Everton 2 - Manchester City 1 Johnny On The Spot & Stats Link

Johnny Baguette

Johnny Baguette

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Johnny On The Spot:

#ABJECT. Soft touch Manchester City was the order of the evening on Merseyside tonight, make no mistake. Beanies off to Everton who started the game looking like rabbits frozen in the headlights but began to realise that Manuel Pellegrini's men didn't really fancy this assignment and took the game to City's seasoned internationals with aplomb. From the moment the canny Barkley stayed down with a minor knock on 14 minutes, The Blues took their collective foot off the gas, the game slowed and the suddenly eager Toffees played their way right back into it, quickening the pace all the time...Admittedly another erratic showing from rubbish referee Robert Madley didn't help City's flagging cause but there can be no excuses for this lacklustre, tepid effort...From a City perspective there were some bizarre instances but also matters of urgency that need addressing in a bid to reinforce what should be massive shouts for silverware considering the tools at The Engineer's disposal. We'll start with our gargantuan achilles heel, the defence. For the life of me, it is utter high risk foolishness to persist with Caballero's glaring indecision, especially behind the shambolic Otamendi-Mangala-Demichelis axis of clowns. We look like conceding every single time ANY side pour forward and I'm not sure I fancy us against anyone right now especially when the likes of Otamendi, rather than clear the ball from just outside the penalty area with 2 minutes of the first half to go opts to dive to win a free kick, fails and two gifted corners result in us conceding. It was a suicidal act and all the more strange that it was Mangala (surely injured?) who didn't emerge for the second period. The weirdness didn't finish there. The fight til the end at Watford looks like a crack papering exercise on evidence that suggested a collective inability to know what to do when in the ascendancy. Having conceded in the by now usual manner, City's response to going behind for a second time was to subsequently ball watch against a substitutes expired ten men. Utterly unacceptable. To send on Fernando for De Bruyne in the closing minutes added insult to injury for City's brilliant travelling support who deserved far better from their team than they got tonight...The upshot has to be that with 25 days left in January and the club in financial clover, The Blues need to declare a state of emergency at the back and take action. Either bring someone in, no matter what it costs or recall Denayer. We need to freshen things up. I would also suggest a move for a striker to take the weight off the brilliant Aguero. Panic? Nope, realisticly playing to our strengths. The squad have worked hard to overcome a dreadful injury list and are in danger of throwing all that effort away unless from touchline to pitch everyone involved rediscovers a ruthless edge.

Stats Courtesy BBC Sport: http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/stats.asp?a=560780#ixzz3wVSvb0Zt
 
Only saw a brief reply of Navas going down in the box. Was it a penalty?

We looked shite across the park and even worse in our own half. Don't want to come up against a passionate lpool side in the final . They would eat us.
 
Gareth Barry would have had a quite smile to himself after a satisfying win for his team. At 34 he is still doing a good job in front of the back four. Playing Yaya behind Kun does not work because then Merlin has to go wide and from there he is less effective and Yaya is not sure what his role is. For a change we started well, but then allowed Everton to take control. I am with JB on bringing in fresh talent and using our buying power, otherwise we will win nowt this season. As for bringing on Fernando instead of Itchy I can't understand it when the game before we went 3 at the back and 2 up top. The only good thing is that no points were lost and we can still do them at home, but you would not bet much money on it based on last nights efforts.
 
This is the BBC report, I think it is fair and balanced and they do give Yaya a much deserved serve.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/35155377
 
One of the lads there last night told me again of a disturbing reoccurring trend that City players do not come over to thank the travelling fans at the final whistle.
 
Disappointing in the extreme if that is the case.

Caballero always has a mistake in his locker, it's just a question of when he chooses to deploy it. He nearly did it earlier when he had a customary flap at a cross/shot. He is a liability for sure especially behind the keystone kops that we currently have in front of the keeper. Demichelis is no mug, has bags of experience and may have lost pace but should be able to read the game better. Otamendi has developed a disturbing urge to try and gain cheap free kicks when surely he'd be better off just playing football. Mangala needs control and guidance but doesn't seem to be getting it from anyone. No one is getting a grip back there and there is a lack of natural leadership. Sagna is the only one playing with any level of consistency this season.

Something disjointed about our collective performances with misplaced passes last night nothing to do with the surface. I fear that if they keep this up and Aguero has to continually fight for scraps he may decide he's had enough.
 
Pellegrini got it wrong for me. When are we going to learn that Yaya cannot play that role behind the striker? He is useless with his back to goal, he should be the anchor when we're in the final third not the instigator, that's Silva's role.

When Delph came off we started to look more of a threat as Yaya dropped deeper and the final third wasn't as congested, see DeBruyne's effort ( great save that ) and the penalty incident for evidence of this ( how the officials missed that is baffling ).

Delighted for Navas finally scoring but I have to question where he was when Barry put that, let's be fair here, absolutely sublime cross in ( I'll have to watch a replay to see what caused him to be out of position ). Yes Willy could've come out to claim it, no guarantees he'd have got there or got enough purchase though and Demi isn't blameless either, I think with a bit more effort he could've gotten his head on that.

Only half time though, still all to play for.

 
Pretty poor all round really. I watched it today lunch time and it is 40c here with around 98% humidity. I am sure it must have been affecting the team as well as me.
Passing back, passing to opposition, dear oh dear! Is Demi the only choice to substitute Mangala and was Mangala injured? Fernando coming on! What was that all about? Delph? for goodness sake! Yaya was sat on his arse quite a few times primarily I thought because he was trying to make runs and open them up but had not very much options to pass to anyone so was caught with tackles. I do not usually have a go at referees but this bloke allowed Everton to push our men in the back so many times I was beginning to think a new set of rules had come in!
Barry must have had a good laugh watching our defenders apart from Sagna.
 
Watched the replay of their winner there, confirmed my suspicion, Navas completely out of position for no good reason, he's equally as culpable as Caballero or Demi for the concession of that goal.
 
Apparently Mangala was withdrawn having suffered a hamstring injury.

It was a poor goal to concede, but had that been a goal by City it was a good cross, just where you would want it.

I have no idea why the penalty was not given, because if he thought it was a dive then he should have booked Navas, if he thought it was a fair tackle, he should go back to school.
 
I think the Fernando thing Ozi, was because Delph is an attacking midfielder and Pellers did not want us to concede another looking for an equaliser, so he decided that a one goal advantage could be dealt with in the second leg and the away goal is valuable.
 
It was a sublime cross Buzz but from our pov there was no one within 15 yards of him when he got the ball, very poor.
 
It was badly defended and you would expect more from a City side, you are spot on about Navas because he should have closed him down in the first place and the cross would never have got there.
 
I didn't think we were that awful - a bit patchy maybe. Thought Cabalero made some decent saves and Otamendi made a great tackle in the first half. 1-2 is not a disaster, surely we are capable of beating Everton 1-0 at home?

 
Buzz Lightyear - 7/1/2016 11:33

I think the Fernando thing Ozi, was because Delph is an attacking midfielder and Pellers did not want us to concede another looking for an equaliser, so he decided that a one goal advantage could be dealt with in the second leg and the away goal is valuable.
Click to expand...

Delph went off on 54 mins for Navas. It was Kev that went off for Fernando
 
If Barry and Besic ran the show that doesn't say much about the effectiveness of our midfielders.
 
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