One thing that hasn't been said, but probably should: remember when Josko Gvardiol looked like a CB we should move heaven and earth to sign? Look who was at fault for our first two goals...
De Bruyne is a nasty piece of work. Good player, even if he's on the decline, but he's always been a dirty c**t and got away with stuff that others get punished for.
It’s not right now. Haaland is a machine and a physical marvel and he’ll score a **** load of goals in his career. But Kane is simply a generational footballer. You build a team around his ability and his brain in a way you don’t for Haaland.
Unbelievable performance. Incredible result. We went to a team that hadn't lost at home in 52 games and absolutely battered them. Maddison came back into the side and all they could do to stop him was hack him down. No Romero, no van de Ven, no Bentancur, a player I've never heard of on the bench and we win 4-0. Their last home loss was 2-1 to Brentford a little over 2 years ago on 12th November 2022. They hadn't lost a game in any competition until we beat them in the League Cup. They've now lost 5 in a row and 2 were to us. They've never been 3-0 down at home under Guardiola. He's never lost more than 4-0 as a manager. He's never lost 5 matches in a row. He's lost to Spurs more than any other team. Werner destroyed Walker for pace for the 4th goal and he's struggling badly. They must absolutely ****ing hate us!
Sensational Because he made such an impact when he first joined we forgot just how young he was, so were too quick to criticise when his levels slipped. The lad has so many facets to his game and most have been in full view this season. If he manages to refind his goalscoring levels - particularly those glorious, almost Bale-like strikes we saw in his early days - then he could be one of THE players of his generation.
Part of it seems to come from the difference between our CB pairings Romero and Mickey Van defend better outside the box Dragusin and Davies defend better inside the box The issue at the moment is we can't seem to make any combination of the two pairings mesh quite right
Dodgy hamstrings apart, it's a real pity that Ben and Vdv are both so left-sided, because I have a feeling they would otherwise compliment each other and the latter would learn a lot from the experienced Welshman. It's almost inevitable that we will lose Romero in the Summer - and I'm not sure it will be such a great loss - so I just hope that Dragusin can continue to develop and that we add another strong CB to the ranks.
Something I've noticed when Romero is absent is that Porro is much more on top of his defensive duties and communicates much better with Dragusin. I think this is simply down to the fact that he is much more experienced than the Romanian so as the 'senior' player feels a greater responsibility. By contrast he is nowhere near as focused when Romero is playing and the communication between the two is non existent, despite the fact that they've been team mates for almost two years.
He seems to relish playing City. Like many of our players, he needs to find consistency if he is to become a top, top talent. We have far too many players who will look like Balon d'Or winners one week and pub league players the next.
