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Yes - You know Sanchez has had a good game when he's not getting ripped apart on here.
I'm not saying they were amazing, but at least I heard them. Man City fans seem to treat matchdays as an inconvenience.
That's it - we're getting relegated!
Fair enough mate. From what I’ve seen, I prefer this year’s team and think we’ve improved, but respect your opinion.
The body language has improved, hands down - fair play to Nuno
First game back in the stadium for me, absolutely loved that walk down the high road, boy have I missed that and dare I say it's better than it ever was now they close it off to cars and you can walk down the middle of the road with the stadium looming large into view!!
Didn't enjoy watching the first half, not so much because of us as Watford stuck 9 men behind the ball after a competitive first 10mins or so. We were trying to move the ball quickly and were working hard in the moments we didn't have the ball but there was a predictability to what we were attempting - felt that having Lucas or Gil on would have given another string to the bow by having dribblers running into the box a harder thing to defend against than a poor Tanganga cross.
Much improved in the 2nd half as the work we made Watford to off the ball began to show and they dropped their levels by 5% or so. We also had a bit more variety to attacks with more movement and rotations from players.
Lucky goal but that's the "corridor of uncertainty" for you put into a channel where oppo are caught in two minds whether to stick or twist. As the game progressed our domination became complete (1st half the threat of a counter was always on via Sarr or Dennis but felt we them covered all game anyway) and we had a number of big chances to kill the game off a couple with Kane and a glorious move by us that saw Dele put the ball wide a few inches.
Got to say what an impressive job Nuno has done so far, especially given the circumstances in which he joined the club, the melts in full cry, he's only been here TWO months, so not long at all to spend with the players compounded by Euros and the Kane saga, new DoF, Jose's hounded and demoralised team.
Same Players Different Manager - Our organisation is bloody brilliant, Hugo has a 100% save % in the PL after 3 games, he had to make just 6 saves!!!!! We are NOW defending within an organised block, the shape of the entire team is so much better, after 1st 3 games of last season (Everton, Southampton & Newcastle) Hugo was called into action 9 times and this, by comparison, includes the fact that in the Newcastle game he didn't have to face a single shot in open play (they scored a last min pen)! We've actually faced more shots against us under Nuno but like the Hugo metric the key difference is from where those shots are taken, they are low XG or for the haters, our oppo is shooting from outside the box. We've conceded one more shot on target as we had across our first 3 games last season (10 now 11) but last season all bar one of those shots on target resulted in Hugo having to make a save.
Our tackles won are nearly double (34 to 59), interceptions my gosh (7 to 52!!!), long balls down by 50 (again this includes us playing CITY where you expect to play long over their press).
The bottom line is we are having far more control of the game, I thought we controlled City bar the first 10mins and had almost complete control vs Watford. Wolves had control of the midfield all game and in 1st half won their duels in defence but it was our defence that had almost complete control, reducing them to shots from outside of the box, only once did they breach us with Traore's 1v1 with Lloris and there were two 1st phase actions in the box (a cross and a pullback) which we defended the resulting 2nd phase. Compare and contrast our game against Wolves to Utd's, Utd were completely ripped apart yesterday and should have lost about 4-0, Wolves only troubled Lloris ONCE and he saved it.
In attack, there are clear signs of structured build-up, working overloads out wide on both flanks, however, as we saw yesterday Tanganga has a very long way to develop this aspect of his game (defensively he's been very good). Obviously would love to see a bit more up top and I'd love us to press higher up the pitch, but these are my personal aesthetics I choose and let's be honest the ONLY dilemma that surrounds Kane is that with him in the team we aren't going to press high because he can't.
But for the first time in a very, very long time, the control looks to be coming back to us. Loads of things to still improve on but in context, this is a very, very encouraging beginning. (This level of control we didn't have when we beat Southampton. For balance we did when we played Newcastle).
Didn't enjoy watching the first half, not so much because of us as Watford stuck 9 men behind the ball after a competitive first 10mins or so. We were trying to move the ball quickly and were working hard in the moments we didn't have the ball but there was a predictability to what we were attempting - felt that having Lucas or Gil on would have given another string to the bow by having dribblers running into the box a harder thing to defend against than a poor Tanganga cross.
Much improved in the 2nd half as the work we made Watford to off the ball began to show and they dropped their levels by 5% or so. We also had a bit more variety to attacks with more movement and rotations from players.
Lucky goal but that's the "corridor of uncertainty" for you put into a channel where oppo are caught in two minds whether to stick or twist. As the game progressed our domination became complete (1st half the threat of a counter was always on via Sarr or Dennis but felt we them covered all game anyway) and we had a number of big chances to kill the game off a couple with Kane and a glorious move by us that saw Dele put the ball wide a few inches.
Got to say what an impressive job Nuno has done so far, especially given the circumstances in which he joined the club, the melts in full cry, he's only been here TWO months, so not long at all to spend with the players compounded by Euros and the Kane saga, new DoF, Jose's hounded and demoralised team.
Same Players Different Manager - Our organisation is bloody brilliant, Hugo has a 100% save % in the PL after 3 games, he had to make just 6 saves!!!!! We are NOW defending within an organised block, the shape of the entire team is so much better, after 1st 3 games of last season (Everton, Southampton & Newcastle) Hugo was called into action 9 times and this, by comparison, includes the fact that in the Newcastle game he didn't have to face a single shot in open play (they scored a last min pen)! We've actually faced more shots against us under Nuno but like the Hugo metric the key difference is from where those shots are taken, they are low XG or for the haters, our oppo is shooting from outside the box. We've conceded one more shot on target as we had across our first 3 games last season (10 now 11) but last season all bar one of those shots on target resulted in Hugo having to make a save.
Our tackles won are nearly double (34 to 59), interceptions my gosh (7 to 52!!!), long balls down by 50 (again this includes us playing CITY where you expect to play long over their press).
The bottom line is we are having far more control of the game, I thought we controlled City bar the first 10mins and had almost complete control vs Watford. Wolves had control of the midfield all game and in 1st half won their duels in defence but it was our defence that had almost complete control, reducing them to shots from outside of the box, only once did they breach us with Traore's 1v1 with Lloris and there were two 1st phase actions in the box (a cross and a pullback) which we defended the resulting 2nd phase. Compare and contrast our game against Wolves to Utd's, Utd were completely ripped apart yesterday and should have lost about 4-0, Wolves only troubled Lloris ONCE and he saved it.
In attack, there are clear signs of structured build-up, working overloads out wide on both flanks, however, as we saw yesterday Tanganga has a very long way to develop this aspect of his game (defensively he's been very good). Obviously would love to see a bit more up top and I'd love us to press higher up the pitch, but these are my personal aesthetics I choose and let's be honest the ONLY dilemma that surrounds Kane is that with him in the team we aren't going to press high because he can't.
But for the first time in a very, very long time, the control looks to be coming back to us. Loads of things to still improve on but in context, this is a very, very encouraging beginning. (This level of control we didn't have when we beat Southampton. For balance we did when we played Newcastle).
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Those defensive stats are incredible
Completely highlights the change from passive to assertive play
I remember that spell well.
Our 2-0 win against LFC was deserved, we were better than them. It confirmed what I'd been thinking ever since H bought Wilson P from Wigan previous Jan window, our form from that point improved amazingly - it was top 4 till the end of the season. Getting top 4 the next season was just a continuation.
A decent MF, who knew? And replacing Carrick with, er, Zokora and relying on Jenas, well who could have thought?
Say what you like about H, he was very good at instantly assessing a squad and working out what was essential.
I do this at work requesting days off
Steve and Fabio are back
They're gonna need their own cardio resuscitation team at games.
Steve and Fabio are back
Good for them !
Steve and Fabio are back
Who's got money on Hitchen punching one of the Chelsea assistants during the derby?
In your new look team will PDQ play alongside PEH and GLC?