I see you're not letting your often expressed non-rating of Hart cloud your thoughts there Hilts..... You're probably right though - I should have said streets ahead of us all over the park except at goalkeeper. Of course it was a fluke. The result of the game is all we can cling on to - we scored 3 and them 2. The fact of the matter was that we won that game on adrenalin, not class. Three bundled goals (I thought Gunnar's first was easily the best from a team point of view) saw us over the line after Dzeko's thunderbolt. Perhaps I shouldn't mention how our defence parted like the Red Sea for Negredo to get that header in for their second. Man City finished top and we finished rock bottom - that's all that really matters and that game was a s much a fluke as Ron Radford's cup winner against Newcastle. You could even say that Blakey's great goal to beat Citeh 20 years ago was a fluke, or even Mutch's late winner last season at Fulham for that matter - if any of those shots had gone just the other side of the post I doubt we'de remember those three games. Though we rightly took all the glory at the time, it probably did more harm that good beating Man City that day. It set Mackay and the side up for a fall, and we fell. We played a lot better later on against their neighbours Man U - although it was only a draw, that was the best we played last season. Otherwise we were outclassed last year before and after the manager change.
I can't agree with all this fluke and luck theory ...... We played well against Everton and Chelsea away and were more than holding our own until the ref missed that foul on marshall and the same at Anfield when another ref missed blatant pens (Škrtel piggy-backs)/ possible red card offences although we did play total cr@p in most other games As they say - Luck (flukes) even themselves out over time
I agree about the luck theory turk, but we tend to remember the things that go against us more than the bits and pieces that go our way. I do agree with you about the incidents you mention though, plus the blatent handball outside the area by Lloris that Clattenburg failed to give. In the meantime, and to stimulate some more chat on here, I mentioned three great goals in my previous posts......here they are: - [video=youtube;vHZWyMFgM80]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHZWyMFgM80[/video] [video=youtube;AiTKbNxGjLs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiTKbNxGjLs[/video] [video=youtube;Kh_wi4yutk0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh_wi4yutk0[/video]
No more than the 'memory' we were not being outclassed most days in the PL well before MM left. I missed out Saints, Newcastle, Spurs at home (we were smashed in all those games). Spurs set a record for efforts on goal in a single match. Turk, Liverpool destroyed us first half, it is possibly the most one sided half of football I witnessed last season. Only maybe Saints at home was as bad. Our response 2nd half against Liverpool was decent and we should have had a pen but they could have upped a gear and scored as many as they wanted if we'd ever actually threatened their comfortable win. I think we deserved the win v Man City but lets not pretend we were the better side. We took our chances and exposed their weaknesses. We played them at a good time as Pelligrino hadn't really established how difficult every away game in the PL can be. If they'd had Kompany available it would surely have been a different result. I agree with Sparks that we were better against Utd from a performance if not result point of view. From my memory I would say Fulham away, Utd home and for 65minutes v Sunderland were the only times we looked like we belonged in the league. 2 of those 3 were under MM's watch but it's still not very impressive. The regular taunt from our visitors that we looked like a lower league team playing in a cup tie had a lot more truth about it than any of us wanted to admit.
