I thought we showed a lot of courage today and were a bit unfortunate not to get something from the game. To be honest with the fact that city are just buying the title we gave a really good account of ourselves and we have 3 of our first 11 out. To be honest i think we defended pretty well and kosielney was great one again. But it really annoys me when people talk about city's good play because the way they play has nothing to do with mancini, they have just gone and bought good footballers who play with the ball on the ground and are naturally gifted and can link the play. At least at arsenal we have actually gone and developed our own style and way of playing, and city just go and steal players from other clubs so arsenal really have no chance but we kept the ball a lot better in the second half. But what chance do we have when we are bringing on players like arshavin and chamakh, arshavin was awful and he should really be sold. Walcott also had a terrible game but we can take pride in our performance today. It will be a different story when they come to the emirates anyway.
I thought we did enough to deserve a point - and tbh the game could have gone either way. I don't buy the argument that we're suddenly **** because we lost today. I don't think you can fault our performance and effort. I do worry about the quality of our subs though, I thought we offered little after making the changes. With Gervinho going to the ACON, I think we need a bit more than Arshavin and Park as alternative attacking options.
Yeh when you take everything into account and how much money city have spent then it really is remarkable how close we were them today. I think that we really need to sell arshavin and i think that wenger will have transfer targets in mind swell, we also played this match without gibbs sagna and wilshere so we can be optimistic about our performance.
i thought we played well today and one nil is not a bad result at their gaff. Could have been a Man Utd 6- 1 job . As has been said the quality of our our squad is not up to thiers . But we gave a good account of ourselves and thats all you can expect. Draw a line under it and move on . Look forward to the next fixture.
I really don't understand it when people say that we need a holding midfielder, because we really don't song has been immense this season and in frimpong and coquelin we have two brilliant young defensive midfielders who can step in when needed. What we need is an attacking midfielder to sit in behind rvp, arteta is a good player but he just isn't as good as cesc or nasri and he plays too deep and when wilshere comes back i think that he will be out of the team. Ramsey is a good player but again he isn't anywhere near as good as the two players that we lost in the summer and hopefully we will be able to sign gotze or someone who is a proper attacking midfielder. And we have more injury worries, also i'm just wondering when players like sagna, gibbs and jenkinson will be returning because we are really stretched, miquel will really have to step up to the task as he will probably play left back and kos will go to right back with vermalen and mertesacker in the middle.
Think you are being a little harsh on City & Mancini here mate. City are spending money because they have it to spend. They want to win the league and one way to do that is to buy the best available players. AW is no different, he just works to a smaller budget. As for Mancini you can't really argue that the play is all down to the players. Last year's City were much less adventurous and very cautious (Mancini played a system that suited his team). This year, with the influx of players, City are much more attack minded and their passing game has improved & this must in part be down to Mancini. Their results and number of goals scored can provide evidence of the change in style. They do play attractive football but I would strongly argue that Arsenal's style is more pleasing on the eye and is a joy to watch (most of the time!) As for stealing players, well, players will go if they want or stay. Clubs can't really complain either way. You could argue that we (Arsenal) 'stole' Ramsey, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, TV, etc etc. Bottom line is they 'wanted' to leave to come to us. I'm sure we wouldn't complain if Podolski or Goetze etc suddenly decided to come to the Arsenal.... Agree with your last point about taking pride in our performance today. We played well and maybe deserved a point and certainly were not outplayed (or outfought). Fact is though at the minute Man City have greater resources, more financial clout, better players (in most areas) and a more balanced team. There's no shame in admitting that - to be fair the same is true of us over many of the other teams in the league as it stands. We are, and will remain a very good team - we're just a bit short of where we need to be in terms of winning the league again. Just my opinions of course -
Buy the title, I would say City have done what wenger did, brought in quality like Wenger did with Pires Henry Viera andso on, the price was different, but what would you pay for those in todays markets? They have to play 38 games as a team to win it, you cant just buy it, Chelsea proved that, they needed the right players and coach, when they got Jose they got more players and won the league, ye got Wenger he brought in the Invincibles, a squard of great quality, like City have, not comparing but please stop the bitter moaning and be happy City didn't take 3 good chances and leave you 6th
Pires,Henry and Viera became world class players after Wenger developed them. There is a difference between that and what City did.
Clearly what city are doing now is not what wenger did when he first came to arsenal, you don't need to be a good scout to see that nasri silva aguero balotelli etc are all world class players. But with the likes of vier a henry and pires they were players whom most clubs over-looked and thats the difference, wenger can see things in players that other managers and scouts don't. And when we went in for vermalen especially i didn't see a lot of other clubs fighting for his signature and he has been our best defender for a long time. Arsenal go out and develop their own players as well as bringing in good young players who they can develop, do you think oxo would have stood a chance of getting anywhere near the city first team had they signed him in the summer? not a chance. Thats the difference arsenal go and get players who are still in the process of developing and they work with them, city just do what real have done for years and seen players who are the best at their current club and bought them when they are at their peak and i can't respect that, a club should be designed to develop players, not just go and wait for another club to develop a player and then steal him when he is at his peak in terms of performance.
Sanity at last, thanks for a great post, saved me replying to that knobhead how he thinks Southampton and others feel about you. Good luck in CL
Marbella Blue **** off you complete ****, read my latest reply you ****ing idiot that is the difference between us and city.
You bully smaller clubs into parting with players THEY have developed with the promise of a few more quid if they make it, tough **** if they don't! As for City, with the exception of the bad buys Hughes made, Mancini has made clever buys and created a good team playing good football. All the signings he has made were affordable by any of the top teams in Europe but they did'nt have his vision. As for being hated, please carry on, we've had many many years of being Manchester's "nice club" it's now our time! Don't forget we have one Billionaire who invests, you have two who don't, I guess you are well on the way to being London's "nice club"
Real Madrid, Barcelona, The Scum, Chelsea, The Milans even Liverpool. I will admit we have spent our money in a shorter space of time,but we are playing catch up, not guaranteed to win anything though, if we had kept Hughes we would still be a mid table team no matter what he spent. I'm sorry if this dosn't seem fair but it's not been fair for any of the teams not involved in the advent of the Premier/ Champions league carve up. We have one player that cost more than Ferdinand cost 10yrs ago, was that fair? I would love it to be a level playing field but it never has been, never will be. If you lot don't spend, as most of your fans on here want to, you will just slip further and further down and crying " we are doing it the right way" won't help. I still wish you well in CL. ps please don't reply with the they" earned" their money bollocks!
Even Barca, Madrid and the Chavs who are renowned for spending vastly over inflated prices for players cannot match City for sheer over the top extravagance. Sergio Agüero ... £38m Samir Nasri ........£24m Yaya Toure ......£24m David Silva .......£25m Mario Balotelli ....£25m Edin Dzeko ........£27m James Milner ......£26m You even spent £50m on two strikers who don't even want to play for you anymore, one of which you're paying £100k per week to play for another team. And then there was the £32m you spent on Robinho to then sell him a season later for £12m. You were a mid table team before your lottery win. Give £280m to Bolton or Wigan and I'm sure they would be in the same position as City are now. I'm sorry, but this is a nothing more than a flagrant demonstration of throwing as much cash around in an attempt to see what sticks - there is no skill or guile involved.
£536m spend in 4 years, £439m net. **** knows what the salary bill is http://www.transferleague.co.uk/premiership-transfers/manchester-city-transfers.html
While your in research mode could you provide me a list of utd's buys, I'll start you off Veron! I stated in my post that, yes we did make some bad buys under hughes and are paying the price for that, but Mancini has bought well and developed all his buys into better players, Nasri will complete his education for next season. I also stated that yes we were a mid-table team for many years and there is nothing wrong with that, I certainly wouldn't knock you for being one! However we strived to get better and what you describe as our "lottery win" was in fact a brilliant business venture, by taking a club with a great history, great support in a vibrant City, **** what Tevez thinks, and attracting a forward thinking person to buy into the dream. That's how business works and like it or not football is business!
Only the Chavs top City for spending on wages. £174m to City's £133m at the end of the 2010/2011 season - This was before the arrival of £180k per week Na$ri to sit on the bench and Aguero who is probably on around £200k per week, so you can bet that this figure will rise significantly at the end of this season. This of course is on top of the £197m loss that City made last year. It just beggars belief that anyone can think that this is a skillful approach to managing a football club.
