Buzz Lightyear
Alert Team
Out with the old and in with the new was the message to Manchester City as 2015 drew to a disappointing close and 2016 opened up to an air of renewed optimism. But not without leaving the nails of the Etihad faithful chewed down to the quicks.
When the fixtures were shown in June we would have openly rubbed our hands at the prospect of facing perennial strugglers Sunderland, a Leicester team that somehow managed to survive last season when looking doomed as Festive bottom feeders and newly-promoted Watford who would surely by Christmas be suffering from injuries and suspensions allied to a shortage of squad depth. An all-round gift from Santa in fact.
But the Barclays Premier League, never an easy place to predict outcomes at the best of times, would not have been prepared to hail last year`s bottom team as league leaders this time round, nor Watford giving all in front of them a toiling task for results especially in front of Harry the Hornet. For their part, Sunderland, on occasions known to give City problems at this time of the year and despite the best efforts of Big Sam who may well be about to get the first blot on his copy book, are just Sunderland. Ill-equipped to deal with the big boys and just about able to hold their own around the clubs around them, notably Aston Villa. Yes to the chagrin of dear Sue, the Black Cats made the underperforming Liverpool graft hard for a 1-0 won at the Stadium of Light, but they were no match for City on Boxing Day.
Next up for City were free-scoring, or at least until they were creditable beaten by Liverpool, Leicester City away. The King Power Stadium is proving to be a fortress this season for last season`s whipping boys, and a magnificent place it is to go and watch football. But with them being shut out by the clumsy looking Liverpool defence, they were further shut out by City`s equally unsafe-looking back four. Vardy, a regular marksman this season came up empty on both occasions spurning good opportunities that would have hitherto nestled in the back of sundry goal nets.
City got going, keeping the ball and creating enough chances to have had the match dead and buried. That said, when this season`s best outfield player, Fernandinho gift-wrapped Vardy`s gilt-edged chance, he was unable to slot it past England`s number one. The Blues huffed and puffed a bit more but in the end took the view that this was a match they could afford not to lose and crept back home with a hard-earned point.
Susan was somewhat relieved to see her beloved Liverpool collect 6 points on the back of two 1-0 victories with Benteke scoring both goals. Was it time for the red three quarters of Scouseland to kick on?
Well their final outing of the festive period was to be at the Boleyn Ground where the Liver bird simply could not burst the bubbles and a depleted and inadequate Liverpool side faced the full wrath of disappointed manager Jurgen Klopp for putting in a performance so below par they wouldn`t have avoided the cut on a park putting green. As the pots and pans flew around Sue`s Crosby homestead, accompanied by a kind of lexis I cannot teach to my overseas students, next up was to be City at Watford.
Both Tottenham and Liverpool have endured tight matches at Vicarage Road in recent weeks. Liverpool`s defence, even more fragile than City`s couldn`t deal with the twin onslaught of Deeney and Ighalo, as good a front partnership as anywhere this terms and succumbed to a bit of a pasting. Spurs managed to scrape a late victory to inject themselves very much into the race for the title. Which version would City take?
Although Mangala and Otamendi have the edge on the likes of Sakho and Lovren, The terrible two up top for Watford do not stand on ceremony and from the very start they sensed there was something for them, especially against the maligned one, Mangala.
Not ably assisted by Kolarov, whose penchant for delivering a poor pass at the edge of the opposition penalty area often lead to rapid counter attacks down City`s left giving the Hornets a free run at Mangala, the Frenchman had a torrid time dealing with the bump and ride merchants that he was up against. Watford don`t give you a minute and Mangala struggling to deal with this especially early in the second half when he was bumped, unfairly in my view, and harried into needlessly conceding a corner, when he could have shepherded the ball to safety.
Watson, the thorn in City`s side all afternoon as well as in the 2013 FA Cup Final slung in the corner which would have done well to punch clear had Kolarov not neatly flicked it past him and into his own goal.
Away from home City have failed to demonstrate anything like title-winning form and we could hardly see a return to winning ways here. Much had been tried and much had failed. City had pretty much dominated the match in terms of possession, shots on target but were staring at a 1-0 deficit courtesy of one of their own players.
Both Silva and De Bruyne had found their spaces cramped and over-crowded by a plethora of Watford players willing to run marathons for each other and Yaya was sinking further off the pace. Up top Aguero was in the clutches of at least three gigantic Watford defenders, so where actually was the space?
Change was needed and the first one was to remove Sterling, ineffective today and seemingly unable to link up with the forward thinking Kolarov. Navas was to provide an urgency and pace injection which would change the mindset and shape of things to come in the Watford back line. If nothing else his direct wing play meant that at least one of the grizzlies had to cease his attention to Aguero and double-up on Navas.
This opened up space in and around the Watford penalty area. Assistance was need to further free Aguero in the shape of Bony, but City couldn`t really sacrifice Fernandinho and Pellegrini will hardly ever replace Yaya. He needed all of those players on the field and still need to be robust enough at the back in case Watford should hit City on the break.
The tactic he used was simply a masterpiece of risk-taking. The hapless Mangala was taken out of the fray, Fernandinho was asked to play a mixture of centre back and defensive midfield, whilst Bony was thrust into the opposition`s penalty area.
Not everyone at Planet Etihad likes Bony, but one thing he does is add weight to the forward effort, and take up good positions that cannot be ignored in and around the opposition penalty area. And there was no exception when City forced a corner on the left with eight minutes to go. The pushers and pullers were out in the force on the Watford six yard line and you could clearly see Bony telling Fernandinho exactly where to present himself to take some of the heat off Bony and Aguero. Not only that, in the melee, Watford completely forgot about Yaya, whose short quick spring to the near post met Kolarov`s precise corner and volleyed it into the net with Gomes static.
It was no more than City deserved and we were mightily relieved, we thought, to get another hard earned away draw. But wait a minute, suddenly Watford were in disarray. Their uncompromising style was starting to fall apart as the goal had revitalised Yaya, Navas` wide play stretched their back four and midfield and Bony was leading the dance around the penalty box with his neat soft shoe shuffle.
The unheralded Sagna, arguably City`s most consistent defender this season exchanged passes with Navas to eliminate the attention of a couple of Watford player before entering a cross with the immaculate precision of a Swiss watch and with sufficient pace to outwit the Watford centre backs for the first time this afternoon.
Out of nowhere popped Sergio Aguero, to head the ball back the way it came and into the net, wrong-footing Gomes. This was more like it. This could quite easily be the return of City to the title fray, ending the day a match behind Arsenal who toiled to a 1-0 win against relegation-threatened Newcastle, in second place.
This was an excellent result in an amphitheatre of a stadium where more teams will go to the dogs this season. Watford are a high-octane powerful outfit with one of the best managers seen in this country for a while. A manager who has gelled a collection of apparent misfits into a set of likely lads able to offer up a style of football that is difficult for the pretty boys to deal with. Never-was players like Deeney have been given a new lease of like under Flores and the new boys like the hitherto unheard of Ighalo are adding dimension.
It is unlikely that City will see Kompany sufficiently fit enough to see out the season without additional time on the bench. Otamendi looks a class operator. Mangala can be brilliant one minute and scary the next. Kolarov`s work in defence has never been adequate. The solution at the back, I don`t know but each week it looks a bit trial-and-error, more error than trial. But if Hart, never actually given any accolades by the Stretford-drooling broadcasting and written press, can remain in imperial form and Fernandinho can continue in the same vein of form, there is no reason why the Blues can`t put together the type of run that may ultimate hunt down the Gooners and keep them far enough from the two-pronged North London threat, where Spuds have stealthily catapulted themselves into some sort of contention.
If this exceptional goal is to be the springboard for Aguero`s return to full fitness and enable him to start to play catch up in the golden boot stakes then let the Barclays Premier League beware, because if Kun starts his free-scoring, just watch De Bruyne and Sterling take cue as Silva once again takes the reins. That being the case, Yaya will only need to play ten minutes a week.
For Sue and her Liverpool reds it looks a long toil as Klopp is now only starting to fully appreciate the legacy left in his charge by Rodgers. The purchases and squandered cash of the latter have defied belief. Not one of them, with the probable exceptions of Milner, Can and more recently the revival of Lovren, seem deserving of wearing the famous shirt. But as I keep telling her, the days of Tommy Smith, Gerry Byrne et al fighting for their club have gone. All the likes of Lallana, Benteke, Firmino and Coutinho fight for is the size of their pay packet. We have had some of that at the Etihad. We now have a world-class football team. Did I hear someone link Coutinho with Barcelona? Who exactly does he think he is going to replace?
City immediate view now lies in the other sector of Scouseland, across the park from Anfield where an impressive Everton now provide the opposition more times in the next month than is healthy. There are two goes at getting to Wembley for the Capital One Cup either side of a tricky league match where the effervescent Lukaku, like Vardy and Deeney will fancy his chances against Mangala and their uncompromising midfielders will no doubt kick lumps out of Silva. In amongst this is a match against Crystal Palace. The papers are certainly flying the Pardew standard right now as the likes of Maureen remain on the dole and Van Gaal, despite the Stretford`s win yesterday which no doubt now means they will win the Premier League, FA Cup and Europa League at a canter, still remains on a sticky wicket.
But can you see Pardew dancing the light fantastic at the theatre of nightmares or in West London? Stranger things have happened.
With the table-tennis match of will-he, won`t-he in terms of Guardiola no doubt to be played out until the end of May, it is pleasing to see Pellegrini retain a huge element of professional dignity and integrity, whilst at the same time feeling sufficiently confident to take a tactical decision of risk yesterday. That decision confused the opposition and enable City to win the match. Like most Blues, I sometimes get confused by what goes on in the Engineer`s footballing brain, but there`s plenty of life in it yet.
writer - The Pedmachine
When the fixtures were shown in June we would have openly rubbed our hands at the prospect of facing perennial strugglers Sunderland, a Leicester team that somehow managed to survive last season when looking doomed as Festive bottom feeders and newly-promoted Watford who would surely by Christmas be suffering from injuries and suspensions allied to a shortage of squad depth. An all-round gift from Santa in fact.
But the Barclays Premier League, never an easy place to predict outcomes at the best of times, would not have been prepared to hail last year`s bottom team as league leaders this time round, nor Watford giving all in front of them a toiling task for results especially in front of Harry the Hornet. For their part, Sunderland, on occasions known to give City problems at this time of the year and despite the best efforts of Big Sam who may well be about to get the first blot on his copy book, are just Sunderland. Ill-equipped to deal with the big boys and just about able to hold their own around the clubs around them, notably Aston Villa. Yes to the chagrin of dear Sue, the Black Cats made the underperforming Liverpool graft hard for a 1-0 won at the Stadium of Light, but they were no match for City on Boxing Day.
Next up for City were free-scoring, or at least until they were creditable beaten by Liverpool, Leicester City away. The King Power Stadium is proving to be a fortress this season for last season`s whipping boys, and a magnificent place it is to go and watch football. But with them being shut out by the clumsy looking Liverpool defence, they were further shut out by City`s equally unsafe-looking back four. Vardy, a regular marksman this season came up empty on both occasions spurning good opportunities that would have hitherto nestled in the back of sundry goal nets.
City got going, keeping the ball and creating enough chances to have had the match dead and buried. That said, when this season`s best outfield player, Fernandinho gift-wrapped Vardy`s gilt-edged chance, he was unable to slot it past England`s number one. The Blues huffed and puffed a bit more but in the end took the view that this was a match they could afford not to lose and crept back home with a hard-earned point.
Susan was somewhat relieved to see her beloved Liverpool collect 6 points on the back of two 1-0 victories with Benteke scoring both goals. Was it time for the red three quarters of Scouseland to kick on?
Well their final outing of the festive period was to be at the Boleyn Ground where the Liver bird simply could not burst the bubbles and a depleted and inadequate Liverpool side faced the full wrath of disappointed manager Jurgen Klopp for putting in a performance so below par they wouldn`t have avoided the cut on a park putting green. As the pots and pans flew around Sue`s Crosby homestead, accompanied by a kind of lexis I cannot teach to my overseas students, next up was to be City at Watford.
Both Tottenham and Liverpool have endured tight matches at Vicarage Road in recent weeks. Liverpool`s defence, even more fragile than City`s couldn`t deal with the twin onslaught of Deeney and Ighalo, as good a front partnership as anywhere this terms and succumbed to a bit of a pasting. Spurs managed to scrape a late victory to inject themselves very much into the race for the title. Which version would City take?
Although Mangala and Otamendi have the edge on the likes of Sakho and Lovren, The terrible two up top for Watford do not stand on ceremony and from the very start they sensed there was something for them, especially against the maligned one, Mangala.
Not ably assisted by Kolarov, whose penchant for delivering a poor pass at the edge of the opposition penalty area often lead to rapid counter attacks down City`s left giving the Hornets a free run at Mangala, the Frenchman had a torrid time dealing with the bump and ride merchants that he was up against. Watford don`t give you a minute and Mangala struggling to deal with this especially early in the second half when he was bumped, unfairly in my view, and harried into needlessly conceding a corner, when he could have shepherded the ball to safety.
Watson, the thorn in City`s side all afternoon as well as in the 2013 FA Cup Final slung in the corner which would have done well to punch clear had Kolarov not neatly flicked it past him and into his own goal.
Away from home City have failed to demonstrate anything like title-winning form and we could hardly see a return to winning ways here. Much had been tried and much had failed. City had pretty much dominated the match in terms of possession, shots on target but were staring at a 1-0 deficit courtesy of one of their own players.
Both Silva and De Bruyne had found their spaces cramped and over-crowded by a plethora of Watford players willing to run marathons for each other and Yaya was sinking further off the pace. Up top Aguero was in the clutches of at least three gigantic Watford defenders, so where actually was the space?
Change was needed and the first one was to remove Sterling, ineffective today and seemingly unable to link up with the forward thinking Kolarov. Navas was to provide an urgency and pace injection which would change the mindset and shape of things to come in the Watford back line. If nothing else his direct wing play meant that at least one of the grizzlies had to cease his attention to Aguero and double-up on Navas.
This opened up space in and around the Watford penalty area. Assistance was need to further free Aguero in the shape of Bony, but City couldn`t really sacrifice Fernandinho and Pellegrini will hardly ever replace Yaya. He needed all of those players on the field and still need to be robust enough at the back in case Watford should hit City on the break.
The tactic he used was simply a masterpiece of risk-taking. The hapless Mangala was taken out of the fray, Fernandinho was asked to play a mixture of centre back and defensive midfield, whilst Bony was thrust into the opposition`s penalty area.
Not everyone at Planet Etihad likes Bony, but one thing he does is add weight to the forward effort, and take up good positions that cannot be ignored in and around the opposition penalty area. And there was no exception when City forced a corner on the left with eight minutes to go. The pushers and pullers were out in the force on the Watford six yard line and you could clearly see Bony telling Fernandinho exactly where to present himself to take some of the heat off Bony and Aguero. Not only that, in the melee, Watford completely forgot about Yaya, whose short quick spring to the near post met Kolarov`s precise corner and volleyed it into the net with Gomes static.
It was no more than City deserved and we were mightily relieved, we thought, to get another hard earned away draw. But wait a minute, suddenly Watford were in disarray. Their uncompromising style was starting to fall apart as the goal had revitalised Yaya, Navas` wide play stretched their back four and midfield and Bony was leading the dance around the penalty box with his neat soft shoe shuffle.
The unheralded Sagna, arguably City`s most consistent defender this season exchanged passes with Navas to eliminate the attention of a couple of Watford player before entering a cross with the immaculate precision of a Swiss watch and with sufficient pace to outwit the Watford centre backs for the first time this afternoon.
Out of nowhere popped Sergio Aguero, to head the ball back the way it came and into the net, wrong-footing Gomes. This was more like it. This could quite easily be the return of City to the title fray, ending the day a match behind Arsenal who toiled to a 1-0 win against relegation-threatened Newcastle, in second place.
This was an excellent result in an amphitheatre of a stadium where more teams will go to the dogs this season. Watford are a high-octane powerful outfit with one of the best managers seen in this country for a while. A manager who has gelled a collection of apparent misfits into a set of likely lads able to offer up a style of football that is difficult for the pretty boys to deal with. Never-was players like Deeney have been given a new lease of like under Flores and the new boys like the hitherto unheard of Ighalo are adding dimension.
It is unlikely that City will see Kompany sufficiently fit enough to see out the season without additional time on the bench. Otamendi looks a class operator. Mangala can be brilliant one minute and scary the next. Kolarov`s work in defence has never been adequate. The solution at the back, I don`t know but each week it looks a bit trial-and-error, more error than trial. But if Hart, never actually given any accolades by the Stretford-drooling broadcasting and written press, can remain in imperial form and Fernandinho can continue in the same vein of form, there is no reason why the Blues can`t put together the type of run that may ultimate hunt down the Gooners and keep them far enough from the two-pronged North London threat, where Spuds have stealthily catapulted themselves into some sort of contention.
If this exceptional goal is to be the springboard for Aguero`s return to full fitness and enable him to start to play catch up in the golden boot stakes then let the Barclays Premier League beware, because if Kun starts his free-scoring, just watch De Bruyne and Sterling take cue as Silva once again takes the reins. That being the case, Yaya will only need to play ten minutes a week.
For Sue and her Liverpool reds it looks a long toil as Klopp is now only starting to fully appreciate the legacy left in his charge by Rodgers. The purchases and squandered cash of the latter have defied belief. Not one of them, with the probable exceptions of Milner, Can and more recently the revival of Lovren, seem deserving of wearing the famous shirt. But as I keep telling her, the days of Tommy Smith, Gerry Byrne et al fighting for their club have gone. All the likes of Lallana, Benteke, Firmino and Coutinho fight for is the size of their pay packet. We have had some of that at the Etihad. We now have a world-class football team. Did I hear someone link Coutinho with Barcelona? Who exactly does he think he is going to replace?
City immediate view now lies in the other sector of Scouseland, across the park from Anfield where an impressive Everton now provide the opposition more times in the next month than is healthy. There are two goes at getting to Wembley for the Capital One Cup either side of a tricky league match where the effervescent Lukaku, like Vardy and Deeney will fancy his chances against Mangala and their uncompromising midfielders will no doubt kick lumps out of Silva. In amongst this is a match against Crystal Palace. The papers are certainly flying the Pardew standard right now as the likes of Maureen remain on the dole and Van Gaal, despite the Stretford`s win yesterday which no doubt now means they will win the Premier League, FA Cup and Europa League at a canter, still remains on a sticky wicket.
But can you see Pardew dancing the light fantastic at the theatre of nightmares or in West London? Stranger things have happened.
With the table-tennis match of will-he, won`t-he in terms of Guardiola no doubt to be played out until the end of May, it is pleasing to see Pellegrini retain a huge element of professional dignity and integrity, whilst at the same time feeling sufficiently confident to take a tactical decision of risk yesterday. That decision confused the opposition and enable City to win the match. Like most Blues, I sometimes get confused by what goes on in the Engineer`s footballing brain, but there`s plenty of life in it yet.
writer - The Pedmachine
