Man City 3 - 1 Newcastle - 29/09/2007 - Post match reaction from page 19

[Guest bluegeordie]

Think we've just been out performed by a very good side today. We have played well in parts though and there is a lot of positives to take out of it. Just a few tweaks here and there (positioning at the back, killer ball to name 2) and we'll be a much, much better team. Also starting to get a few players back now aswell.

 

Think that's about right. We're improving, I think. Once we start with a settled back four, and get players back into their correct positions we'll hopefully start picking up points.

Why? We played alot worst last season. I think that we have always looked a threat today, we've looked capable of getting something from the game until the last minute. Fucking hell.

 

What the fuck do you expect from a team who has won every game at home? No wonder nee fucker is manager long enough to get us any silverware with cunts liek you.

 

Just in agreement with this. City have a 100% home record, we're always dodgy away, we looked dangerous from time to time but an outstanding performance from two of their big signings won them the game. We weren't brilliant but we have and will play worse - we just need to sort the midfield out, hopefully Barton and Emre being fit will be a start.

 

I would just like to say that I agree with the sentiments above. I've seen us play much worse, and against much worse opposition (Derby recently springs to mind and, of course, innumerable non-performances under Souness and Roeder). In fact, despite a disappointing (if not altogether surprising) result, I feel that there were some positives to take away from today's game. For instance, without being brilliant, I felt that we played okay for significant periods in both halves; Oba's goal was quality; and Smith had his best game for us so far (not, I admit, that this last point is saying much). Also, it would have been interesting to see what might have happened had Oba's blast wide in the second half gone in or, better still, if he'd done the sensible thing and squared the ball to Viduka for an easy tap-in, because at that point in the match I actually thought that we were holding our own.   

 

Basically though, as zillions of us have commented on in this and other threads, without Barton and (for most of this game) Zoggy and Emre in the midfield, we are seriously unbalanced in that vital department. As a consequence, imo we look worse at both ends of the pitch than we actually are (or at least have the potential to be). With this in mind (and repeating what I've said in another thread), I think / hope that we'll be a much better proposition when 1) Barton is available; 2) The Bull's fitness levels allow Zoggy to be moved up (full-time) from left back to left midfield; and 3) Milner is played on the right. I even think that a fully fit Emre could make a significant difference, and that he may well have done had he played against Derby, or for a longer stint today against Man City. Virtually no creativity or pace in midfield - apart from (when we play 4-4-2) an overly predictable, and often no-end-product, Milner - simply isn't going to take us where we want to go.

 

No matter who is available from our current squad, however, the signing of a Deco or a Riquelme in January would be a more than welcome addition, and indeed I would go further to describe it as an imperative. I believe that when we throw such a player into the mix, and providing Big Sam picks wisely from the current crop, then we'll see a massive improvement in our performances. Until January, I think that as supporters we should buckle ourselves in for something of a mixed ride (performance and results wise), but that we should definitely look to stay positive (but not uncritically so) in our support of both the manager and the players. In other words, we should certainly be looking for, and demanding, signs of improvement, but all the while we should recognise that change will not occur overnight and, indeed, we should never have thought it was likely to in the first place. 

   

[Mick]

 

I dont think we were awful, think thats maybe a bit harsh. We were second best on the day, that doesnt make us awful. Some of Man city's football was superb, not 'just good'. It was excellent football played by some excellent players. We had our moments in that game and i agree with the general sentiment that getting the ball on the deck and passing it about would be preferable. Its diappointing that we couldnt apply more pressure or convert the chances we had in the second half. Could have easily been 2-2 but then again, that may have just meant more papering over the cracks. 

 

One other thing about Sven, he didnt accept the Man city job and then think about which players he wanted. He has had all the players he signed on his radar for months beforehand.

 

You're right that we were not awful, at least not all of the time.  I thought we were good around the time when we scored because we were playing the ball around a bit but for too long we were just launching the ball forwards without thinking and that also happened for long periods of the first half.  Against West Ham we played the ball on the ground and were rewarded for that, we didn't do enough of that today.

 

Allardyce has had as much time as Sven has to find players, I don't know if an increased spending power changed his targets as he would have spent most of last season expecting to be buying for Bolton then everything will have changed.  I don't know if he's bought players that he was watching for Bolton or Newcastle but I doubt he have expected to spend as much at Bolton as he has here.  I guess we'll know more this time next year.

[James]

Were people expecting all the shit to be sorted out overnight?

 

I wasn't.

 

Progress is all I want from this season and there's lots to be made!! That's what we're getting at the moment, progress, we'll win some and we'll lose some this year, but we'll be in a much better position at the end of it than we were at the start. It'll take time, maybe two or three years, but eventually we'll be up there challenging for stuff. There's no quick fixes as far as I'm concerned.

 

I agree with the sentiment, but I'm sure many fans will be looking at Manchester City thinking that they've fixed things quickly, so why didn't we?

 

That is wrong of course, as they already had a solid spine to their team.

[Guest Knightrider]

Comparing City with us doesn't make too much sense. They had a settled back four and an exciting crop of youngsters on the fringes, they were already a tough team to beat. They were a settled team really where as we weren't. Sven came in and with a huge wad of money added some flair players and that seems to have worked.

 

Big Sam had to rebuild an entire defence and pad out the squad on a net spend of what, £10m was it? Sven got 40m or something net.

 

 

[Guest jamesmartinsmith]

It's amazing that Sven built a majority of that team in only a few weeks

 

Youtube City tbh

tbh? Why put that on the end of everything?

 

They have a better manager and midfield than us.

[Dokko]

Comparing City with us doesn't make too much sense. They had a settled back four and an exciting crop of youngsters on the fringes, they were already a tough team to beat. They were a settled team really where as we weren't. Sven came in and with a huge wad of money added some flair players and that seems to have worked.

 

Big Sam had to rebuild an entire defence and pad out the squad on a net spend of what, £10m was it? Sven got 40m or something net.

 

 

 

They had two decent defenders, thats all.

 

They were shite, and beatable by almost everyone last season, a nothing team, at least we had some key players.

[Baggio]

Comparing City with us doesn't make too much sense. They had a settled back four and an exciting crop of youngsters on the fringes, they were already a tough team to beat. They were a settled team really where as we weren't. Sven came in and with a huge wad of money added some flair players and that seems to have worked.

 

Big Sam had to rebuild an entire defence and pad out the squad on a net spend of what, £10m was it? Sven got 40m or something net.

 

 

 

They didn't have a settled back four at all, Dunn is the only player to keep the same position he played last season.

 

Add to that that Sven is a better manager and you're somewhere close to the truth.

[indi]

Were people expecting all the shit to be sorted out overnight?

 

I wasn't.

 

Progress is all I want from this season and there's lots to be made!! That's what we're getting at the moment, progress, we'll win some and we'll lose some this year, but we'll be in a much better position at the end of it than we were at the start. It'll take time, maybe two or three years, but eventually we'll be up there challenging for stuff. There's no quick fixes as far as I'm concerned.

 

I agree with the sentiment, but I'm sure many fans will be looking at Manchester City thinking that they've fixed things quickly, so why didn't we?

 

That is wrong of course, as they already had a solid spine to their team.

 

Also, we're only six games into the season, things will change, who knows where they'll be at the end, or us for that matter.

[Guest Knightrider]

Comparing City with us doesn't make too much sense. They had a settled back four and an exciting crop of youngsters on the fringes, they were already a tough team to beat. They were a settled team really where as we weren't. Sven came in and with a huge wad of money added some flair players and that seems to have worked.

 

Big Sam had to rebuild an entire defence and pad out the squad on a net spend of what, £10m was it? Sven got 40m or something net.

 

 

 

They didn't have a settled back four at all, Dunn is the only player to keep the same position he played last season.

 

Add to that that Sven is a better manager and you're somewhere close to the truth.

 

OK then they had a settled defence, in that they were defensively strong. Same thing. Sven being a better manager is down to opinion, not that it means anything anyway. Notice you fail to comment on the money spent.

[Guest SLK]

Comparing City with us doesn't make too much sense. They had a settled back four and an exciting crop of youngsters on the fringes, they were already a tough team to beat. They were a settled team really where as we weren't. Sven came in and with a huge wad of money added some flair players and that seems to have worked.

 

Big Sam had to rebuild an entire defence and pad out the squad on a net spend of what, £10m was it? Sven got 40m or something net.

 

 

They were the whipping boys of the league last season...

[Gallowgate Toon]

I'm not worried about City beating us at this time of the season but i think we are better than them so i am a little disappointed that we lost, we will have the last laugh at the end of the season, and i don't think that they are the team to challenge the top 4, i actually think that we have a better chance of breaking into the top 4. I doubt that city will be able to hold this run of form, and its highly probable that their season will fade out, Sven has been lucky that his team has hit the ground running, Big Sam hasn't been so fortunate. I think that we have a better team than City overall, the only player that they have that is better than ours is Elano. Petrov isn't really that good, he was lucky to be against Beye, a playing settling in to a new league etc. Also their strikers aren't as high class as ours. Mpenza is certainly not as good as Martins, Viduka is better than Bianchi and Owen is certainly better than samaras, in fact even Ameobi is better than Samaras. The defence is evenly matched but individually we have better defenders Cacapa being the perfect example. In midfield they lack alot of steel but they make up for it in sheer creativity, our team is currently very powerful but very uninspiring this is the difference between us and them atm. Sam will figure it out, when we get the midfield back then we'll see how good we really are, and how good sam is. Can't wait for them to come to SJP, get some revenge.

 

[Guest SLK]

Sven at least knows that Flair players are important and win you games as well as pacy players and playing the ball on the deck and passing it around...Sam lacks on these points...

[Baggio]

Comparing City with us doesn't make too much sense. They had a settled back four and an exciting crop of youngsters on the fringes, they were already a tough team to beat. They were a settled team really where as we weren't. Sven came in and with a huge wad of money added some flair players and that seems to have worked.

 

Big Sam had to rebuild an entire defence and pad out the squad on a net spend of what, £10m was it? Sven got 40m or something net.

 

 

 

They didn't have a settled back four at all, Dunn is the only player to keep the same position he played last season.

 

Add to that that Sven is a better manager and you're somewhere close to the truth.

 

OK then they had a settled defence, in that they were defensively strong. Same thing. Sven being a better manager is down to opinion, not that it means anything anyway. Notice you fail to comment on the money spent.

 

The money spent was important but the quality in squads before each manager took charge was huge, Man City were a Championship squad with Richards, Barton, Dunn and Distin the only stand out players last year.

[Guest Pie]

First goal was a resultof breaking play up and having fuck all on the break. Milner had no pace, he laid the ball off cos he's shite and had no idea what to do with it. We ended up under pressire. Goal. Cheers Spotty. Hard worker but you are meant to attack.

[Taylor Swift]

Just got back from the game. Thought the ref was wank, always giving little niggly fouls which stopped the flow of the game. Elano was immense. Always the first to the ball and his vision is something else. Petrov also had a very very good game, totally raped us down the left-wing. For our team, Martins was always lurking and finished his chance really well. Other than that, Enrique came on and did alright. We just lost to the better team today.

 

However, saying that, Allardyce's tactics today were wank. Fucking hell man, starts with a 4-3-3 again although it must be said that Smith had a decent game, showed more for the ball and generally was looking to get involved in our attacking play, which was a nice surprise there. Anyhow, we started with a 4-3-3 and was blatantly dominated. Our goal came from nowhere and Citeh were looking dangerous whenever they attacked. Cue half-time with us undeservedly level. Then, the logical thing to do would be to change it up a bit, get some width in since our attacks only consisted of long punts up - which lead to them getting the second ball and launching a counter-attack on one of our wings. But no, Allardyce stuck with this ineffective formation, which became even shittier when they scored straight after the beginning of the second half, effectively making his half-time teamtalk redundant. For 20 mins after that, we couldn't keep the ball, couldn't string together more than a few passes and all our 'chances' were created by lucky bounces off of their defenders. Change was needed but still no, Allardyce stuck to the 4-3-3. Then FINALLY he makes a change with something like 10 minutes left, and then makes another change, but who the fuck comes on? That's right, Abdoulaye fucking Faye comes on for Steven Taylor. Way to go Big Sam. Way to go on the offensive when there's fuck all time left. It's mightily frustrating because 3000 fans in the away end knew that an offensive substitution was needed but the only person who didn't was BS himself. Btw, straight after Emre came on, him, Zoggy and Enrique strung together a few passes and won us a corner. And that was only in a minute or two of playing together.

 

In the end though, it's only one game. Just wish we put up more of a fight in the second half than just succumbing to the loss.

[Guest Stephen927]

Bit disappointed with the result but I'm still confident that Sam is the right man.

 

We're screaming out for Barton, our midfield 3 never really took the game by the scruff of the neck. Smith had a few early forward runs which I thought would have continued throughout the match but we never really saw that.

 

Our goal was quality. Martins can be infuriating to watch sometimes, when you see him come out with fantastic bits of skill like that, only to see him the next week fail to play a simple pass, or sky his shot.

 

We have the base for a good team, it's going to take a while to turn this team into a team challenging for the European places.

[Superior Acuña]

Does anybody know what Smith's shrug of the shoulders thing was about while he was clapping us at the end.

 

I expected to lose today, but was extra frustrated, because at 2-1 i thought they were there for the taking.  If we'd pressured more.

 

Big sam haters shut up.  Honestly, what were yous like the first 2 years of bobby?  It's why people think we're a joke

[tmonkey]

Given - 6 - OK performance.

Beye - 3 - Honeymoon over, he was slaughtered by Petrov. Played the game like he was on his last legs and kept getting caught out of position.

Rozehnal - 6 - Solid performance spoilt by the second goal.

Taylor - 6 - Decent, but a few mistakes that he should be cutting out.

N'Zogbia - 5 - Struggled to do much going forward, positionall poor defensively.

Geremi - 6 - Decent performance, but he seems to be playing within himself. Spread the play decently enough.

Butt - 4 - Needs to be dropped. Very poor footballer when hes not playing well, which seems to be every away game.

Smith - 7 - Good linkup play, some smart passing, solid all round performance.

Martins - 7 - Good goal, good performance overall, but still some elements of having no intelligence once on the ball.

Viduka - 6 - Hard for him to play well with defenders climbing all over him.

Milner - 4 - In poor form and struggling to adapt to a different role. Being read like a book by defenders, and his crosses are proving absolutely useless. Most likely needs a rest, followed by having to fight for his place in the team.

[madras]

so bye bye 4-3-3.

 

i'm not joining any allardyce out movement but i blame him directly for the defeats at citeh and derby.

[Dokko]

so bye bye 4-3-3.

 

i'm not joining any allardyce out movement but i blame him directly for the defeats at citeh and derby.

 

I think thats about fair enough.

 

But if he doesn't drop the 433, i'd like to see him gone before the start of the next season.

[TRon]

We didn't play too badly in the first half, but City's pace and quick passing made us look like dinosaurs by the end. Sven won every battle with Allardyce today. Better, cuter football, and players used far more effectively in their positions. Milner was too slow, and N'Zogbia was played at LB which robbed us of the width needed to get much from Viduka.

 

A triumph for Sven in an important battle. Another game for us where we got passed to death which isn't encouraging. Winning ugly is ok by me but losing ugly and watching other teams dance waltzes round us like Arsenal and City sricks in the craw.

 

 

 

[Wullie]

We weren't all that bad today, fantastic goal from Oba but again while we can look comfortable as can be when the scores are level, as soon as we score, we capitulate. Happened twice at Boro, happened last week and again today. Taylor's defending for both goals was absolutely horrendous and I'd be starting Faye ahead of him if Cacapa is not back next week.

 

Allardyce seriously needs to stop fucking about with Enrique. Play him and get Smith out. Milner's not having a good season as yet but the midfield is totally unbalanced. Let's get him on the right with a natural left winger opposite him.

 

Oh, and Emre not introduced until we're 3-1 down with two minutes to go is rank bad management.

[NSG]

We weren't all that bad today, fantastic goal from Oba but again while we can look comfortable as can be when the scores are level, as soon as we score, we capitulate. Happened twice at Boro, happened last week and again today.  Taylor's defending for both goals was absolutely horrendous and I'd be starting Faye ahead of him if Cacapa is not back next week.

 

Allardyce seriously needs to stop fucking about with Enrique. Play him and get Smith out. Milner's not having a good season as yet but the midfield is totally unbalanced. Let's get him on the right with a natural left winger opposite him.

 

Oh, and Emre not introduced until we're 3-1 down with two minutes to go is rank bad management.

 

N.O.H.

[Guest Synthespian]

We didn't play too badly in the first half, but City's pace and quick passing made us look like dinosaurs by the end

That's the key.

THey played outstandingly well.  They had real confidence in their play.

Some of the knocks about the park they made ... especially the way they set up the Elani chance that Shay saved well near the start ... showed such class.

 

We can't grumble.

We've been beaten by a better side.

We can also talk about our team getting to know each other better, but Man City had the same scenario, and only a little bit longer.

 

thought Smith looked totally off the boil in midfield today.

[johnnypd]

tbf to allardyce he did have emre waiting to come on before Elano took the freekick. that's still far too late tho.