Avoided a huge banana skin in a tough competitive away match so early in the season. Good luck next week.
We seem to be incredibly flat this pre-season and way way below par. Fair enough I don't expect us to be winning 5 or 6 nil but we sound like we where by far the 2nd best team out there tonight and frankly I find that appalling. I'm not a doom monger. Don't expect great things in the pre season and do understand that fitness levels aren't 100%. However. The team really need to up their game because we can't start the season ("admittedly" several weeks away) so flat and undercooked. I take my hats of to Trencin who sounded like they had a good game but a team with the players we have even with 70-80% fitness should be putting on a better performance than they did tonight. Like I say I don't expect massive scores and even the draw would have surfaced but the performance is slightly concerning. I'm sure many will disagree.
A text message from a mate who went .Said fantastic day proud to be at citys first venture at euro football met some good lads and lasses top day great banter made some new friends. Then the football started .
its not a great result but it is far from a terrible result either. We're more than capable of beating them next week whether they score or not. Get your chin up. Come on city - city in europe - unbeleivable.
Think it was always going to be hard considering they are in the middle of their season and we are still in preseason. I suspect that we will come out far better in the home leg than we did today. To me today was all about not losing.
It's obviously not over but it would be devestating to go out in the 3QF to a Slovakian side. The attitude to this whole tie seems to have been that we'll easily get through and it's not even a big game. Bollocks to that it's the biggest tie of the season for me, unless we get through then the next one is. Getting into Europe is great but if we get knocked out immediately it's all wasted. Not saying we will at all but I can understand why people are concerned, and I agree that the first goal next week will be massive. We aren't a free-scoring side and if we get into a position of needing to score twice with no reply it'll be a massive challenge. If we score first it's a lot easier. By the way, I hate the away goals rule. It's an unnecessary complication, it makes no sense and there's no reason for it. Extra time would actually be less of a lottery than arbitrarily awarding goals in one game more value than another. I'd even argue it's bad for the very spirit of football by valuing some goals more than others. If we got out on away goals in our first ever European season I'll have nightmares for years.
The only attitude that matters is that of the players and staff and none of them have displayed a 'we'll get through easily' attitude. The gusset must be a tad moist, chill.
Well you and I were obviously not listening to (watching?) the same match. My impression from the Humberside commentary was that it was a pretty even game and that we were well on top after Ince and Snodgrass came on...at least for the next 15-20 minutes. Thudd missed a golden opportunity to win it 1-0. Considering our competitive season has not even started while theirs is well underway we were always going to be short on fitness. I expect us to win next Thursday and move on.
Fitness was the biggest factor at work here. Trencin were very athletic, limited skills with the ball and never looked like causing any problems, aside from when Bruce decided to play them clean through, but their athleticism was immense and our players were very rusty. It wasn't that our players got nackered quick, but they just weren't sharp, at times where they'd usually try to take someone on, and get past them 50% of the time, they'd just stop and play it back. Trencin were right in our faces, giving us no time and space, whenever we got the ball we played it out wide and then they shut the wing backs out by squeezing three players around them so they couldn't even pass it back to anyone. All we tried to do was short little passes and hoofs and no one dared try to get past a man, not even Elmo. It doesn't help that the 3-5-2 was an abysmal formation to play against this opposition, which was more evident than fingerprints on a murder weapon after just 10 minutes, but Brucey never changed it. All we did was go wide, go wide again, then go wide again, and again, and again and again and again, and Rosey and Elmo were just always left trying to beat 3 men every time without any support whatsoever. This ones on Bruceys head IMO. Terrible starting line up, terrible tactics, terrible substitutions.
This was a proud day for the club. Hearing that "City Til I Die" chant come through during the radio call will be a moment I won't forget. Hopefully we win next week and move on to the next round.
Totally agree. Seems like many doomsayers didn't watch the world cup and see the fact that parity (below the "elite" teams at least) is getting closer. The mobility of players & coaches is making for a pretty even playing field for all but the super-rich, billionaire sponsored teams. Coupled with the relative match-fitness levels because of staggered league season starts that was a decent result tonight. Still in our own hands to go through. Cocking up a penalty can happen to the best of 'em. PS : Not criticizing most posters on here, just some interviewed on the RH talk in afterwards were bloody negative about performance & result. Not even a case of "glass half empty" - to some it was a tissue-paper cup ffs.
