Well, we're opening a bit of a lead up, at the top of the table. Just need for Arsenal to start bottling it, to leave us nicely poised to snatch our second league title in 50 years.
I posted that earlier PNP if you look back. But this isn't about that, it's about scoring more when we are ahead and cruising which we don't do enough of.
Cue the massive overreaction. This was a derby match. City have been fairly dominant v Utd in the last three years when their spine (Hart - Kompany - Toure - Aguero) have played at their best as they did today. When City's superior midfield have got on top, they have tended to win this fixture, but that has little bearing (3 points only in fact) on how many points the teams will acquire over the season. City won 6-1 at OT 2 years ago and the reaction was the same, but City only won the league on goal difference because they scored twice in injury time v QPR. Utd lost two of the first six games last season including a 3-2 defeat to Spurs. Cue the doom merchants . Utd hardly dropped any points until April. As for this season, City were hardly world beaters when shipping 3 goals at Cardiff or in a toothless display at Stoke. Spurs have probably been the most consistent side so far - but in grinding out narrow wins. If City play like today every week, they will win the title easily. But they won't.
Yes we are grinding out narrow wins which I hope changes with the next match. All I want is more convincing scores and we will challenge. Why was RvP dropped Luke? We are not overreacting about you, you do have problems.
No overreaction whatsoever, LDL. That squad today would be sh*tting themselves about failure, come FT, and for the rest of the season, in the reign of Fergie. Does Moyes have what it takes to put the fear of God into them (same question for AVB too) .
Goal difference wasn't the point, WY. It was the fact that City didn't canter to the title as the pundits predicted because of their superiority in one game.
No, but it proves that one big defeat against your rivals can be the decider at the end of the season, so it can be disastrous. Therefore criticism of this result for you is perhaps justified...
City blew hot and cold last season and they're doing it a bit already by losing to Cardiff, drawing at Stoke and now winning well against Utd. However when they look strong they look dangerous and if they can get some consistency they will challenge easily.
On paper, they should be favourites, but they were lacklustre away from home most of the time last season and their first two games this season have been the same. Their away form isn't good enough at present. Not enough attacking intent.
One thing I do know is that Fellani is not good enough to play for United (well, not the United that we've been used to seeing under SAF), and he simply doesn't have that kind of fitness. I'm assuming that Moyes intends to use Fellani at United as a "Roy Keane" type midfielder, rather than "that big bloke who everyone lumps it up to on the off-chance that he's able to nod it on to a striker" midfielder that he employed him as, at Everton. To play as the former, Fellani will have to do a lot more running and graft that he's been used to, and he'll have to show a lot more tactical guile, which I'm not sure he possesses. Fellani is yet one more player who has bought into his own hype and made a move too far, when he should have recognised his own limitations and stayed put. He's could have been a legend at Everton; instead, he'll be a flop at United.
Hope I'm not getting too far ahead of myself, here, but... realistically, to stand any chance of winning the title, we've got to beat the Chavs.
You say Fellaini isn't good enough but methinks that the players Man U will acquire in the future won't be as good as those of the past. Chelsea play Swindon who can be tricky after all they beat Arsenal in the league cup final whenever so they can giant kill. I expect as things stand a low scoring hard fought win for us as Chelsea's performance against Fulham wasn't that great was it? If they get beaten on Tuesday morale will be low. Jose mocked his critics and now he's down in 4th, could be lower next week. Come on Bobby Soldado.
Beating Chelsea would still barely be a pigeon step towards winning the title and, if we were to do it, Chelsea would have to be our main rivals otherwise 3 points against them would mean no more than 3 points against Cardiff today. I'm looking at how we're shaping for the top 4 right now and it's a good start and would remain so even if we didn't beat Chelsea.
Anyway I'm signing off now after a busy day's posting. I'll just say though that look how many goals Arsenal and City have scored compared to us. We MUST score more.
