Manchester City v Aston Villa, Sunday 22nd May | Page 34 | Vital Football

Manchester City v Aston Villa, Sunday 22nd May

Wicked Messenger said:
Totally correct. Digne is a class player even in that company yesterday. Same with Coutinho. Both Gerrard buys. Problem yesterday is that City can bring on fresh legs in Sterling, Gundogan etc when our legs were going. We brought on Young, Ings and Naka, a bit of a difference. Coutinho and Buendia were all over the pitch and showed they could play together. I’ve no doubt that Gerrard will be the overriding voice on recruitment and so he should be. Good times ahead.
Click to expand...

And five subs next season! This shows the benefit of that rule change to bigger squads of quality players.
 
Ok, so City were dominant for most of the game, had possession and pinned us down for long periods but the fact remains we collapsed at the back the moment they scored their first goal. 3 goals in 5 minutes tells us why we finished lower half of the table, our defence needs sorting out and quickly. I fully expect SG to remedy this weakness in the summer. Despite the good things he does, Mings is a liability. He can be immense one minute like the excellent block to stop Burnley scoring a winner but he is also a disaster like the bad touch that led to City's 3rd goal, not clearing the ball properly and gifting the ball to De Bruyne who skipped in to the box and was able to get a pass through to Gundagan at the back stick. If someone like Newcastle want him for £30m then, as long as we have someone already in, offload him. West Ham touted to be keen on Watkins for £50m? Get a top striker in to replace him and then wave him off. I like Watkins, he's been decent for us he's lightning quick but he also misses a great many chances that a top quality striker wouldn't. We aren't a million miles way from making a serious charge for Europe but we need to fix the issues we fall short. I reckon 4 or 5 players of real quality will propel us to European qualification, and 2 have already signed for us.
 
DeanoVilla said:
Well man city only lost 3 games all season so its not a great one yo be judges on I don't think.
Click to expand...

No, and nobody expected us to win yesterday but when the chance arose, a more tactically astute manager would have been able to grab the chance.

Nobody is upset that we lost to Citeh but there is a lot of frustration that we got so close and blew it.

I'd liked Gerrard to be that all-that-in-a-paper-hat manager who propells us up the league and onwards to glory but I'm just not seeing it.
 
I’m disappointed that on MOTD we didn’t even warrant a mention on how we frustrated them for 70+ minutes. Nothing but how some of our players didn’t track back or get in the correct positions to stop us scoring.
Would have been nice to get a positive mention.

Mate of mine went yesterday - said they were quiet until they went level.
And on the tram on the way back, there were loads of Citeh fans on there from the match who hadn’t stayed for the presentation. “We’ve won it enough so we don’t need to see it again”

Unreal.
 
MollyCruyff said:
I’m disappointed that on MOTD we didn’t even warrant a mention on how we frustrated them for 70+ minutes. Nothing but how some of our players didn’t track back or get in the correct positions to stop us scoring.
Would have been nice to get a positive mention.

Mate of mine went yesterday - said they were quiet until they went level.
And on the tram on the way back, there were loads of Citeh fans on there from the match who hadn’t stayed for the presentation. “We’ve won it enough so we don’t need to see it again”

Unreal.
Click to expand...

And we scored the best 2 goals of the game.
 
Leftsideoftheholte said:
Very frustrating to be 2 nil up with 15 minutes to go and lose the game. Villa exceeded my expectations up until that time.
The players put everything into the game and ran out of steam understandably. Game management from SG and the coaches with all their experience was lacking.
The thing that concerns me is the messLeftage that our former player conveys from the bench at city. He's gone there, not settled, played only 15 games in full and comes away with a medal. Players in our team or similar who are high profile will look at that and think why should they hang around mid-table teams for no end product, when like JG they can move to a sky 6 club, play sparingly and contribute very little and still pick up silverware. Instant success like this, however undeserved, makes it very difficult to hold onto good young players.
Click to expand...
Left-sided....you are so right! And this is one of the reasons that we need to get a move on in our quest for a European place next season. The appointment of SG has accelerated this, fortunately. His stature in the game should enable us to move away from 'yearly slow improvements' under Deano and be a reason why players would stay with us in this journey.
Whether SG will prove to be a good manager only time will tell but without a doubt we will see better players with more nous than we currently have. UTV
 
I reckon Martinez would have plucked the cross for the first goal or at least punched it away instead of watching it sail across the goal. Plucked it and lay on the ground for a good few seconds....
Thought the timing of the Nakamba substitution was wrong, if gerrard was saying we went into protection mode too soon, then that's "on him" as he keeps saying. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but making that sub after they scored their first to break up their momentum would have been the smarter move. After only giving Buendia 15mins here and there for weeks you could see he was boll*xed and got danced around.
I like ollie and want him to stay, but I think we could get a better more clinical finisher and use Ollie's workrate and pressing against a tiring defence, it would suit better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.