Interesting article in the Telegraph about the reasons or not for the lack of English participants in the Champions League Playoffs. The bottom line (almost literally) is that English teams need to focus more on keeping possession or conversely not giving the ball away. How do posters think that City do in this respect? I read a lot about certain City supporters bemoaning the sideways pass along with cries to get it forward. In particular the likes of Tom Cairney come in for the occasional comment re his sideways passing? One particular peeve of mine ( if I am allowed one) is when the GK boots it down field only for the opposition to gain possession. This is hardly a good start for possession football.. Stockdale is an improvement over others in this area. But he might want to take out a leaf from Pepe Reine's playbook and throw/roll the ball out more? http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/mar/15/premier-league-champions-league
I think this is a bit knee jerk from our press. But then you expect it, because they constantly **** over Barcelona, who are miles better than anybody else. Chelsea won it last season and Man Utd have got to two finals, depsite eventually losing out. That's not a bad record.
you play to your strenghs...inter milan...chelsea...porto.........barca is just a ****fest at the momemt
The English/British have always failed at the art of keeping possession Especially at the end when you need to kill games dead. The Italians were masters of it back in the 70/80's. 1-0 stayed 1-0.
keeping possession at the circle at the moment is almost impossible, although to be fair, derby didnt do bad
I like the point you're making here. I agree about long GK kicks and also kick-offs piss me off. It's like Rugby Union at kick-offs, just boot it out as far as you can.
It's a great discussion point and possession is it in football, but sooner or later you have to mave it forward and gamble. The big kick from the GK has it's place against a weak back four, but in moderation; the GK mainly gets the blame for this, but look at how many outfield are enjoying the view away from the GK - he hoofs it out of a lack of decent options, so he clears his lines. My personal thought on the reason for the beautiful, boring game played by our wonderful EU diving toerags is the determination of officialdom to outlaw any form of physical defence - the game needs to toughen up again or we need to reinvent another game and leave this puffs paradise behind.
Agree with every word you have said bar the last bit. Stockdale does try and play it short, however when you are 30 games into a season teams start to figure little pieces about you, and every side has noticed we are poor in the air and that we like to play it out from the back. Their answer is to have two players marshall our centre halves from all set free kicks near our area and goal kicks making it nearly impossibly to pass out from the back, he has tried playing it to Elmo in recent weeks however that has two or three times left us exposed.
We've kept possession well for most of this season, but we don't do it so well now Aluko is out. Attack being the best form of defence and all that.
Our kick offs piss me off, the striker passes it back to the centre mid who just hoofs it out for a throw in 20 yards over halfway. If we're going to do that why not just have the striker belt it somewhere close to the corner flag? We used to do it under Peter Taylor, but at least we'd play it so Elliott could try and win a header, at the moment we just give the ball back to the opposition.
I don't like this Peter Taylor thing we insist on doing when we kick off. Well, I call it the Peter Taylor thing, but we've still used it under every manager I can remember - we've just done it less regularly under others. If you don't know what I'm referring to, it's the great big whack down the wing as soon as we kick off - 99.99% of attempts resulting in an opposition throw-in with just 2 seconds gone - the other 0.01% resulting in a Nick Barmby goal. (Edit) Sorry Gooch - didn't notice your comment 'til it was too late.
