The thing is Enricky, for me it's no coincidence we look tighter against the better sides than the smaller sides. I think we tend to take a lot more risks, and go "bollocks let's just score more than them", our attacking intent comes with consequences. I do think we can improve in both full-back positions mind, but whether it solves the problem or not we'll wait and see.
Think having Sakho back will make a big help, I would say having Enrique back would be a massive help too but it doesn't seem like he's coming back anytime soon.
Against the better sides, our counter-attacking football style comes naturally. We are very good a pressing the ball and forces errors. Against the lesser teams that sit back, we have to play different. We pas the ball about amongst the back line, Gerrard and Migs. This is designed to entice the opposition out as their fans aren't happy with us maintaining possession without a challenge. Once their players step out to pressurise us, we counter; aka counter-attacking football. Its jus enforced in a different way.
I think 1. Thier pitch was not all that and it does affect the style of passing we try 2. Allen and Henderson were not very hot that's where basically Cardiff could walk down our left and expose Flanagan. This is Allen's job to help with and today he gave it away in our pen area 3. They played 2 up just about and with a different pressing style, but we could get a chance anytime we got it forward In the end yeah we started slow, setting out the stall or whatever rather than chasing them like mad. We take the bigger sides by the scruff of the neck while we try to control the lesser ones. I think taking a game by the neck is hard to do week in week out
Negredo wouldn't get in the team. Toure & Silva are too lazy to work as well. Brilliant when things are going well but won't do the dirty side.
Not **** but honestly, Negredo wouldn't start ahead of Suarez & Sturridge. Silva, maybe in that role with Coutinho, much better player going forward but would he be as good defensively? We saw against Chelsea how they exploited that gap that Silva leaves when he doesn't do his defensive work. And Toure, brilliant as he is, again is lazy when it comes to defending. I'd certainly have them in the squad though but they'd need to do more in a team than they do for City at the moment.
I agree, it's about the team, not individuals. But **** me, you see Toure's third goal We saw how much better we play when Coutinho does both, attack and defends. I want him too start doing that again, he done it for two or three games and then stopped doing it, we were magnificent when Coutinho was playing like that.
Not a bad strike indeed. I'd have him in my team ahead of Allen most days of the week, but I honestly think if we had Kompany, the best CB in the league and Zabaleta or Azpilicueta at FB we'd probably be a couple of points clear just due to the amount of individual errors that would be reduced.
**** me, not the Yaya Toure love in again! As has been said, he's lazy as ****. Great shot on him and he can't half put a nice through ball in, but he's so weak defensively that you need a dedicated sitter to try to cover what he doesn't do - Barry was hugely under rated but let Yaya do what he does and now Fernandinho does the same job. In our current style, we can't have lazy players. Even Sturridge and Suarez, two of the best attackers in the league this season, are often seen in our half on the flanks putting in a tackle or helping defensively. City's midfielders don't even do that, never mind their forwards! Better individual player technically, but I'd bet our overall play would be worse with midfielders who don't press or track back.
I agree half of city's failings this season are down to this, he just wants to go do whatever and his stats so he's quite effective at it BUT they got trounced again in cl when a decent outfit got at them and are out of fa cup as a result AND should be cantering in this league not playing catch up Sorry but it's the yaya show and while a good proportion of the time is great sides which marshal that beat them
Just want to make one point we were top before chavs and citeh away fixtures, we've played catch up since and I think only west brom and villa games have we really dropped anything and both were rank team efforts really I must say that Chelsea have put in the form to be top, I hope we are one point behind come the weekend!
Rumours linking Real Madrid with a bid for Johnson... Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee let this be true!
