Community Shield thoughts…

A lot of Community Shield games don’t give you a true insight into what to expect in the coming season. However, I have to say that yesterday’s game with the two very best teams in the country playing very strong / near full-strength sides is about as close as it gets, don’t you?

Therefore, fellow Blues, should we be concerned at all at our performance and eventual 3-1 defeat?

Starting at the back…

·         Ederson had a pretty standard, 6/10 game – he wasn’t at fault for any of the goals; he got very close to the penalty shot and his distribution was fine for the most part.

·         I thought Nathan Ake was not only our best defender but our MotM! I don’t care that Liverpool’s first goal glanced off his head - his effort for the whole 90+ minutes was incredible and he produced so many blocks & tackles throughout the game, as well as being a nuisance in their box whenever he got the chance to go up. I can’t believe the Manchester Evening News reporter only gave him a 6!

·         In contrast, I thought we looked very vulnerable down the flanks of our defence for the most part. For me at least, it was so obvious in the first 15 or so minutes before they scored their first on 21 minutes. I’m not sure if it was down to both Cancelo & Walker’s own doing or whether it was simply down to them following the instructions of their manager to ‘push up’…but there were some pretty gaping holes there a lot of the time that Ake, Dias, Rodri & Silva were-then-struggling to cover at times as Liverpool came at us again and again; especially in the first 30-odd minutes. Of course, it’s the way we play, generally speaking, but this has been an ongoing issue on & off for some time now and I’d like to see it sorted; especially when we play against higher-quality opposition with more-dangerous, attacking wingers.

·         Even though he didn’t have a great game; even when Kevin isn’t ‘on fire’ he still manages to put out a solid 7/10’er. I thought that was the case yesterday and if a couple of his final passes, which were heading for Haaland in the first half, had come off; we could have been looking at a very different post-match picture.

But then…huhhhhhfff…

·         I’ve not even released a piece I’ve already written about the things I’m looking forward to in the coming season but I’ll tell you now that I make reference to the fact that I’m hoping to see MASSIVE improvement from Jack Grealish and that, despite being last season’s top goal scorer in all competitions; I want to see more consistency from Riyad Mahrez. Deary me. I know it’s only one game; a one-off glorified pre-season friendly, in a lot of fan’s eyes, but I saw the same ol’ Jack from last season failing to beat his man time and time again and, in general, doing a really poor impression of a winger…and Riyad; having a similarly ineffective, typically-frustrating time of it on the opposite flank. No wonder new-signing Erling Haaland was struggling to make an impact on the game – he was starved of service from the flanks a lot of the time! Speaking of which…

·         …I think yesterday’s game served as a Premier League lesson for the Norwegian international and I think that’s a good thing. Yes, he should have scored twice – the second one doesn’t need discussing but I was convinced he was gonna stick his head on that first-half effort and still can’t understand today why he didn’t and chose, instead, to raise his leg high in an attempt to kick it – but he never stopped searching for the ball himself and, as I’ve said, he was largely starved of service otherwise due to minimal service from the wings as well as a couple of well-meaning passes from midfield that just didn’t come off. I hope he takes that frustration with him to the London Stadium this-coming weekend and beyond…

·         Julian Alvarez looked everything I expected from him. Well done him – he looked understandably sharp being, as he is, 6 months into “his season”, which started for his last club back in February.

·         How much did Foden for Grealish, as well as Alvarez for Mahrez, change the look of us in a very positive way? To regular readers, I know it seems like I’m on a constant downer about Jack but unless Phil needs a rest; for me Grealish doesn’t come close to what Foden can offer us in a ‘starting 11’…and there’s a good argument for other players in comparison to the ex-Aston Villa man too, in my humble opinion. In a way and deep down, I bet Jack was rubbing his hands when he saw both Sterling & Jesus depart this summer; two players out of his way so that he can be more assured of a starting place on the left. Fine…just start doing it justice and earning that place for flip’s sake!

New role / tactical tweak?

I had a bit of an afterthought this morning about this apparent new role our manager has given to Bernardo Silva; a new function he clearly thinks is the necessary tweak required in order to facilitate us-playing with ‘a number 9’ this-coming season.

If that’s the way our manager is going to go moving on into the season, then why not give that job to Kalvin Phillips and release Bernardo further up to pitch on the right wing (yes, in place of / rotated with last season’s top scorer, Riyad)? I’m sure that would be a position the highly mobile Phillips would thrive in and I, for one, noticed just how much more of a threat we looked when Bernardo Silva moved back up and over to that attacking flank when Alvarez went alongside Haaland in a brief / unfamiliar-looking 4-4-2. It’s just a thought…

Tin hats on Blues - there's likely to be some flak out there.

I haven’t read any fan reaction on the various websites but I bet it’s full of a combination of over-the-top, mostly younger City fans in a flap; tempered by a few, more experienced City fans asking them not to panic. I bet, also, the City pages will be full of gloating, over-the-top Liverpool fans; no doubt banging their drum when-comparing goal scorer Darwin Nunez with misfiring Erling Haaland; undoubtably also claiming to have won the league already and putting their orders in for their 2022-23 Premier League-winning t-shirts.

I did decide to tune into the local radio station after the game but was soon sorry that I did; embarrassed as I was about the first two callers. The first one stated that one of the reasons Liverpool won was because, “…they were playing at home in front of their own fans”. Of course, he was corrected by the presenters, as I sat listening with my head in one hand.

The next City-fan caller was eventually asked what he thought of Jack Grealish and his answer went something like this. “He isn’t playing quite as well as he was when he was at Leicester…”. He said it twice before he was eventually corrected. I now had my head in both hands, whilst thinking how glad I was that it was a local, Manchester radio station [and not a national one].

The third caller, from Huddersfield, was drunk and made little sense before, FINALLY; a normal-sounding Blue came on the air who was phoning from just outside the King Power Stadium. As much sense as he was making and with the station keeping him on air longer than the previous three callers, I eventually turned it off; ate some much-needed food, watched some TV and then went to bed exhausted / still suffering post-Covid fatigue.

I do feel a bit post-defeat ‘flat’ this morning but not too bad, as I find myself already looking forward to a “proper game” in a week’s time.

In the meantime, I’d expect some close analysis and hard work at the Etihad Campus / CFA this week ahead of our opening league fixture in the Capital.

I also expect we’ll hear the occasional update on our pursuit of Brighton’s, Marc Cucurella; a player who has recently put in a formal transfer request in order to try ‘n’ push through the transfer to M11; while his club subsequently removed the Spanish left-wing back from their squad when they faced Spanish side, Espanyol, in a pre-season friendly yesterday, as well as insisting that they will no longer discuss incremental figures with us and will only engage in dialogue if we come back to them with a minimum offer of £50M.

I’ll push that blog-posting out that I made reference to in midweek but for now, a big thanks as always for taking the time to read.