Good morning, or is it?
As the sun went down in Manchester about 9 AM so too did the light go from our title hopes. Truth be told after the first 8 minutes of play it was clear we were in for a humbling and a lesson in football. It was complete dominance from start to finish, they were simply too good and we had no answers to their superiority all over the pitch.
It looked like their set up with a more conventional four at the back, took us by surprise and our press was ineffective, with them passing through us, or over us, creating havoc in our box, the final score 4-1, flattered us.
I said in the last podcast that we don’t have a single player that would get into their team, harsh perhaps? But I think that was clearly on show last night. They are quite simply a magnificent football team. Ok, with a 2 billion pound spend they should be, but they are. There are no excuses, that was our best eleven , bar one player, and we were totally outclassed.
It would be easy for me to point a finger at certain players that under performed, but I won’t, because I only have 10 fingers. Again, that might be harsh, but only on Ramsdale. However, if I was put on the spot, my first 3 finger points would be at Partey, Jesus and our skipper. Rob Holding was perhaps the pick of our outfield players, and that’s just plain wrong.
On the bright side, because of other results last night,we will be in the CL next season, which I would have taken as a success at the start of the season, so I suppose being involved in a title challenge has been a great bonus, and a lot of fun.
It’s a disappointing result and performance, but there’s no point naval gazing, we were just beaten by a vastly superior team, that had a good night. on their own turf.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
Yep, just about sums it up. I really am not in the mood for a deep dive into would’ve could’ve should’ve. We were well beaten by the best team in the world with the best squad in the world who happen to have clicked on all gears at the business end of the season.
I really want the team to pick themselves up and play their football for the last few games and celebrate what they have achieved.
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Thanks George! Not a nice report to do, but glad you did it.
Personally Im glad the games over, secretly I thought we would get really thrashed, and the scoreline could have been much, much worse. The game had been hyped into hyper bullshit which has made us look even dafter for not really knowing how to play against the unstoppable force.
I suppose there will always be the question ‘why didn’t we turn up?’ but it will always be answered with ‘they were better than us’, but my word we really didn’t turn up or seem to even try, we didn’t either attack intensely enough when we had a chance or park the bus, but instead forgot who we are. Personally I wish that Arteta had played J20 and not Partey from the start, and Xhaka was not at his best by any means.Perhaps having a porous midfield really let them control the game?
Somehow it was our worst performance this season, and we seemed terrified. I don’t think we will ever know what happened to us last night, even if its picked over for years?
Im not sure how this will affect us, but I hope we can pick up and win all the last games, and at least take the unstoppable force to the wire. Did they win the league or we lose it? At the moment neither.
One thing that’s had an adverse affect on all matters was the international break, once we came back, the profi pundits have only been summing up the league as if we were in the last weekends, and we haven’t been the same as we were for the earlier part of the season,yet here we are with still lost of games to playout
The beating of Bayern gave City a confidence that is so powerful its shocking to see.
Its been a good run so far, but its not over yet, and the odd-ball season may have a few narratives left in it yet, and we are still running. First game in ten that we lost. But we still haven’t lost the league yet.
COYG!
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The problem is that it isn’t really about the one game. At one point Arsenal were so far ahead that last night’s result would have been irrelevant. Its the points dropped before the City game that really need looking at.
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Saka cannot handle 2 on 1 and should have been repeatedly swapping flanks to mess up their defence, but he stayed lazy as usual. Saka and Party need to be tortured by the fitness coach in training to get them up to pace. Holding by name is also holding by nature. He holds on to the ball to long before releasing it and like our goal keeper he is also slow to react. The best goal keepers are not the ones that can jump and save, the best goal keeper can get their hand to the ground fast and our goal keeper is slow to react to low shots and has a weaker left hand. Our front 4 attackers do not press high enough like the opposition does to us.Also when a winger tries to cut in from the flank through our defence why do we only defend one on one. Why do we not double up 2 on 1 as the opposition does to us and close down their defence as the opposition does to us. I tell you why, it’s because they need to do more fitness training and not be so lazy waiting for just the attack play. Lazy defending from front to back plus lack of movement off the ball.
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Cities first goal was sublime, Harlands taking the ball out of the air with one foot and flick with the other to the perfectly timed run of DeBryne and then the run and bend on the shot was equiste.
Actually it highlighted what we were to expect all night Rob was told to stay up the arse of the Norwegian, which he did well all night, but Partey, Odegaard and to an extent Zinchenko never went with their runners which was criminal.
City have the ability to pas through teams, 50 odd pass moves than build in momentum and get quicker the nearer the goal they get but that wasn’t needed.
They also have some of the best wingers and forward running full backs in Europe but again that wasn’t needed.
The fact that their chances on the whole were created down the middle in such basic fashion was the most disappointing part of the defeat and something lesser teams will try and exploit knowing our CBs play so far apart
The chelusa game is now huge both teams out of form who can guess the outcome.
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Well daveg, aren’t you just the football manager we need? Not fit enough and lazy eh? Fuck me, that’s some special bollock of analysis right there, well done.
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For the 1st goal my thought was why was Rob so tight to halland on the halfway line, then it was why did he not bring him down cause as soon as he lay the ball of and turned then Rob would have a hard job sticking with him due to his pace and he ended up in no man’s land.
Also think this highlights how good saliba has been as he reads the game well, passes out from the back better, instills composure on the field in the defense.
Rob and Gab do not look as comfortable.
Also with Tommy injury we can’t play benny blanco at CB. Benny pace helps to play a higher line and puts pace in the back line.
not blaming Rob he did his best.
The goal of CL has been achieved so the lads can be proud.
I’m worried the confidence gained over the season will evaporate over the next coming fixtures, so there is still a lot of work to do and everything to play for.
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If Rob had fouled the Viking, he would have been yellow carded with just 8 minutes gone. It was just good play from City. Partey and Gabriel were more to blame than Rob.
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The “if Saliba had been playing it would of been different” nonsense is absolutely bollocks. It may have helped in other games but our plan was obviously to stay tight to Harlaand and to be honest big Bob was our best player last night.
Saliba would have lost the physical battle and because of the way we were playing his speed would have been totally negated.
We didn’t stop the runners from midfield and anyone blaming the defence are just lazy analysts. The runners kept coming from deep all night and the players on the pitch and the coaches on the sidelines did nothing to stop it.
As far as Bukayo being lazy is concerned where could anyone pluck that from some crazy cloud no doubt. He is told to stay tight to the line and always be available it’s where we get most of our success from and in the last few seasons he probably played more games for club and country than anyone else in the league.
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We lost with Saliba playing at home so not blaming Rob but I also recognise why Rob has been utilised from the bench instead of being a starter alongside Gab.
My point being is the team is more organised and used to playing with Saliba than not.
I don’t think Mikkel has figured out a plan B when arguably our best defender is not playing.
For me the press has not been as effective from the front as the compact shape they keep when the press is a bit looser. And also distribution from the back is not as assured.
Again I think the whole squad has been fantastic this season and I am only nit picking. City have a very strong squad
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Terry Griffiths ” There can be a beauty in losing, if you can look beyond yourself”
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Wasn’t his job playing with balls
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It was fun while it lasted.
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just like last season when going for cl spot, the pressure has got to the team this season going for the title, once the CL spot looked on last season we fell apart for a few games, once title looked on this season we have fallen apart. Pressure does strange things to our players, maybe our manager too.
The damage has been done this season against the piss poor teams, bottom club southampton drew with us twice, second from bottom everton beat us, relegation battlers west ham drew from 2-0 down, title winners, nay title contenders should not have these results, I often feel the team have an arrogance about them, where they don’t show the right attitude against the weaker teams, there is a real lack of ruthlessness about the team, when in the lead, and on top we seldom go for the throat, we had liverpool on the ropes, but stopped forcing it, and they sensed it, and came back, we had west ham dead and buried and stopped playing, they seen it and rose from the dead, city would never let this happen, LFC for 3 years before this one did not let it happen, that is how you win titles, don’t give a bum a fair chance.
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George can you find the comment I made that has not appeared here
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New post is up
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