The commentators bemoaning on Peps behalf the loss of Laporte and how they can't spend money to replace him until January - Here's a thought Pep is supposedly a world class coach why not coach the existing players to improve them and play a style the suits them - these 2 cost about £80mill they should be good enough!
City could have bought Toby for £25mill, instead they spent £60mill on a wingback to sit on the bench. Is that the famous Pep genius?
Considering how little Norwich have spent in contrast to their wealthy opponents, and Norwich's well-documented injury list heading into this game, that is an utterly humiliating result for Man City. You can argue City weren't at the races, but Norwich still had a job to do against the domestic treble winners - and they did it tremendously. Counter-attacked very well, pressed whenever a City player received the ball, denied space in central areas to the likes of Bernardo, D. Silva & Gundogan, whilst defending resolutely. Assuming de Bruyne was fully fit, the only explanation I can think of for Pep resting him is he thought this game would be a cakewalk. He got a very rude awakening if so. Laporte was the glue holding City's defence together. Otamendi and Stones as a partnership will gift-wrap Liverpool the title before Xmas...unless they find a way of improving pronto.
I wonder if the toughness of the championship helped them to combat City and their Pullis style play. I enjoyed seeing little respect played to City as tough tackles were met with tough responses. I'd love to see more teams take them on in this way.
Not really. That get one every now and then. As others have said, rather than just accept that fact and move on, the Pep lovers are pulling their pants up and running around trying to spawn a Narrative (TM) as to why it happened.
Yeah it happens every now and then, but these aren't the type of games City should be losing. Especially if a newly-promoted side, who have barely spent anything, have 11 injury doubts heading into a match against a side that swept the domestic scene last year. It absolutely is a humiliating result for City. There's no getting away from it.
I mentioned at the close of the window how baffled I was that they didn't replace Kompany. With Otamendi getting progressively worse and Stones never very good to start with, the long-term injury to Laporte could be a hammer-blow for them. Also for all the talk of the CBs defending terribly, Walker was 5 yards behind the defensive line, playing everyone onside for Norwich's second. It breaks my heart to see him make mistakes, it truly does.
Credit to Chelsea for a strong win against a tough opponent and some cracking goals, but what's with the MOTD excessive focus on 3 'young' players, calling them 'kids' 21 is not that young and Abraham has had a full season in the PL.
City are actually ****ed without Laporte. Probably the second best, arguably joint best CB in the Prem at the moment with van Dijk. NKNG nailed it by saying they were dumb not to replace Kompany. Otamendi and Stones are a partnership a lot of strikers will fancy getting something against over the next 5-6 months.
