Manchester City v Aston Villa Weds 3rd April | Page 22 | Vital Football

Manchester City v Aston Villa Weds 3rd April

LewChatterley'sLover said:
We were missing Martinez, Cash, kamara, Mcginn, Ramsey Watkins. Away at arguably the best team in the world. We should have been level at half time and stay 4th. Unai losing it? He is still working wonders.
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"missing Martinez, Cash, kamara, Mcginn, Ramsey Watkins"
and rested Pau [it looks as if his fitness is being 'managed'] & Bailey
Only Konsa, Luiz & Digne? were first choice players
 
Just got back. Not sure 4-1 was a true reflection and despite never really getting a foothold in the game , the free kick on the stroke of half time was a real blow . I felt we were still well in it at 2-1 though and Doug should really have equalised . Three of their goals were from out side the area and all preventable , the wall was pathetic.

Good experience gained for Tim . Rogers and Duran and they did ok I thought.

For those moaning about the line up , I don't think we would get away with playing the same players for 7 games in April , especially with the games they've already played and even with a few changes it showed that we can still be competitive .
 
Gillette said:
I'm predicting Douggie to get booked next game and suspended. We aren't allowed to have more than one of our first choice midfielders.
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Thing is, he is good at getting booked, but those damned idiots who dish out the cards to get a moment of glory on world TV don't help. Used to be a good ref was one who wasn't mentioned during or after the game. These days ... attention seeking ***k***
 
I get why he played the team he did. 8 players out through injury, illness and suspension. The only ones that were rotated out were Pau, Teilemans and Bailey 2 of whom have had injury breaks recently and the other is prone to knocks and rarely completes 90 minutes.

We were never going to be able to play the same 11 over this intense period of the season game after game. We play Saturday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday now. All huge games.

We move on to the weekend now. Massive game. Praying to every Godlike entity that we have a few players back from injury.
 
There was a what's app outage yesterday evening during the match.

My sincere condolences to certain persons of this parish who due to said outage missed out on receiving their usual very insightful and interesting match analysis.
 
When you look at Man City's bench almost ALL of their bench would walk in to the Villa team which is why they are going for a "Double Treble" I am always disappointed to hear Villa supporters booing Joe Grealish, did they forget when he carried our club on his back and sometimes on his own?

It was inevitable he would leave Villa and we did get 100 mil quid for him.... give him a break and remember "Our Jack"
 
Ultimately we cannot go into every game full strength and Emery is trying to manage fatigue levels in the squad. The cup exploits in particular are stretching us big time.

I can’t really complain about this because the alternative is severe burnout. He choose a game which we were unlikely to get something out of to do this, it makes sense.

Very nice to see Duran on the score sheet as well.
 
Pangloss said:
Ultimately we cannot go into every game full strength and Emery is trying to manage fatigue levels in the squad. The cup exploits in particular are stretching us big time.

I can’t really complain about this because the alternative is severe burnout. He choose a game which we were unlikely to get something out of to do this, it makes sense.

Very nice to see Duran on the score sheet as well.
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Yup. Unai being the master that he is chose the right game.

Lovely goal as well , great football and arguably the best goal of the evening.
 
Certainly can’t blame Olsen or anyone else for that matter. Played well on the break just couldn’t do it often enough. There was certainly a point in the game when all that mattered was Brentford Saturday.
 
The important thing is three points this coming Saturday. Spurs have on paper a very winnable home game on Sunday, so we need to keep ahead with our extra game played.

We could’ve had the luxury of playing a full strength side, and still lost 2-1 but risked picking up more injuries and fatigue.

We’ve just had three games in 7 days, with two games per week for the next two weeks on top of that.

It was a free hit, fair play to the fans who travelled as it’s a lot of money and time to roll over, but given the context it is what it is.
 
I remember MON playing the same side virtually week in week out across most competitions with very little rotation and we would always be dead by April.

Now you also have to factor in the injury crisis we've had for most of the season. We have not once been 'full strength'. The manager has an outrageously difficult job at the moment. He's having to rotate with an injury hit squad, with fitness levels declining due to all the fixtures with players who do not really have experience of competing at this end of the table.

Emery is doing brilliantly.
 
A long day yesterday and ultimately disappointing but thought we competed really well given the starting line up for the opening 60 minutes. Lovely goal from Duran…the more I see of him the more I think he can go on to be a top player. The school boy error from Zaniolo was a choker at the end of the half though. A pity because he’d continued his recent improvement but that was unforgivable and I’m sure he received the wrath of Unai at the break! Still came out brightly in the second half and if Doug puts his chance away who knows. Team selection…haven’t read through the whole thread but I’m sure it’s led to plenty of debate, win Saturday and nobody will mention it. Can understand why he did it looking at the upcoming fixtures. Trust Unai to get big calls right rather than O’Neill that’s for sure! Massive week next week and let’s hope some of these niggling injuries start to ease. So much to play for though…loving every minute of it and for 60 minutes at least last night that was no different despite Unai’s team selection. Quick shout out for Robin Olsen, got masses of stick in the past and easy to gloss over him given the result etc but did well last night I thought. No chance with the goals. Fair play to the lad.
 
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