IS Bobby Mancini THE MAN?

[john68]

Antti,
I think the games we have played them this season have shown is that any gap between us and them, if one exists at all, is so negligable that it shouldn't be the reason they have beaten us in the last seconds of three games.
The base level of any team comparison is the plyers and player for plyer we are certainlt their equal. I would suggest that probably only 2 of their players would arguably make our line up...Rooney and Vidic, leading me to believe that man for man we possibly have the better players.

Our weakness seems to be our mental approach and our tactics. Mentally, we have switched off and payed the price in 3 derbies and failed to learn the lesson.
Tactically, their hasn't been as much in it as some on here would have you believe but by loading the midfield, taggart has caused us problems.
Hughes took a huge irrational slating for his failures and I am glad that criticisn of Mancini is at least at a lower level on the rant scale. I do think that it is early days yet for Mancini and he has lessons to learn. I think, given time, something Hughes was not given, Mancini will slowly but surely plug the gaps and we will improve.

I cannot concede that the rags are better than us, (maybe bias there), except in their mental approach. That is an issue that we need to address quickly. We are not tough enough....YET.

[Slim]

So john, in keeping with the theme of the thread.

In hindsight, was replacing Hughes with Mancini the right call or still too soon to tell?

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Antti,
I think the games we have played them this season have shown is that any gap between us and them, if one exists at all, is so negligable that it shouldn't be the reason they have beaten us in the last seconds of three games.
The base level of any team comparison is the plyers and player for plyer we are certainlt their equal. I would suggest that probably only 2 of their players would arguably make our line up...Rooney and Vidic, leading me to believe that man for man we possibly have the better players.

Our weakness seems to be our mental approach and our tactics. Mentally, we have switched off and payed the price in 3 derbies and failed to learn the lesson.
Tactically, their hasn't been as much in it as some on here would have you believe but by loading the midfield, taggart has caused us problems.
Hughes took a huge irrational slating for his failures and I am glad that criticisn of Mancini is at least at a lower level on the rant scale. I do think that it is early days yet for Mancini and he has lessons to learn. I think, given time, something Hughes was not given, Mancini will slowly but surely plug the gaps and we will improve.

I cannot concede that the rags are better than us, (maybe bias there), except in their mental approach. That is an issue that we need to address quickly. We are not tough enough....YET.

I pretty much agree with this. Like I said earlier, what we are missing in my opinion is natural winners. I hate to say it but I wasn't surprised it was Scholes who got the winner. You look at Scholes and compare him to say Barry, you would say that technically Barry is probably the better player and otherwise ON PAPER there isn't much between the players. However difference is one is a winner and the other isn't.

And I'm not singling Barry out but just used him as an example. That is what we need in next level of player purchases, to get us some natural winners. Those players that do NOT shrink when there are seconds left in make it or brake it game against a top side.

I went through the trouble of watching the game again last night and I stand by my original assesment that considering the opposition we played relatively well. I didn't see much wrong tactically. Our system was reasonable and there was definite idea behind the way we were playing. I've read some absolute ridiculous nonsense on here about our tactics on saturday but hasn't bothered to answer them as I'm going to put that down to anger after the lost Derby which I'm personally still going through. I feel we lacked that mentality and in the end it showed.

[btajim]

Never read so much shite in my life as in the last few posts!

The tactics were wrong just like the semi final? - you mean the home semi final that we won?
If the tactics were so terrible how come we were one good Bellamy pass away shutting them out for what would have been a reasonable 0-0 draw? Why hadn't they hammered us already?
Can you really define a young manager on 3 defeats in the Champions League? Lots of successful managers have lost 3 years in a row in that competition!
He cannot get results against top sides as he shows them too much respect. Erm, Chelsea didn't happen then? Ok.
He isn't up to winning titles? Ok Serie A doesn't count then. Funny how it was a walkover when all he had to beat was Roma. Look at the table now and see how Mourinho is doing against Roma?

Utter kneejerk hysterical nonsense wrapped up in false logic based on a small results samples by people who think Mourinho is some sort of sky fairy who would magic us to titles. Mourinho of course, would have attacked, attacked, attacked on Saturday. just like he always does?

I had hoped you'd keep your promise and do whatever it took to ignore me. Open yourself up to a response and you'll get one. Use expletives to describe my views and I'll fight back.

-Scraping the first leg of the Semi Final was irrelevant - because we didn't get through both legs.
-Football is often won just on one mistake being punished, one Refeering decision or an individual piece of skill. Football is also about results. They've now beaten us three times this season. That hurts me.
-3 defeats in the Champions League is poor. What did he not learn from the first two defeats? And what's his age (45?) got to do with it? How old is Guardiola at Barcelona?
-Chelsea was an incredible win but we've not looked like replicating that since. Everything just seemed to work for us that day. I want a win at Arsenal on Saturday. I don't think I'll get one.
-It's well documented that Inter benefitted from the Match fixing scandals in Italy. He also came in to a good side. Yes, he's won titles in Italy but I recall getting excited at Sven winning Titles, too. If he wasn't the right man for the job then he wasn't the right man. He could be the new Ramos (a man who delivered a Trophy in his first season) or he could be the new Mourinho. We simply don't know - but we're all entitled to our own opinion. Not everyone is as fierce or defensive about theirs.
-Mourinho the "sky fairy". You had to get that one in, didn't you?

p.s. I love you sticking your photo up on here as an avatar. You might have intimidated and bullied your way around on here before - but I don't see anyone taking you seriously now.

[brite blu sky]

Antti,
I think the games we have played them this season have shown is that any gap between us and them, if one exists at all, is so negligable that it shouldn't be the reason they have beaten us in the last seconds of three games.
The base level of any team comparison is the plyers and player for plyer we are certainlt their equal. I would suggest that probably only 2 of their players would arguably make our line up...Rooney and Vidic, leading me to believe that man for man we possibly have the better players.

Our weakness seems to be our mental approach and our tactics. Mentally, we have switched off and payed the price in 3 derbies and failed to learn the lesson.
Tactically, their hasn't been as much in it as some on here would have you believe but by loading the midfield, taggart has caused us problems.
Hughes took a huge irrational slating for his failures and I am glad that criticisn of Mancini is at least at a lower level on the rant scale. I do think that it is early days yet for Mancini and he has lessons to learn. I think, given time, something Hughes was not given, Mancini will slowly but surely plug the gaps and we will improve.

I cannot concede that the rags are better than us, (maybe bias there), except in their mental approach. That is an issue that we need to address quickly. We are not tough enough....YET.

It is not sane to read too much into the derby, or the rags games in general. on Sat the game was really quite cagey from both sides, we should have gone for it a bit more than we did, but it was very finely balanced, and you knew that if we had turned one of our chances in.. especially in the 1st half, we would have been watching a different game, we know it and they know it. We have a lot of improvement to make, but we played one of the best teams at getting big game results, with a lot of experience behind them playing as a team. Whatever way you want to look at it City have very little experience playing as a team, so my take on that game was that we are individually better than the rags but still have to learn some.
At times in the game Ade got the ball and 3 rag players managed to get onto him. I believe they went into that game as underdogs in terms of players, but they knew that and played accordingly, i would go as far to say that we forced them to play one of their best team games of the season.
Now if anyone is angry and pissed off with the result then join the club, but as for performance i dont think there is too much to be getting up in arms about.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Antti,
I think the games we have played them this season have shown is that any gap between us and them, if one exists at all, is so negligable that it shouldn't be the reason they have beaten us in the last seconds of three games.
The base level of any team comparison is the plyers and player for plyer we are certainlt their equal. I would suggest that probably only 2 of their players would arguably make our line up...Rooney and Vidic, leading me to believe that man for man we possibly have the better players.

Our weakness seems to be our mental approach and our tactics. Mentally, we have switched off and payed the price in 3 derbies and failed to learn the lesson.
Tactically, their hasn't been as much in it as some on here would have you believe but by loading the midfield, taggart has caused us problems.
Hughes took a huge irrational slating for his failures and I am glad that criticisn of Mancini is at least at a lower level on the rant scale. I do think that it is early days yet for Mancini and he has lessons to learn. I think, given time, something Hughes was not given, Mancini will slowly but surely plug the gaps and we will improve.

I cannot concede that the rags are better than us, (maybe bias there), except in their mental approach. That is an issue that we need to address quickly. We are not tough enough....YET.

It is not sane to read too much into the derby, or the rags games in general. on Sat the game was really quite cagey from both sides, we should have gone for it a bit more than we did, but it was very finely balanced, and you knew that if we had turned one of our chances in.. especially in the 1st half, we would have been watching a different game, we know it and they know it. We have a lot of improvement to make, but we played one of the best teams at getting big game results, with a lot of experience behind them playing as a team. Whatever way you want to look at it City have very little experience playing as a team, so my take on that game was that we are individually better than the rags but still have to learn some.
At times in the game Ade got the ball and 3 rag players managed to get onto him. I believe they went into that game as underdogs in terms of players, but they knew that and played accordingly, i would go as far to say that we forced them to play one of their best team games of the season.
Now if anyone is angry and pissed off with the result then join the club, but as for performance i dont think there is too much to be getting up in arms about.

I pretty much agree with all of that. Realtively good play by us is what made the result extra gutting.

[brite blu sky]

funny i also watched a replay on spanish tv last night, i kind of came to the conclusion that the rags basically had been told not to conceed a goal at all costs, the amount of players they got back to either stifle our passing options to the edge of their area or just simply behind the ball, was quite amazing. imo it looked more like they would play for a draw and hope to nick something. That strategy played into what i was thinking, ( so maybe my thinking influenced what i saw ? ) which was that a goal to City would quite possible sink them.. and that idea was backed up for me by baconface playing all his experienced players, which tbh was even a surprise to the rag fans. If they had gone a goal down they were staring at the end of the road and a City team with its tail in the air ready for the kill.

it didn't happen but it was very close at times.. look at how many they got back on the line when VDS flapped and the ball came back in..
They played well and shit happens

now we have Arsenal to look forward to and i for one am looking forward to that game

[john68]

Hahahahaha....are we agreeing on something Antti?.....Celebration time methinks....:-)
I was emotionally confused at the derby result...a mixture of being gutted and anger...and not too sure who i was being angry with.
I got even angrier when I read some of the over the top critiques on here...but understood that, so like you didn't post or read too much.

I think our big problem is that we desperately need stability but we are still going through a period of MASSIVE change, which sort of contradicts the stability issue. We have risen rapidly from an also ran club to one challenging at the top. We have done well to do it so quickly.
We are still some way off. We haven't broken into that elite group and so more big change is necessary...(alongside stability???)

Mental toughness will come with time and even this tight run in will serve us well and teach us lessons...Still exciting times.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Hahahahaha....are we agreeing on something Antti?.....Celebration time methinks....:-)
I was emotionally confused at the derby result...a mixture of being gutted and anger...and not too sure who i was being angry with.
I got even angrier when I read some of the over the top critiques on here...but understood that, so like you didn't post or read too much.

I think our big problem is that we desperately need stability but we are still going through a period of MASSIVE change, which sort of contradicts the stability issue. We have risen rapidly from an also ran club to one challenging at the top. We have done well to do it so quickly.
We are still some way off. We haven't broken into that elite group and so more big change is necessary...(alongside stability???)

Mental toughness will come with time and even this tight run in will serve us well and teach us lessons...Still exciting times.

HAHA

I agree with you quite often. Just not going to give the emotional satisfaction by saying it!

[johnny crossan]

Hahahahaha....are we agreeing on something Antti?.....Celebration time methinks....:-)
I was emotionally confused at the derby result...a mixture of being gutted and anger...and not too sure who i was being angry with.
I got even angrier when I read some of the over the top critiques on here...but understood that, so like you didn't post or read too much.

I think our big problem is that we desperately need stability but we are still going through a period of MASSIVE change, which sort of contradicts the stability issue. We have risen rapidly from an also ran club to one challenging at the top. We have done well to do it so quickly.
We are still some way off. We haven't broken into that elite group and so more big change is necessary...(alongside stability???)

Mental toughness will come with time and even this tight run in will serve us well and teach us lessons...Still exciting times.

HAHA

I agree with you quite often. Just not going to give the emotional satisfaction by saying it!

NQD for PM

[Douglas Higginbottom]

Depends what PM stands for:)

[Original Dub]

Depends what PM stands for:)

Provocative Muppet














Only kidding Antti, I love you long time :)

[mcfc1632]

Never read so much shite in my life as in the last few posts!

The tactics were wrong just like the semi final? - you mean the home semi final that we won?

The semi-final tactics were wrong for the exact same reason the tactics were wrong on Saturday. Had we set about U***d in either game, we would have beaten them comfortably both times, and would have had a league cup final day out as the 2nd leg would have been irrelevant.

If you want to use the Chelsea game as an example, fair enough, play on the counter away from home - BUT YOU DO NOT DO THAT AT HOME. A draw was NOT an acceptable result on Saturday, regardless who the opposition were. We should have been going for it in our 3 remaining cup finals at home, and any points away from home would have been a bonus - the arsenal game is the time to pull out the cagey shit and try to sneak a draw, not against a side struggling for confidence, with the fervent backing of 45,000.

OR there's the slight chance that Rags are simply better team than us and we have maybe 20% chance of winning any given game against them anyway.

But they are not really - they get so much undue respect that they are allowed to dominate games in MF - what with fucking
Scholes?

Anyway - the media might hype them up - but it is the job of our manager to set his team out properly and not fall for all that bollocks

Anyway - lets hope that he has learned something for this weekend!

[mcfc1632]

A question to those at Eastlands!

Firstly a couple of disclaimers:

1/ I am absolutely not against Manicini - I am positive

2/ I am making no point about people not being there - nothing wrong with that - I often watch on streams when I cannot get there

...but is it just me or do you see so much more from the stands - I know the answer is an obvious yes - but on Saturday we were all screaming for action to close Scholes down in MF from about 10 mins in - swap Johnson agasinst Neville or replace him from about 15 mins in - it was all so totally fucking obvious from the stands , but good posters talk on here as if we were just unlucky - that is all.


I am not on Mancini's / CITY's case - I am just bemused - this was not some heroic performance - robbed at the end - we just got away with it until then because they are actually not that good - we could have taken them easily with the right approach!

Is it just me thinks this?

Is it just me that worries about the Arse game for the same reasons?

Spurs showed how to get into these teams that are not used to it - and I think they will do similar against the scum

I hope that I am wrong

[gillie]

A question to those at Eastlands!

Firstly a couple of disclaimers:

1/ I am absolutely not against Manicini - I am positive

2/ I am making no point about people not being there - nothing wrong with that - I often watch on streams when I cannot get there

...but is it just me or do you see so much more from the stands - I know the answer is an obvious yes - but on Saturday we were all screaming for action to close Scholes down in MF from about 10 mins in - swap Johnson agasinst Neville or replace him from about 15 mins in - it was all so totally fucking obvious from the stands , but good posters talk on here as if we were just unlucky - that is all.


I am not on Mancini's / CITY's case - I am just bemused - this was not some heroic performance - robbed at the end - we just got away with it until then because they are actually not that good - we could have taken them easily with the right approach!

Is it just me thinks this?

Is it just me that worries about the Arse game for the same reasons?

Spurs showed how to get into these teams that are not used to it - and I think they will do similar against the scum

I hope that I am wrong

It was obvious on TV mate i was schreaming all game for us to close down the ginger one but once again as in the CC first leg we showed them too much respect.The gap between midfield and attack was a chasm of Grand Canyon proportions.

[mcfc1632]

I agree re the gap between MF and attack - but what were they working on all week then?

There is no point having an attack of Ade, Carlos. Johnson and Bellers if they are going to be stuck standing around 25 yards in front of 2 MFs manfully working their bollocks off trying to compete against 5 - what were the tactics? Carlos did a bit of support - but not as much as usual, Bellers gave nowhere near as much supportive effort as usual, Ade was Ade and Johnson was totally paralysed - seeming in awe of Evra. One thing I criticised 'past management' for and thought would be much better under Bob was not taking action soon enough - waiting until the traditional 60 mins gone etc - well he got it badly wrong here - how is he going to stop us being passed off the park on Saturday? More of the same and the Arsenal MF - even without star names - will be treating our MF players as training ground cones to pass around

I am not at all keen on Jose - but a bit surprised that there has not been a load of posts overnight commenting on his tactical nous against Barca

[btajim]

I am not on Mancini's / CITY's case - I am just bemused - this was not some heroic performance - robbed at the end - we just got away with it until then because they are actually not that good - we could have taken them easily with the right approach!

Is it just me thinks this?

Sorry, are you saying that the side who beat us on Saturday are not that good? They're second in the table, could sneak the Title if Chelsea don't tie it up and have already lifted a trophy this season. I wish we were not that good...

They've also beaten us with last minute goals on 3 seperate occasions this season. What have we not previously learned?

[Beefymcfc]

I am not on Mancini's / CITY's case - I am just bemused - this was not some heroic performance - robbed at the end - we just got away with it until then because they are actually not that good - we could have taken them easily with the right approach!

Is it just me thinks this?

Sorry, are you saying that the side who beat us on Saturday are not that good? They're second in the table, could sneak the Title if Chelsea don't tie it up and have already lifted a trophy this season. I wish we were not that good...

They've also beaten us with last minute goals on 3 seperate occasions this season. What have we not previously learned?

Totally agree mate. I've read a few posts regarding how poor a team United are and how they were there for the taking. Well strangely enough, that team got to the quarters of the CL, are currently second in the table (a whisper away from the top) and have enough experience in any match to know how to win a game, home or away.

Let's not forget who we were playing eh!

[johnny crossan]

I'm 100% with Franny
[youtube]7WN-_Yilryw[/youtube]

[mcfc1632]

Lets not get hung up on opinions of the strength of the scum - happily I think they are about to slide away over the next few years and I think that they have got away with it big time this year becasue a couple of players have stepped up - but that is just an opinion

The issue here is the tactics that we deployed (again) - it is that part of the question that should be answered