Man City v Spurs - PL Sat 13th Feb 17:30 GMT - Live on Sky Sports

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scarletjim said:
When you say it was 'too easy', what is your point of reference, what are you comparing it to? As I keep saying, they have beaten a lot of teams this season, some by relatively fine margins, some by much wider margins. Don't get me wrong, of course I'd like us to try harder, press more intelligently, defend cohesively without making stupid fucking individual errors etc, but there is no great shame in losing 3-0 to this Man City side, and there is no sense in 'going for them' and then losing 7-0 instead. Yes, if you plan to defend then do it properly, I don't disagree with that at all, I never said otherwise. It's more the idea that we should have 'gone at them' etc in the 2nd half - that would have been nothing short of suicide. Against every other team in the league, yes, but against City, no, you'll just get battered! I repeat, how many times have City thrown away a 3-goal lead? Or even a 2-goal lead? And personally against this City side in the mood it's in right now, I'd rather lose 3-0 than 7-1.
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I didn’t say go at them I just said if we play Lucas and lamela then I would expect them to running around and closing down. However in the first half they and the rest just stood off. City could find players in pockets of space in our half and turn and pick a pass. No effort made to close down. Bringing on sissoko made no difference to any of this as he never closes down and hides from the ball.
 
As soon as the team sheet came out I knew we had problems

A back 4 where everyone is basically naturally a CB
First thoughts were what minute is sanchez/dier going to make a mistake
 
Nikesh said:
You compare the gulf between us and city the same as us against marine? We will not concede 6-7 if we have a go as It doesn't mean we are wide open but also we don't be playing like we do and sit back waiting for the inevitable. Of course against better teams like this it might be no shame to lose but as you say, we've seen worse performances against worse teams. The team look so bad right now we have a lot of work to do but i just don't think Jose is the one for us.
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"The team look so bad right now we have a lot of work to do but i just don't think Jose is the one for us."

I don't necessarily disagree with that. I just don't think that Man City away is the game to judge us by. Personally I was far more disappointed with our games against (say) Brighton and Chelsea.
 
TheRealTI said:
I'm not saying they're not better than us, I'm saying they don't exactly play dazzling football
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It may not be dazzling but it's better than anyone else can manage. They are good on and off the ball and completely nullified us from the start. I'm not saying we should have been great but we are a couple of levels below them both in terms of personnel and tactical nous.
 
Maureen said:
How comes they concede so few goals and yet are a much more attacking team than we are. We setup defensively but actually can’t defend!
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Simple: They have much better players than us, a much better squad, and a manager who employs tactics that are well suited to those players.

I'll keep repeating the same thing until it registers - they are much better than everyone in this league - if people want to have a go at Jose, the players, the set-up, whatever, then fine, but Man City away right now is not the game to pin their opinions on (especially when you consider the woeful performances against Brighton, Chelsea, and several others in the last couple of months). There have been many performances recently that are far less 'justifiable' than this one.
 
Maureen said:
I didn’t say go at them I just said if we play Lucas and lamela then I would expect them to running around and closing down. However in the first half they and the rest just stood off. City could find players in pockets of space in our half and turn and pick a pass. No effort made to close down. Bringing on sissoko made no difference to any of this as he never closes down and hides from the ball.
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It's so naive to assume that closing down is always the right option. When you have a team as exceptional as Man City, if you press too much they will just pass through you and destroy you, their movement and short distance passing is that good. Have you not watched any of their games this season? Closing them down all over the pitch is an extremely high risk strategy that has seen several such 'bold' teams get thumped by them.
 
LeeMcl said:
Not sure that picking Zaha adds anything at all. Especially so when that window the target was Grealish and that went south.

Honestly, we can’t have a manager talk two seasons running about the need to “painfully” rebuild and then self impose an 18 month transfer ban. Who is responsible for that is debatable. But never forget a transfer ban of any length is considered a punishment for good reason.


What we seem to have achieved by low investment ( based on the evidence to hand ) is stagnation and forcing successive coaches back to failed players.

for example, Sanchez is of no more value than Fazio, Wimmer or Chiriches. They all got moved on. Why didn’t Sanchez ? Because unlike the others he has not been replaced. That’s just a single example, but all through the squad you can make the same arguments. There was a time when a fringe player like Chadli was moved on, despite flashes, where as now the Lucas type player is not moved on for better. What’s changed ? The squad is not better with Lucas than it was with Chadli.

Brian Clough used to tell his players that they were only at the club until he got someone better. Whether that would be wise in 2021 I don’t know but there is a lot of truth in being strong enough to want / demand better. No matter how good you have it.

And if we had it that good we would not have been were we were, which a big final aside, was heading in the wrong direction since around Dec 2018.

To be honest. Hindsight is valuable in such situations, no one could predict the cliff Dele or Bale would fall off. No one could imagine Doherty’s Woolwich fetish would be so deep. Well none of us anyway, as we are not professional scouts and professional coaches. Those that are perhaps need to consider more than net spend.
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I’d imagine part of the reason Sanchez didn’t get moved on was because until 18 months he was at £42 million the most expensive signing in the history of club. If a club of our size is shelling out that kind of money, you’re expecting blue chip star quality. You can move on and take the hit quickly enough on a player that cost £7 or £8 million of its not working out. Difficult to take the bit on the money that was squandered in Sanchez. We’d barely get £10 million for him now I’d say.
 
scarletjim said:
Simple: They have much better players than us, a much better squad, and a manager who employs tactics that are well suited to those players.

I'll keep repeating the same thing until it registers - they are much better than everyone in this league - if people want to have a go at Jose, the players, the set-up, whatever, then fine, but Man City away right now is not the game to pin their opinions on (especially when you consider the woeful performances against Brighton, Chelsea, and several others in the last couple of months). There have been many performances recently that are far less 'justifiable' than this one.
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Best coached team in the league. No ageuro, no de bruyne, no silva.

Still look amazing.... table doesn’t lie as the saying goes.
 
Juno said:
I’d imagine part of the reason Sanchez didn’t get moved on was because until 18 months he was at £42 million the most expensive signing in the history of club. If a club of our size is shelling out that kind of money, you’re expecting blue chip star quality. You can move on and take the hit quickly enough on a player that cost £7 or £8 million of its not working out. Difficult to take the bit on the money that was squandered in Sanchez. We’d barely get £10 million for him now I’d say.
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For sure. His depreciation is Alfa Romeo levels. It’s probably not even football related as to why these guys are not being moved, it might be the way the accountants amortise them as assets on the balance sheets. Probably has to drop to a certain value before he can then be sold at a profit.

I think it’s a case of £42 million over 7 years ( renewed his contract I think ) so the club need to exceed £18,000,000 in the transfer fee to show a profit this summer. Who in their right mind will pay £18,000,000 for a player who is not even Lewis Dunk level?, and because he is Colombian he has precious little value to the European market even if he was “ok”, which he’s not. Actually given his performances he might well have to be considered atrocious value on every level.
 
Fuck off shearer definite penalty!! Good striker. Cunt of a pundit. Goes with the so called popular opinion.
So obvious first day against city. Ball realeased way quicker. Men played through automatically. Lamela real problem. Constantly holding on too much. Not realising son.
Such lazy punditry on match of the day. Especially lately and only a few matches to analyse
 
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