Pellegrini 1-1 Hull City

What’s wrong with the man?! Why can he not see that against a team who were always going to defend in numbers that you don’t just try hammering down the door with two strikers and one, which, is largely an immobile lump?

Playing Dzeko gave us no fluidity and in-picking the frustrating Bosnian it damaged / nullified any attacking midfield threat we could (barely) muster to any great effect.

Brief analysis

If…IF we’d have had Bony available for this game then I could fully understand our manager ‘going 4-4-2’. Bony, from what I’ve seen and know of him, is not only FAR more imposing than our other pathetic excuse for a big striker but – and here’s that word again – he’s far more fluid.

Mobility is the key to unlocking stubborn sides who come to the Etihad and throw down two layers of defenders; and in Edin Dzeko we have a lamppost. Now I don’t know about where you live but the lampposts near me don’t move very much…but at least they illuminate the area when required.

In playing Mr Glummy it had a knock-on affect and damaged us in several ways. Aguero cut a largely frustrating figure - oh how he must have been seething inside that all his running efforts were largely in vain...and why? Well why would the Hull City players be bothered about the other fella alongside him; he who couldn’t, once again, trap nor pass the ball! Therefore, any time Aguero got the ball the opposition was on him in a flash and in numbers. You’ve got to give Steve Bruce’s men some credit I suppose…

And this also, in my opinion, lead to our only 2 creative players, David & Samir, being pulled all over the place; trying to compensate almost on their own for our lack of penetration and craft elsewhere. And in choosing to go 4-4-1 (that’s effectively what it was yesterday) our midfield was pretty much completely quashed, not helped by the continuing & frustrating inconsistencies of Fernando and Fernandinho who did anything BUT boss the midfield which, had they have done so, would have allowed our more creative players to ‘do their thing’ far more effectively.

Having said that, apart from almost-out-of-contract James (HAHM-ez) Milner who, for the 29 minutes and 33 seconds he was on the pitch gets my MotM; no-one in a blue shirt had a good game yesterday. At home, against a predominantly-defending Hull City side, even our defence was poor yesterday.

Manuel Pellegrini has said of his team that it lacked ideas. Really? Really fella? Jeeze…I think you need to take a look at yourself there pal and look at the inadequate choices you make on an increasingly frequent basis.

It’s no surprise, of course, that I firmly blame our manager for this slip and I can only hope behind the scenes that he realises that…and learns. That mini-season I was talking about recently; we managed to stumble big time at the first hurdle and it’s even more important now that the rest of my predicted outcomes come true at the very least …starting at bogey-ground Britannia Stadium on Wednesday night.

Not a happy Blue…