pommybird

Manchester City - what's the point?

Captain Cheesestick

How can they have a team with all those players but be unable to win without Yaya Toure? Yes Toure is a monster, but seriously? They looked pointless today. Aguero, Silva and Milner were invisible. Fernando is frankly complete wank. How does he get picked? And that was a stinker of a game from Kompany too.

Arsenal though looked shit hot. For the first time in memory they looked like they actually knew what they were doing without the ball. Last time they had anyone who could dictate the rest of his team was when Alex Song was in there - that's been eons. We all know what they can do with it - but they get overwhelmed all the time by anyone with a plan. Not today though. Cazorla was phenomenal. Couqelin was very very good too. Giroud doesn't get the credit he deserves either - excellent point man and better with his head than most. I was skeptical with that back 4 and when Arsene dropped Rosicky - who's been playing extremely well alongside Cazorla. But kudos - that team looked like they could withhold anything Citeh threw at them. Which incidentally seemed to be **** all.

Let's be honest tho - do you expect Arsene to keep that tactical plan? The minute Wilshere is fit he'll plug him in despite never really doing better than anyone else. Cazorla is playing well so obviously Arsene will randomly drop him now for 6 games and sell him to Milan in August. That's what happens.

I did have to piss myself laughing at Jamie Jackson's (Guardian Man Utd fanboy journalist) analysis of the game by stating that if Alexis Sanchez keeps this up he might get as good as Rooney in that position. Nevermind that they don't play remotely the same position or that Rooney has infuriated his own supporters with temperamental, inconsistent, angry displays for the last few years. That's not to say Rooney is poor (clearly isn't) but he's hardly the benchmark for quick, dynamic, attacking players.

In other news I heard today that Andy Carroll has now scored more for West Ham than he ever did at Newcastle (altho that can't be right can it?. And he hasn't scored that many either. Considering he was pitiful at Liverpool - where did his reputation come from?

ededed

I also keep seeing the stat that City have now conceded more goals than United this season. That's a United back 3 (or 4, or 5) that's chiefly consisted of Blackett, McNair, Smalling, Jones and Evans, with Blind, Rojo and Shaw all slotting in when able to walk.

If we didn't keep dropping points against donkeys (hello Fuchs and Scamp), we'd be 2nd. It just shows how utterly shit the EPL is this season.

Captain Cheesestick

Been pretty dire. Mourinho wont give a toss tho.

ededed

Neither would we. It's been pretty dire for a while. Tallest dwarves keep winning the league, and I include us in that.

JamesM

Looks like I cursed that one.

JamesM

Yup.

If Chelsea put City away in the next one then the Premier League is pretty much in the bag. City will never make up 8 points.

Getting pretty tight and exciting for 3rd/4th. 7 points between 3rd and 8th and in all honesty Southampton still looking the most convincing of the pack.

Scamp

Oh you....just accept it, we beat you.

Anyway, I think credit has to go to Arsenal yesterday, their game plan was executed perfectly and nullified City completely. Cazorla was unreal, best game I've seen him have in a long time - as an all round midfielder, not an attacking / fancy pants type, but as a battling guy too.

Fair play to them, it was a great game to watch.

Garbatellamike

FIFY

Arse got their tactics spot on imho! They had only 35% of possession, less shots on goal (9 v 12), only 3 corners v 19 and they were still the only team that looked like scoring - was a Muppetrinho-like tactical performance.

Whilst we have twice made up 8 point deficits to win the title in the last 4 years they were both recoveries against serial bottlers - this Chelsea side is made of sterner stuff.

And as Ed points out we have now shipped one more goal than Utd so our defence must be dire!

Oh well at least we join Saints in being safe from relegation for another year.

Scamp

Your corners were atrocious too. How many didn't beat first man or didn't make it to the middle of the box.

As a kid you were told to get the ball to be heading height inbetween 6yd box and penalty spot. Get it in there and let chaos happen. Not beating the first man regularly is just not good enough for any professional footballer.

It's a real bug-bear of mine at the moment because it's such a waste. Lucky we have James Ward-Beckham-Prowse to whip in any dead ball situation.

Garbatellamike

Yep you are right, I think it is now 88 corners since we scored from one and we have never looked like breaking that run - how much do you want for JWP?

Scamp

JWP seems smart enough to know that he isn't a nailed on starter for us yet, so definitely definitely definitely will just ruin his career by doing a Rodwell / Sidwell / Sinclair type move.

At least, I hope he is.

ededed

£150k a week. You have one job, and you can't even put a dead ball into a fairly large area on demand? I find it astonishing. I think we score from about 1 in 200 corners. The last one was in 1999 at the Nou Camp, and that was after about 9 jammy deflections. Awful.

I see United misplaced 160-odd passes against the Raisins. Funny, it seemed about twice that. How on earth can professional footballers not manage to pass to someone in their own team, 160 times in 90 minutes? They make them wear the same colour, to make it a little easier...

Garbatellamike

Did you not have Donkey Jones taking corners this week? What on earth was the logic behind that?

Scamp

It's unreal isn't it.

Get it in the mixer and anything can happen. Failing to beat the first man or to get it in or to smash it miles to far is just poor. Really sloppy and poor.

It's the same for wingers, Aaron Lennon springs to mind - skin a player, get down the wing and try to cross it, only to just completely fail...regularly.