I agree with their front line lacking quality, Anichebe was the perfect forward for Bassong and Turner to deal with he didn't cause them much trouble in the scheme of things... Although redmond did waste a few good positions we wouldn't have won without him IMO, his pace relieved a lot of pressure that was building on us particularly in the second half and constantly shifted momentum. He also put in one hell of a shift, almost playing the role of both wingers in the first half and tracking back and covering for whittaker. It was extremely shrewd tactically from CH, it meant we weren't as rigid as having two wingers, defended with a left sided midfielder but he took up the attacking option of a winger changing sides allowing us to keep to threat of two strikers. Worked perfectly in the first half and although we had to absorb some pressure in the second the move to utilise murphy's pace put the fear of God into them. Perhaps CH's best tactical display. I also think Howson has missed out on a lot of praise he worked his socks off and on more than one occasion covered for Johnson drifting forward and being caught in no mans land. He played exceptionally, restraining himself from bursting forward as I think he realised Johnson was vulnerable and played the simple ball, just what we needed. He's developing nicely into a more complete midfielder the more I see him. The only concern I did have was Elmander, he looked knackered from about 55 minutes and could have been taken off much earlier.
Ruddy put on the performance of the season so far, with 10 saves and, as Crooks says, looking professional in everything he did. His concentration was excellent throughout and I particularly liked his passionate communication to the players in front of him all through the game. 'Whoscored' rated him with 9.37 points out of 10, the highest score I've ever seen for a City player. Olsson was 8.06, Redmond was 7.94, Fer 7.51, Hooper 7.5 and Howson 7.24 by comparison. For those interested, you can get a game by game score for any player by clicking on his name and going to the bottom of his profile when it comes up: http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/168
it's an interesting site- looking at a lot of the players, the weakness that comes up is passing- surely this should never be the case for a PL player. And the summary of weaknesses [h=3]- Weaknesses[/h][TABLE="class: grid, width: 333"] [TR] [TD]Keeping possession of the ball [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Finishing scoring chances [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Defending counter attacks [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Defending set pieces [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Aerial duels [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Stopping opponents from creating chances [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Defending against skillful players [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Defending against attacks down the wings [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Very Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Defending against through ball attacks [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Very Weak[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Avoiding individual errors [/TD] [TD="align: right"]Very Weak[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]
True enough, Longsight, except that PL players have to play other PL players from teams with a lot more money. At the moment we are still a bottom half team who have played half of our matches against top half teams.
