Utterly outplayed, completely outthought. On the one
hand it was a joy to watch…but it would have been far more delightful if it had
been another team being blown apart rather then my own.
Small alarm bell going off
Where’s this so-called tactical ‘engineer’
we were supposed to have employed to replace Roberto Mancini? What sort of South American & European experienced Manager
plays a standard 4-4-2 with an relatively immobile Edin Dzeko against a team who you just KNEW were gonna play a very fluid and
compact midfield 4-6-0 system? Fernandinho
& Toure had no chance; the defence didn’t
know who best to mark out and there was no supply to either Edin or Aguero. How utterly naïve is Manuel Pellegrini?
And congratulations to our new Manager also for bringing
back a trait that I thought we’d lost for the most part – I’ve touched on this
before…Inconsistency.
Home to Newcastle
Away at Cardiff
Home to Hull
Away at Stoke - Draw (but
again lucky to come away with a clean sheet & point)
Away at Viktoria Plzen - Win (poor first half, very
good second half performance)
Home to Manyoo - Win (and
a master-class performance)
Home to Wigan - Win
(and another fine display)
Away at Villa - Lose (despite
dominating; poor Management decisions and silly
player mistakes)
I’ve been a Season Ticket / Card holder
for 28 years; I’m not a glory-hunting fan and for the record I’m definitely not
a fan whose expectations have gone through the roof since we came into serious
money. I don’t expect to win every game.
If we’d have set up the team
differently and given a good account of ourselves and still have been
beaten by a fine performance from Bayern Munich last night I would, as I have
done in the past, applauded being beaten by a better team.
But that line-up from Pellegrini
last night was just wrong for all to see…and what’s even more worrying was that
it took him past 55 minutes for him to make any changes. What’s happening with Jovetic?
Once we’d MADE some changes we
looked a little better – off was the statue-like Dzeko and on came the more
mobile and threatening Negredo. Milner came on for more energy and all of a sudden we didn’t look
quite so overrun in the middle. In fact had Silva’s 85-minute free kick crept under the bar rather than
strike it who knows what could have happened in the last 8 minutes (including
time added on)?
We wouldn’t have deserved a point
for sure…just like Villa didn’t deserve all 3 last Saturday.
Any positives?
 |
| Ferran Soriano & Khaldoon Al Mubarak |
Well I’m sure the Executives at City – who have a closer
role to first team affairs in a modern-day, football club set up (rightly or wrongly) – will be
having an inquest this morning or in the next week I'm sure. I wouldn’t be too surprised if, not long after
that examination-meeting, Manuel might well be called in for a little chat about
the way he went about his business against the German side. Whatever the
outcome from any such chat I can only hope that it yields positive results for
our team both in the next few weeks and long season ahead.
 |
| Txiki Begiristain |
We don’t need another change in Manager and I’m certainly
not calling for one. We have, of course, just played the current Champions League holders who just happened to now
have one of the best – if not THE best – Managers in existence. It’s just the
manner of the defeat that is concerning for a lot of Blues who witnessed last
night’s game. I’ve spoken to several who all agree wholeheartedly.
 |
| League Cup |
 |
| F.A. Cup |
I’ve been banging on for ages now about how we’re not quite
ready to fight on all 4 fronts for silverware and how, at our stage in
development as a Club, we need to concentrate more on domestic competitions before we
consider ourselves serious European challengers. I stand by that. And, hopefully,
City officials will see that fact too now, despite strengthening the squad very
well in the summer.
 |
| Premier League Cup |
 |
| Champions League Cup |
Of course I want us to progress past the group stage and
perhaps we’ll still do that. That would show some progress from last season; progress being one of Pellegrini's remits.
But, as I’ve said before, I’m personally far more interested in getting 3 points
from Everton on Saturday and at least 4 points
from West Ham and Chelsea
away.
It’s time to lick our wounds; more importantly, LEARN,
and start to find some consistent form.
(Additional entry...)
Better new sees the EDS/Under 19s beat Bayern's Under 19s 6-0 to make it 2 wins and 10 goals scored from 2 games. Click here to link highlights of the game. Manager's reaction.
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