Very much a game of two halves,Swansea comfortably the better side in the first half but the chances carved out by the dominant midfield led by the excellent Jonjo Shelvey were spurned and at places like the Etihad you really need to snaffle up those opportunities if returning to South Wales with anything other than pride in the performance is the aim. As anticipated Pellegrini set City up to allow Swansea to have plenty of the ball,sitting narrow and deep then looking to hit quickly on the counter.Its great going forward but I don't feel City have the right players defensively at the moment to play this system effectively and Swansea looked like breaching us time and again in the first half but the final ball was just lacking the quality or the finish was snatched at and we reached the interval in a lead we were delighted with but fortunate to have,especially taking into account what looked like a clear penalty on Hernandez and a shocking miss from De Guzman just before the break 2nd half saw City tighten up and take the game to Swansea,next goal was crucial and through a bit of quality from the ever improving Nasri,it came City's way and really finished the game as a contest. From then on I felt Swansea seemed to lack a bit of belief and visibly tired,the 3rd goal from Nasri was the knockout blow and gave us a 3-0 scoreline which anyone watching in the stadium was extremely flattering. Quite comfortably the best visiting side at the Etihad,barring the Munich machine,some of the passing and interplay was sublime Getting no points at the Etihad is not a season changer,very few teams come away with anything,but it's important I think for Swansea to take the confidence from the first half display into the midweek game against Newcastle to make the endeavour worthwhile Looking forward to my visit to Swansea for new year,staying over in the bay on New Year's Eve as I've heard it's a special place Regards PPLF
Good post mate, your attacking threat is phenomenal!!! They have real killer instincts in that team and you will be challenging for the title, there is no doubting that! Enjoy your visit to Swansea, I recommend booking a weekend and just relax for the weekend. Perhaps see the sights of the Gower and maybe try out some surfing
Fair comments mate. What we need is one of your strikers please !! I think most jacks are happy with the performance and as you say if you dont take your chances there then it makes an already hard job even harder! 3-0 was probably fair but i think it could have been interesting if we had scored just before half time , a game we were expecting nothing from and we got just that, enjoy your stay down in Swansea, my ticket is sorted so i will be there on new years day to watch extract our revenge on you !!
Game of two halves Thats a good one. you never got out of third gear in the first half and we could not hit a barn door with a shovel. Its very easy to say when you won 3-0 .But if my fellow jacks want to believe we were anywhere near of getting something out of the game then thats their choice. city were well in control of the situation and if we had scored the floodgates would have opened and we would have lost by more than 3 goals.
Don't agree,if Swansea had taken their chances we would've been chasing the game and would've left even more gaps for you to capitalise on
Brian Laudrup (who is Michael Laudrups brother) was commentating the match for danish TV and said the following (with is quite accuracy).: "Swansea (today) wanna play like a top team but Swansea finish/trying to score, is like a team which is in the bottom of the division".
That was a very comfortable win for Citeh, we are toothless up front, and have been all season!..................... We have 6 games in December before the transfer window, which is the half way mark, I hope we can pick up a few points, as otherwise we could well be drawn into the dogfight at the bottom, which I don't fancy our chances with.
At least one draw and one win from the next two games against Newcastle and Hull will ease any worries to the run up to christmas. Hopefully take six points.
As usual Dai doesn't give us any credit at all. We were missing our two main goal threats and were against one of the top teams in the country. As the OP says if one of Shelvey's goals went in that could have changed the game. We were also denied a penalty - sometimes given, sometimes not - but there was definite contact. A creditable performance away from home but they moved up a gear second half which you'd expect from a team that cost about 10 times ours.
Merry Christmas Dai. Perhaps you can ask Santa for a pair of glasses, and maybe "Football Tactics for Dummies".
The JDG miss was crucial (I dont expect us to get a penalty these days). 1-1 at half time would have made for a very interesting 2nd half although Man City would still probably have won it.
Come on now guys what have i always said......laudrup is trying to play us as if we are a top team and it will never work because of who we are...we are a small team with a small squad who is playing in a big pond and we can stay here if we play to our strengths and not as a man utd,chelsea or an arsenal. Im glad he can see what i and many others can see....laudrup needs to be with a big club because he is slowly making us worse..
And one more point to squash a myth...I actually did say we played quite well if you look but our quite well is not in the same league as the big guys but it was the best we can do, And if you think we would have done any better with michu and bony then you are deluding yourself. The reason we cant compete is exactly what ML's Brother says and he is spot on. Winning the odd game wont keep us from the danger zone and thats a fact..
So what were you on about regarding not playing Bony for the Valencia game ? Some one with blue slant on the game by cleavers » Sun Dec 01, 2013 10:25 pm Just what we needed that, a hard game that we had to fight to win. I thought we were very good defensively, only once did they get through (awful attempt - but credit to Pants for being big), nearly all their other efforts were long distance (2 good saves), but they gave us a game, made us work hard, and in the end we dominated after the break and won comfortably. I thought it was a very good sign that we had to work hard to have a right to possession of the ball, overcame the fact that ball just wouldn't run for us first half, got our lead, held on a bit, then ran out convincing winners, against the best team to come to the Etihad (bar Rayern) this season, by some distance. I thought Swansea were very good, they play a nice game, and luckily they didn't have a better finisher, but we fought hard all over the pitch, not at our best, but the work ethic bodes well for the next few games. 3 super goals, we really are privileged to see goals this good in this quantity. Pantillimon - 7 Zab - 7 Demichellis -7 Lescott - 7 Clichy - 8 (best game this season for me) Navas - 7 Yaya - 7 Fernandihno - 7 Nasri - 9 (Excellent again) Aguero - 7 Negredo - 7 Milner - 7 Kolorov - 7 Dzeko - 6 I thought MP made good changes today, at key points in the game. Well played Swansea too, if any of your fans are reading this, you're the best league club we've played at home so far, keep it up, get a decent finisher back fit, and I hope you can hurt some of our rivals for the title, home and away. Its good to see football played the right way by away teams at The Etihad.
