Skoorb on the Spot - Watford 1 City 2

Skoorb

Skoorb

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Eight minutes from what could have been a fatal blow to City's title hopes and two of the club's 'go to' players from the last few years, Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero, come up with the goods to make it an excellent start to 2016.

City's players clearly struggled to come to terms with what is clearly not one of the best surfaces they will play on this season. Greased by an incessant rain the bobbly pitch did nothing to aid City's usually slick passing and the teams left the pitch at half time this clearly showed in City's pass completion rate of only 78%. Watford were good value for their clean sheet and it took a decent save from Hart to keep out Ighalo after he turned Otamendi on the edge of the box before firing off a low shot. Otamendi's head was spinning, City fans hearts were in their mouths. Passes were going astray with uncharacteristic regularity and the game was by-passing Sterling and Toure as Watford showed they did not start the game on the fringes of the European places by luck alone.

Watford are no mugs and they pushed City all the way - in some cases literally as replays clearly showed their star turn, Ighalo, giving Managla a hefty nudge leading him to concede the corner from which Watford took a not undeserved lead. Ben Watson came back to haunt City as his superbly delivered corner seemed to take Kolarov by surprise and he proceeded to flick the ball past Hart into the City net.

City are made of stern stuff though and Pellegrini made a telling substitution replacing Mangala with Bony and instructing the ever active and capable Fernandinho to assist Otamandi as City pressed to regain a foothold. And they duly delivered - a corner from Silva found Toure ghosting in at the apex of the six yard box to make perfect contact and send the ball beyond Gomes in the Watford net. Game on.

This seemed to take some of the belief out of Watford's play and coupled with tiredness they eventually lost track of the inimitable Sergio Aguero as he stole in between much taller opponents to meet an excellent delivery from Sagna. He met the cross with the sort of poise and quality we all know and admire to steer a delightful header into the corner of the net.

Demichelis came on to shore up things at the back as City needed to keep their nerve and required intervention from Kolarov to deny an opportunity to Ighalo as the clock ticked down.

City head off to their Capital One Cup semi final first leg against Everton feeling much more buoyant than they might have done. Quality came to the fore again and City kept their nerve to deliver a morale boosting victory much to the chagrin of many a pundit whose mantra's about City being unable to score away from home or win away have been challenged.

Man of the Match for me - Fernandinho who once again seemed to be everywhere, was unlucky to be denied a penalty (sorry Alan Smith of ex-Arsenal fame, if he get's pulled over and obstructed in the box it really is enough for it to be a penalty), made his usual telling interventions all over the park.
 
Just in from work and now fully up to date thanks to Skoorb's excellent write up! Going into the Everton Trilogy this is a massive win. January is seismic for our aspirations this season. There's this anxiety knocking about that these brilliant players we have should be dominating domestic football honours and if they fail to do so for a second season, then a wonderful opportunity will have passed us by.

In which respect I think it reassuring that two of our new era stalwarts delivered today. That's the away albatross and a bunch of increasingly eager hacks off our backs!


 
We begged Pellegrini last season to play 5 across the middle, this season to me sending on two strikers for defences to look after caused Watford problems, but in the end it was two great goals that won it, Do I feel sorry for Watford. Naaaa!!!

teams should not think they have won it against city, because it is not over until the weight challenged Lady gets up to sing.


great on the spot report Skoorb.
 
Just watched the full replay and have to say we did deserve to win in the end. The tactic of swarming Merlin worked well for Watford until they started to weaken in the second half. All in all I am very happy with the result.
 
Very, very pleased for Aguero getting that crucial goal. Will do him the world of good to be back on target. He looked much fitter and on his natural game today.

The speed of our late break, quality of the cross and finish were great to watch - we got the defenders turned around and the result---a goal :yup:
 
Looking forward to watching the last twenty minutes of this on my recording. Glad to see someone else thinks it was a foul on Mangala, nice one Skoorb, did they show a replay of that foul in the end?

 
The replay was shown during the game. Just watching the motd version - the shove goes unheeded by bbc's Jonathan Peacre who simply stated that "very powerful, Odion Ighalo"....

Had that shove been the other way around I am sure he would have been calling for a penalty, similarly if it is outside the box it is a foul - it was in the back and not shoulder to shoulder.
 
Oh, although this won't be a surprise, Alan Shearer is a knob.

He commented after the game at the fact that "(City) still haven't addressed the issue of playing without Vincent Kompany despite millions and millions being spent" as once again scant, or no regard is paid the disruption that the defence has suffered this season with Kompany in/out, Otamendi's first season in the league, Zabaleta's absence and Clichy's unavailability. The defence has not been settled, it has not had the solidity that comes with constantly playing with (especially) the same centre back pairing and the intuitive understanding that stability of selection usually brings.

And not to mention the logical fallacy of commenting in the same breath at how critical Kompany's world class defending is and then complaining how City haven't magically found (outside the transfer window mind you) someone of equal quality and leadership ability. Twat.

There were mistakes yesterday, several of them, but I get cheesed off big time with the omission to mention other factors affecting the defense's peformance.

His comments might have more weight if he were a defender himself.
 
I think it was significant that he took off a defender for Bony. The stick that Mangala got for running the ball out for a corner was unfair (even though it was a foul a shove in the back) (see later on around the 90 min mark when a slight touch saw a Watford defender fall flat on his face and get a free) because it was not his fault that the goal was scored.

 
Quite so Buzz. I also noted significantly how the commentator chose to ignore a superb reading of the game, anticipation and interception of a pass inside the Watford half Mangala made not long before he was replaced. Neither the commentator nor Alan Smith bothered to mention something which clearly didn't fit the narrative. :no:

If there is fault for the goal it is because once again a defender is paying too much attention to getting hands on to the player he is marking and not concentrating on dealing with the bright orange round thing hurtling towards him. If Kolarov had concerned himself more with defending the ball and less on what Deeney was doing he might have been able to head the ball away. Decent idea when you are defending.
 
I think their goal was the kick up the backside, but the move of bringing on Bony and in doing so released Aguero into space, but as soon as we took the lead he plugged the hole again. brilliant from the Engineer
 
Yes, as has been said elsewhere, it was a gutsy move, decisive and showed a tactical flexibility which paid dividends as you point out.

The move of Fernandinho back into partner Otamendi temporarily proved valuable as it he was his measured heading of the ball into space for Sagna that set up the move for the winning goal. He was composed enough to not just head it anywhere.
 
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