Mancini concerned with sloppy defending

[Mark (Blue Army)]

Roberto Mancini was happy with some of City’s 4-3 win over Wolves, but unhappy with certain aspects.

The Blues went a point clear at the top of the Premier League after coming from behind to win for the first time this season, but Mancini says his side cannot afford to let teams back into games as easily as they did against Mick McCarthy’s side.

“I wasn’t happy with the first half hour, but we improved after that and built up a good lead,” he said.

“What disappointed me was conceding two goals - two stupid goals - in ten minutes to let Wolves back in the game and we can’t do that.

'I’m happy we have gone top – whether
it’s for one hour or one day it doesn’t
matter – what is important is that we
won this difficult game

A David Jones own goal, two from skipper Carlos Tevez and a Yaya Toure strike had given City a commanding 4-1 lead with just over an hour gone, but the visitors rallied late on, scoring twice to produce a nail-biting last few minutes.

“We can improve because although we played good football in the second half, we had some problems at the back and shouldn’t concede three goals at home,” said Mancini.

“So I was happy from 30 minutes onwards - and until the last ten minutes.”

Mancini was also pleased with Edin Dzeko’s debut, with the Bosnian showing some nice touches and vision in an impressive first game for City.

“He played very well for his first game, especially as he has only been with us a week and only recently returned from a winter break,” he said.

“He will get better as he gets used to his new team-mates and I think he will do well alongside Carlos and Mario Balotelli.”

mcfc.co.uk

[ryanmcfc]

I thought Bobby looked really worn out in his post match video on the OS. Probably just a byproduct of sitting in the rain for two hours though.

Also, have they taken Kolo's goal away? I didn't think that was an OG originally.

[Twobob]

I dont think it helps that the back four seem to change with each game, I apreciate injuries, rotation through the festive period and suspensions cant be helped but he needs to buckle down the favoured back four and stick with them as much as possible, at least for the PL games!

[DoomMerchant]

I thought Bobby looked really worn out in his post match video on the OS. Probably just a byproduct of sitting in the rain for two hours though.

Also, have they taken Kolo's goal away? I didn't think that was an OG originally.

i think Mancini's quote about how he'd rather win 1-nil or 2-nil than 4-3 was pretty revealing. Not exactly a secret, but pretty much love that he will wear his heart on his sleeve and say he doesn't like an all-out jism fest with loads of goals. I might not agree with him, but seeing as how he's won a fuckload of gear, and i am sitting here drinking whisky with the tip of my thumb cut off...i'll kinda give him the benefit of the doubt and give him the thumbs up.




cheers

[ant london]

I thought the sloppy/shitty defending yesterday could be mainly put down to a pretty poor Kolo performance. He had one of those games where he looks terrified all the time. I know he took a knock early on but his face almost looked like he was thinking...."fuck this, get me off, I don't fancy this today...shall I play the knock up and get pulled off". I just don't think he's got much bottle in some ways, he's certainly not someone who would run through the wall for the team a la Nigel, Vincent, Zabba. Good player, but yesterday an off day that affected the balance and robustness of our defence.

The positive in defence yesterday for me was Kolarov who, for the first time, looked pretty good IMO. Some key blocks and smarter defending than we've seen and providing some much better quality on the ball.

Zabba I thought was so so....not bad but not one of his better performances.

Vinnie was good but made to look ordinary as he was frequently pulled out of position due to Kolo mincing about.

I do have real concern's, however, about what the fuck has gone wrong with our collective ability to defend balls coming into the box. We frequently end up with three blue shirts fannying around a ball dropping into the area and NO-ONE dealing with it decisively. Some shitty looping header or scuffed clearance which then (by virtue of the fact that all our defenders are "like 5 year olds" chasing the ball and no-one is stationed at the edge of the box for the secondary ball) falls straight to the opposition and it's fucking panic stations again.

Someone needs to get a grip on this as it's incompetent and creates a sense of (understandable) panic which tangibly spreads through the rest of the team (and crowd). We have better players and coaches than this and it needs sorting.

[Ted Hughes]

On almost every occasion we concede these crappy goals, we only seem to have one player who we would call a decent header of the ball (Lescott) making an effort to get to the ball. Everyone else you would expect to be challenging seems to be missing & it's always the Boatengs, Zabbas, Kolarovs even SWPs who are in the thick of it. Something is wrong with the setup.

Another thing is that players 'on the run' will almost always beat players on a standing jump. We don't block the runs, so we have standing players with attackers running at them & jumping over them. It won't work.

[CitizenYank]

I think we have a pretty decent defensive set up, but in games like yesterday (although I didn't see it)
our players seem to flake for periods of time, especially against very fast aggressive teams that really
push the ball up.

Almost every defender we have seems to be able to play OTHER POSITIONS!! Or that is what the official press releases.
Well how about picking sticking him on the squad chart at one and leaving him there. Kolarov seems to be the only one who sticks in one place.