Match Report and MOM v Citeh...

Neil Dawson said:
I didn’t say we didn’t play well. I said the opposite if you read the first sentence it’s quite clear. I think it brings in weaker players at the expense of stronger ones. I’d love to see our stats for five at the back in modern times but we normally seem to concede more and score less. You can argue that we use it against the top teams but the counter to that is if it gets us no points what do we have to lose by playing the back four Eddie normally favours? Goal difference I suppose but we often ship three, four of five playing it.

Wilson should have started today. He didn’t to fit Mepham in. I don’t think that was right. We did play well though, but that side of our defence was badly exposed while we looked generally defensively sound elsewhere.
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I'm sure we've been opened up by city in all formations tbh. I can see what you're getting at but it's surely inevitable that we are going to have to sacrifice some attacking intent against City.

I didn't think think our shape looked as solid when Wilson came on personally.
 
Couldn't make it today, so watched on the box instead. Aside from Mepham being out of position for the first goal, I thought he had a great game. Him and Billing just shaded it for me. The latter looks like an excellent signing; really looking forward to him disrupting play throughout the season.

Promising performances throughout.
 
I still think we could have pushed Nathan just in front of a back four....to make it 451 instead of 541....Silva was sat in that hole lots of times...if Ake had been patrolling that space too....could have stopped more of their little edge of box moves.

Going back to Fraser....I agree....he's not the same player as last season at the minute. Looks to be very quiet, he's certainly not storming up the pitch like he used to.
 
stuseddon said:
Couldn't make it today, so watched on the box instead. Aside from Mepham being out of position for the first goal, I thought he had a great game. Him and Billing just shaded it for me. The latter looks like an excellent signing; really looking forward to him disrupting play throughout the season.

Promising performances throughout.
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Glad I am not the only one rating Mepham highly today. Three at the back with Smithy trying to push on, will always leave that right sided centre back exposed. It did happen a couple of times in the first half but I thought he was very composed when he was on the ball.
 
We had some decent attacks but Otamendi and Laporte are high class and kept control in the middle. Otamendi again a standout performance ... is he the best CB in world football?

Lerma our MoM surely. Occupies space well in CM, holds the ball and recycles. And the man’s got balls. Keep this up and he could be a target for others in January.
 
The big positive....was the 150% effort and commitment for 90 minutes..led mainly by Lerma..and Ake was superb! Cooky ran himself into the turf.. and no one let us down!

I used a different pub....with a better bigger screen this time....
I was so animated.... the bar staff were creased up laughing at my outbursts...and there were some great comments about some of our play....

We certainly wont be bottom half ..that much can be assumed if the overall performance is an indicator!
 
I thought Smith was a lot better than you gave him credit for Neil. He had Sterling tied up for much of the game, only being bested on one occasion. In terms of his not scoring that chance, it was on target and was only diverted over the top by Ederson’s face.

The television commentary was awful and biased, not surprising with Andy Hinchcliffe doing.

They made such a fuss about the possible penalty but not much at all about the fact that Walker should have been in the bath after 10 minutes.
 
I think you can find fault in city’s third goal.

We had a defensive throw form a throw in deep into our half.

We set up positionally as this being an attacking play.

Thrower chucked it to Wilson who didn’t challenge for the ball, city take possession and score.

These are pivotal moments in a game and we threw the game away from that point.

At 2-1 it’s anyones, 3-1 it’s theirs.

Disappointed.
 
dragonm8 said:
I think you can find fault in city’s third goal.

We had a defensive throw form a throw in deep into our half.

We set up positionally as this being an attacking play.

Thrower chucked it to Wilson who didn’t challenge for the ball, city take possession and score.

These are pivotal moments in a game and we threw the game away from that point.

At 2-1 it’s anyones, 3-1 it’s theirs.

Disappointed.
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Bang on this is. Eddie will be fuming about that goal. We gifted them possession deep in our own half and totally unnecessarily. The ensuing goal meant that we'd struggle to draw the match. At 2-1, if we could have got the next goal, I would have fancied us to go on, with the crowd behind us, to win the game.
By our standards it was a good defensive display overall but gifting City a goal through utter carelessness should not be excused.
 
For the third goal, Aguero put Mepham, Cook and Aké on the floor. Now obviously he’s a great player but that simply can’t happen. All 3 have to share the blame as well as losing the ball from the initial throw in.

Smith and Aké were caught out on the other goals too. It sounds like I’m being harsh because overall we defended well. It’s still poor defending at key moments though. Perhaps we can tolerate those mistakes given the intensity and concentration you need to play City, but I really hope we can improve on the 70 goals conceded last year.
 
red_house said:
You post some odd stuff. Billing had a great game and was solid.
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I suppose it would make more sense to say for such a great player (which I said when he signed) I thought he didn’t contribute as much as I thought he could. Going down for treatment for such a long time when it seemed nothing more than a finger in his face seemed disappointing to me. He looked like he wanted to come off....
Maybe just tired and Eddie didn’t see it.
Still a great player who improves us overall
 
SlowDownDerek said:
I'm sure we've been opened up by city in all formations tbh. I can see what you're getting at but it's surely inevitable that we are going to have to sacrifice some attacking intent against City.

I didn't think think our shape looked as solid when Wilson came on personally.
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Are you saying you wouldn’t have started Wilson either?
 
rickie said:
and when we get used to hitting Billing on the head from corners so much the better.
UTCIAD
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For that to happen the corner would have to get past the first defender for a change. Do we not practise corners ? Time and again we fail to get the ball beyond the first defender. With the big lads we've got in the squad now, corners whipped in with pace could be a massive weapon in our arsenal, they could bring us a handful of extra points every season. It seems to me our corner taking has been woeful for ages now. Surely we can do better ? I don't mind if we try the odd short routine to create a goal scoring opportunity but when we decide to put the ball straight into the box, I'd like one of our players to be first to it occasionally !
:rant:
 
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