View from the opposition

A blast of arctic north east air greeted us on the rooftop of the grainger st Multi Storey and a quick dash to a The town Wall for a pre match Guinness was welcomed.
Locals were hardly optimistic,not an unusual trait I find with Geordies though to be fair so can be tricky to gauge realistic opinion but concerns over Debuchy and Collocini missing seemed valid.

Pellegrini had decided to stick with playing 2 up top which I'm still not overconfident about away from home as I would rather we pack 5 across the midfield to give the defensive high line a bit of cover. Steven Taylor was back in centre of defense who I thought was someone we could exploit.
After climbing the steps to just below cloud level,we got to our seats as the teams were emerging from the tunnel and settled down to watch City grab control of the early exchanges as Newcastle sat back a little and allowed Silva to dictate affairs and it won't have come as a a surprise to the prematch doommongers when Silva fed Kolorov for him to send over a cross that Dzeko easily converted at the near post.The referee was giving City free reign of the 50/50s and Taylor only appeared to have to look in Dzekos direction to be penalised.
We wondered if Newcastle would fold tamely as they did at the Etihad in August but driven on by Cabaye,the terrific Tiote and the willing running of Anita,Newcastle turned the tide and began to pin City back and dominate.City were always dangerous on the break but were getting overrun at times in the middle of the pitch and you felt an equaliser was coming and but for the intervention of some dreadful officiating it would've been from an unstoppable Tiote shot which a Newcastle player in an offside position,although not interfering,got out of the way of to see it nestle in joe harts bottom corner.
The natives were fuming,rightly so,and it brought the game and the ground to life as City held on to their slender lead and headed for the sanctuary of the dressing room at half time as Mr Jones was given no need to wonder what the locals thought of his performance.

2nd half saw a fired up Newcastle side aggressively pile into City and the dreadful referee allowed carte Blanche for the aggrieved Geordies to turn the game into a battle.
2 wrongs don't make a right and he had gone from giving City all the 50-50s in the first part of the game,made an horrendous judgement disallowing the goal and then appears to try to even up matters on the Newcastle players behalf for the 2nd half.
Inept doesn't begin to describe such a performance
Newcastle were the better side in the 2nd half and but for not being clinical enough with their openings,in particular Remy's clean through attempt,they couldn't draw level.
The replacement of Anita for Cisse seemed to take away Newcastles shape and City could've scored on the counter numerous times in the closing stages and finally got a second through Negredo to give City an extremely flattering scoreline when a draw would probably have been about right over the 90 mins.
Just a word on Pardew,who I find as classless as the cockney idiot who's directly above him.
The touch line shenanigans with Pellegrini simply illustrate that he's not fit to grace the same technical area that was occupied with the class and charm of sir Bobby for many years,who was always a gentleman
Good luck for the remainder of the season

Regards PPLF

 

A very balanced, and IMHO honest appraisal mate. The ref was indeed a total joke on lots of levels but it's his superiors job to look at that and deal with it.
I see your boys cruising to the title this year and rightly so. Pellegrini seems to have cured you of your travel sickness and at times this year you have looked the real deal.
Enjoy the rest of the season mate and thanks for dropping by.

 

A good article, thanks and you will walk the league IMO.

 

canny .. lol

 

Good article PPLF and very fair.

On the Pardew issue, I actually like it when I see him show the passion and show that he cares. I totally understand why other teams will hate him for it. He's a dick but he's our dick

 

We've not been great on the road and are quite easily put off our stride,like today but we've been getting away with it since the loss at Sunderland
Very similar game to the COC game where you should have won it before you tired in extra time

 

Very fair article. I thought major difference was up front. Thought Negredo was superb. Held up the ball, brought in midfielders and laid on 2 chances that should have been converted. Having seen all top sides, its only City's to lose.

 

hate it when , games turn oot this way . as man city , I don't mind then canny enough supporters and club .. what ive met ..much better than your neighbours ..

your a good team ..and hard to beat when motivated ..

good write up ..we did not take our chance s

beast of luck

 

Your good enough without the assistance of your 12th man today, its hard enough for teams like ourselves to compete with the cream but when your also playing against officials its simply impossible to compete and its simply not fair. It really does devalue the premiership as a competition and as a supporter makes you really feel helpless and extremely demotivated about football as a whole. I frankly can't see how an unfair result like this would give any genuine city supporters any real or genuine satisfaction from a game where they were aided and assisted by the match officials

 

Good article mate, see you at Wembley

 

You going to a concert ?



QUOTE=Blind Corner;5903718]Good article mate, see you at Wembley[/QUOTE]

 

Chants of 'The referees a ****er' were coming from the GG in the first few minutes.

 

It's been going on for years,it's the one area in our game where I wouldn't be surprised if it was found to be corrupt
If tiotes shot was against a team like Palace,that goal gets given
That's the issue I have with it,we don't need any help,the team is good enough as it is
Just cheapens the league

 

That's the way it is.

 

Here here, it really does leave a sour taste in ones mouth and sticks in ones throat. I have to agree that it really does devalue and discredit the league and I'm afraid the attitude that it evens itself out is so naive and misguided that it really makes it seem worse for me when I hear somebody say that.

Let's be completely honest whether its home or away we are not going to get any decisions anytime soon going our way against the big boys because we all know that it just does not happen. I am not necessarily saying it's a conspiracy, but refs just don't give the big key decisions to the so called smaller sides, anyone who has a season ticket and goes to sid James every match will tell you that, generally we get absolutely nothing from the ref in most games let alone the big boys. Its inherent in the game does not make it any less frustrating though.

 

Who do you class as the big boys? Would Man Utd be up there? I'm Not sure Man Utd fans agreed with Anita's handball not being a penalty, or Ben Arfa's trip that was given as a penalty another season. Refs make mistakes but there is no conspiracy and it does go for us as well as against.

 

Probably the top six in general yes decisions do go for and against but they simply don't even themselves out over the course of the season that's absolute bollox

 

The point I was making is that we have had some contentious decisions in our favour against the big boys so its not true that we get nothing. Even today we had some terrible decisions go against us, but also some go for us. On another day we might not have finished with 11 men on the pitch. There is no conspiracy or bias. Just mistakes.

As for decisions not evening themselves out. Clubs lower down the league have always had it tough but that also has to do with the amount of tackles they are having to put in and the amount of goalmouth action there tends to be around their own box which leads to more noticeable instances of fouls/penalties not going their way.

 

When we were the prelottery win tin pot everyone's 2nd club,the regularity with which we got dreadful decisions against us was bizarre
Now in the other side of the fence,we see far more 50/50s go our way against others not in the "big club" cartel
Whether it's by design or not,i don't know

 

Fair opinions from the OP, referee got decision wrong in favor of both teams. Yanga lucky to stay on the pitch as well.