have said in order to ridicule their points.
I don't think anyone has suggested anything about the team bombing forward. I think they merely suggested that there is a better balance between attack and defence. In fact the point was made that with the talent we have up front, to create that balance and attack a little more would actually be playing to the strengths of our more talented players.
Doug is not an idiot mate. Try meeting him and having a deep conversation with him and you will find him to be an extremely erudite and knowledgeable person, who thinks deeply about the game and talks sense. Doug is quite correct when he states that Mancini very often has to change things round because they are not working. It is valid therefore to ask why does it not work so often?
Thanks for the entertainment though, I do enjoy it.
Damn I now feel bad that I have picked on Doug (which I did a little bit) especially as I do like Doug as a poster and I do enjoy the training reports.
Nothing to apologise for Bob. I thought your OTT wording and aggressive approach lost you the argument anyway.You really shouldnt use phrases like bombing forward and gungho attack which wasn't what was happening.The big problem was the mistakes as we all know and the solution to that is what? How is it now that we are not apparently making those crass mistakes or at least not as many. I believe the answer is the overall approach of the team in that we defend more in numbers and as a team.No doubt at all the team defending approach , the formation and shape that Mancini has worked on so much, is a big part in that but the point I was making is that he hasnt yet been able to fully translate that to the full team performance and specifically attacking as a team.
My hope and expectation is that will come but there have been few signs.
Against poorer sides as i said we can get by and on occasions where we get ahead and the other team lose it we can murder them with the pure individual talent we have but against the stronger teams with very good discipline we really struggle.
Villa and Spurs will be great tests of the mentality of all concerned.
not trying to be funny, but isnt that the reason the stronger teams are the stronger teams. I seem to recall stronger teams struggling against other stronger teams also.. quite often.
on a side point there seems to be a lot of hysteria creeping into a lot of threads recently.. is it a sign of stress in City fans? Can we not cope with the expectation? The recent spew of threads on the manager are at points fuclin embarrasing.. i can only conclude we are all stressed to fucl and cant help but find a vent for it.
Doug has possibly the best all round analysis of where we are right now with his understanding gleaned from the training sessions, but even so i would challenge anyone to say that they really knew what this team was capable of doing. imo i dont think that the players or the manager know. We were all frustrated by the derby and the Emirates game and the mood has shifted to more doom and gloom than anything. Truth is you are walking a short plank if you attempt to pass judgement on the basis of half a season. We are looking for patterns emerging as to what type of team we have, what type of manager we have.. all based on what we think we see in a set series of games. As the team is new and the manager even newer this is a very difficult thing to do.
My take is that we have shown we are as good as the rags, as good as Chelsea, possibly slightly better than Arsenal, as good as an on form Liverpool.. We have also shown that we still have a lot of work to do and still missing some key players.
A good example of trying to work out where we are is to look at the upcoming Spurs game. Last year and this year Spurs are better than they used to be, they look about on par with City, on paper as well. Now they beat us well at theirs, but that was before the change in manager and the resulting extra solidity we have developed. So how can we really have any idea of what the outcome of the Spurs game is going to be. We know we are better than when we played at theirs, but we still dont know how this team will come out of the blocks.. and we dont know for sure that this is due to the manager or the team itself responding to the managers demands of being more disciplined.. or if we just lack that one key forward mid player that can help knit it all together.. at best on here we are all shooting in the dark.
i would ask that we all keep this in mind, as going off on one NQDP style is just jumping the gun and finding excuses to vent the obvious frustration.
If we take Villa apart, beat Spurs and whack West Ham.. and show a bit of style while doing it you will all be heralding Manicini as the new messiah, when in truth we would not know how good he is until he has had one season of home and away games with his set up as he wants it, to be able to judge him. Mancini has as yet never taken the team to Anfield or a host of other away grounds.. City may well be experiencing the kind of 'advantage of the unknown' like promotion teams sometimes get in the first half of the season until all the opposing teams have played them and know in detail what to expect. We have been a total unknown quantity this season both to ourselves and to others and that has panned out as both an advantage and disadvantage in different games.
i havent read one poster who can categorically put their finger on what we are.
But one thing is for sure as fans we really dont seem to be able to handle this new found expectation
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