Fantastic point - the natural pessimist in me thought we'd get nothing so I'm very happy indeed. I'm never keen on us trying to run the clock down but there were some tired legs out there by the end. Really solid team performance - a bit of wayward passing aside, I thought looked a good team.
Went on Blue Moon forum....tbf, they don't seem as bad as saintsweb do sometimes. Talking about some fans booing City...some of our fans boo Saints sometimes What they need to realise is that it is very hard to beat Saints this season....no shame in it.
He he,no question I will die during the last ten minutes of a Saints game when I go.hurt my shin on coffee table - got the ball away though!
Yes, the off side was in the first phase and the lino did well to keep his flag up, right call in my opinion. A competent display by the Clot, he got all of the routine decisions correct, did miss a couple of elbows in the second half but I doubt he actually saw them, can't give what you don't see.
Being a Saints fan sure ain't short of entertainment and tension eh? Keep wanting to give someone else MOTM in recent games but Romeu is SO good (Victor who?) He is the centre of the team BUT everyone is important and I can't say anyone didn't play well. Sam McQueen looks like he's been playing at this level for a year rather than a week. As a doubter I think Clasie might be starting to get there, but he's still better v teams like Burnley rather than Man City. Stevo never stops and always finds an outlet. Nathan excellent and getting better. Boufal needs to get up to Prem speed but looks v.good, Jose just puts in a good shift every time, Cuco better when he gets a run in the team, Hjojberg is quality but I want an the extra 5% he is capable of that will make him really good, all the subs did ok. Amazing that the squad keeps producing so far in this run of games. Interested to see who plays midweek. I think Virgil is our only weakness as he's been responsible for the last 2 goals against us
Clattenburg was good enough. Not great, but not real complaints. Clasie yellow maybe a bit harsh, but it was one of those "I lost the ball so will immediately lunge at the nearest guy" tackles. When you see it in slow motion, he was more in control than it appeared (though it was a foul as he caught the foot). But I can't blame a ref for wanting to discourage that type of play and for seeing it a tad worse than it was. Those are the kinds of tackles you get yellows for. Offside disallowing goal. Good call, but it was the linesman. I guess Clattenburg showed some guts there by disallowing a hometeam goal at Etihad but really, if he can't do that he shouldn't be officiating. Minimum standard. Gundogan foul. He missed it. It happens. Hopefully they will review that one because it was rather nasty. And IMO, deliberate. Romeu. That's a yellow all day long. He went into the player with a purpose, obviously revenge for the Gundogan stamp that went uncalled. Forster. Definitely was time-wasting. Can't complain about that. All the yellows on MC players-- seemed like they were fine. Waving on play with head injuries-- We may have been acting a bit, but too bad. This is a safety issue, and we need to be very harsh on referees when they put player lives in danger. You have to stop play. Period. Then if you want to hand out a yellow for acting or whatnot, fine. But it's not your job to try and determine whether a player might have a serious injury or not. But in Clattenburg's semi-defense most PL referees are inconsistent with the head injury stoppage (eg. us v Arsenal). FA needs to make a firm clarification that you STOP the game. So yeah, I dunno. There were some missed calls and I think at times he let a close one go and then blew for the same thing a couple minutes later. But that was not an easy game to officiate, lots of stuff going on. In the end there were no calls or non-calls I would consider too controversial, and a draw was a fair result for both teams. So solid enough, 7/10 performance.
Saints are really putting to bed the bullshit about the Europa League being a nuisance and a distraction from the league.
You may well be right there, but then you wouldn't have had that amazing trip! One thing it does show, and that is that for the first time I can remember in 50 years of watching Saints, we have a team that doesn't need to be afraid of anyone, anywhere.
Possibly, but now we have a manager who has, not only a Plan B up his sleeve, but C and D as well. Good times, good times.
Result was fair i thought Saints just didn't let us play,I thought the game plan was spot on Best side to come to the etihad so far