Tokyo Blue wrote:Fans need to realise that the game at City has changed over the last two seasons. The way opposing managers and players looked at us has changed beyond recognition.
The Past.
City are shite. if you work hard and keep it tight for twenty or thirty minutes, you can shut the crowd up and then pick them off once the crowd turn on their own. They have no players of any real talent. They are hard-working enough but ultimately a soft touch. Any game at City is potentially a piece of piss. Any team can go there and win.
Now.
City have got two or three players that might just get into a World XI. If you go there, you need to defend properly, preferably in numbers, and deny their creative players any space at all to work in. If they get space, they score. They don't make a lot of chances but the ones they do make they generally put away. In short they are a highly efficient outfit. This means that you MUST NOT make mistakes. If by chance you do make one, we need to have plenty of cover to hope to retrieve the situation. Therefore I want to see all of you focussing on defence. Counter attack quickly if you get the chance, but this is going to be hard as their defensive five don't get forward a great deal. A draw is probably the best we can get here, though the fickleness of their fans is starting to become an issue again as they may start to get on the backs of their players if the conditions are right. This may be our best chance but it is only possible if we keep their top players under control.
Now this clearly has repercussions for fans.
Anyone going expecting to see 11-goal thrillers is going to be disappointed. Key point coming up. This is not always City's fault.
The opposition come to stifle us. It is a compliment. It means they are scared of us because we are good. It results in porr games mopst of the time. This does not mean we are shite, or that our players are shite, or that our manager is shite. It means the oppostion are scared and know that they need to be at their very, very best defensively to get anything other than a defeat. You might not like me saying this, but we are now in the position that liverpool were in thirty years ago or that united were in ten years ago. Poor matches are not totally City's fault. Sometimes the other team play well. This is the nature of sport. Think how many shit matches the crowds at the fleapit or Anfield have had to sit through becasue the opposition have no other ambition than to just stifle the home team. Did they moan like fuck about it? No they didn't. They backed their team like fans are supposed to do. They don't go around wanting to sack their manager simply because they've a had a couple of fucking goalless draws.
What fans need to do is understand this and still get behind the team. Despite all the high salaries and the money being spent and the lack of players that we can identify with, the role of the fan has changed in only one respect - we now need a bit more patience than we had before. Other than that our job is no different. We still need to go to the games and make some fucking noise. Make the place intimidating like it used to be on derby day when we were shit.
Right.
Anyone who goes to the game not prepared to sing themselves hoarse for the cause can fuck off to the Opera House.
Anyone who thinks we have got a divine right to play free-flowing football and win 12-0 every fucking week is a gibbering idiot who fails to grasp the reality of today's professional game.
Anyone who wants to sack the manager when the club is in its current position, a league place higher than we have finished for the last 33 years and joint top of our group in Europe, is a fucking cretin who has shown that they are thick enough to believe what they read in the media.
Best fans in the world? God's own club? Fucking bollocks. Sort your fucking selves out and start behaving like proper football fans instead of spoilt fucking babies.
No offense but that's a fucking AWFUL post. One of the worst I've read on any City forum in a while.
The only spoilt (sic) babies are internet warriors like yourself who think it's big and clever to slag off fellow blues, because they don't agree with you on the manager.
And while we're on the subject fella, can you please name one City manager in the last 30 years who was sacked and then went on to do anything of any note at another club???
I've left a coupe of City forums in recent months because they are infested with posters like you - it'd be a shame if I had to leave this one too.
