Is that when we start praying for some of City's to be stripped and awarded to us?
Premier League Gameweek 14-16
- Thread starter Samid
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Is that when we start praying for some of City's to be stripped and awarded to us?
This account's model to calculate xG is often different than Opta who is considered reliable for stats collection.
The 0-7 game at Anfield showed a significant difference enough number from their xG stats and what was provided by Opta
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Fair enough. For me I expected him to score once he got into the space. Seems like he must have about 10 goals against City alone.
City will probably still go on to win the league but it’s a lot closer this year. Scousers are better than last year though. Last season city had players like Gundogan chipping in with important goals. He’s been replaced by Kovacic who is a completely different player and hasn’t score yet. So they’ve lost players and not really replaced them. The only one who’s better than the player they lost is probably doku. He’s better than Mahrez.
They played with intensity, were organised and all looked like they wanted to win. None of which was on display by United yesterday. If Spurs played like us they'd have lost by at least 4 nil.
That doesn't matter because Liverpool will also get 2 more titles.
I mean the ref definitely made a mistake but how other City fans can focus on that is beyond me. Grealish is never doing going to achieve anything on his own in that situation
I'm not saying we're guarantted to win it, but this is common enough for us to be honest.
We've had a rotten run of fixtures recently but it ends with Villa on Wednesday, I do worry about tiredness as we have the club world cup and will be playing catch up a fair bit but if we're with 5 or 6 points at the turn we'll be right in the mix.
Wednesday we'll have played Villa, Spurs, Liverpool, Chelsea, B'Mouth, United, Brighton, Arsenal in our last 8 games with CL fixtures interspersed.
After we have the easiest run in the league to the new year. Luton, Palace, Everton and Sheffield United to the turn with Brentford postponed. By comparison, Arsenal have Liverpool, Brighton, Villa and West Ham. Liverpool have only really Arsenal and hopefully you guys turn up, but right now we'll be right in the mix I feel with KDB to come back. We're honestly about where I'd expect us to be, just the fixtures have fallen weirdly and Rodri had a moment of madness
He terrifies us, because we defend so high and only Walker actually has pace. Laporte used to fake injury to get away from him.
Defender is 100% wiping him out if play continues anyway.
I don't disagree about other teams may make a better account of themselves. My point is only into New Year that usually when the title contenders start to pull away from the rest. A few points less at this stage of season from previous season doesn't say much about lower level. Liverpool got the exact same point they had right now after 14 games for same 2020 2021 season. They topped the table for the calendar year, and only fell off into mid table by the turn of new calendar year, before going on a title winning like run to finish 3rd place. PL was still considerably stronger than other leagues with 2 PL teams in the CL final (us in EL final).
Man City is missing KDB hard. Agree, they're in a littler transition phase of some position of the squad, and without KDB, they're suffering some minor issue.
We scored 3 goals at the Etihad last season but conceded 6. Spurs should have gone the same way.
The charges relate to seasons up to 2018, we would get 2 and they would get 1 I think
Sky will be happy with their super Sunday bollocks as all the games were good, for some viewers anyway.
And many of us defended us/ ETH last season even after such result/scoreline because we saw the positives/ right direction ETH had the time.
This season, we haven't seen that same mentality. It's been just damage control Frankenstein style of play that saw even bottom half teams threatening us. Played negative against stronger teams and still got battered and lost even at home (losing what made us good last season). There is no positive from that approach.
Tottenham could and should have lost this game no doubt.
Interesting.
Spurs were poor, City equally so.
Spurs have one way of playing, they don't change and that's their downfall.
They should have been buried at half time.
Do own goals count towards a players total?
edit; never mind. I checked around and it seems they don’t. Could be interesting if they did and the golden boot was a close race.
edit; never mind. I checked around and it seems they don’t. Could be interesting if they did and the golden boot was a close race.
I think more than just in attack (where Haaland seems to be letting City down with the chances he's missing), its the ability to see out games where the loss of experience in a Mahrez, KDB and Gundogan is really telling. They've been unable to now see out wins/draws vs Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs with late goals conceded.
Well we were talking about this season and this weekend.
However, we were never in that game last year and were 4-0 before we scored the first and 6-1 down before we got the last two late on. I'm not sure you can compare the two performances at all. There was no jeopardy in last year's match for City.
Spurs could've easily been 5-1 down in the first half. City could've missed their chances vs us. I'm not seeing a team we should emulate defensively.
Who's right?
Fair play to Spurs for changing it up in the second half. Didn’t really expect it tbh.
Roy Keane basically emulating my thoughts on how naive and stupid they were to play the way they did in the first half.
Roy Keane basically emulating my thoughts on how naive and stupid they were to play the way they did in the first half.
I didn't say we should. We were abject yesterday and showed very little desire to win at all apart from the last 5/10 mins.
Not often I'd agree with Micah over Roy but I think he's right here. I don't think there's any way Ake gets up for that ball with his position relative to its height. Kulusevski simply has the momentum and the jump on him
The thing is total football may mean committing the defensive line into attacking phase to take risks gambling on trade off.
Could have gone badly, but it works out here and there using the attacking. Playing negative with a weak/weakened defensive unit especially when the head coaches are not experienced with such approach in the first place is still a bad approach. Just parking the bus is not enough against teams like City who is too used to play against such tactic. It still takes the right personnels, coaching, bond and trust between teammates, motivation/belief in the the game plan to consistently pull it off. If being like Mourinho is easy, there would be a host more of managers like him winning smaller trophies just telling their teams to sit in the box.
Maybe not but if he concentrateds on heading the ball he could well have put Kulusevski off enough that he doesn't score. As it was it came off his shoulder.
Pep just refused to answer the question on the referee decision and then answered it anyway. As well as a weird comment about Mikel Arteta.
He's knows how to toe the line. He's critical without being critical enough to get himself in trouble. Invoking Arteta let's you know what he really thinks.
I think he could be stronger for sure, his big mistake is not seeing Kulu coming. I'd pin that goal more on the complete lack of anything from Walker and an exhausted Bernardo being nowhere nearing putting pressure on the cross if I'm honest. Walker makes a silly dash to the near post leaving the guy literal yards to play the ball.
Ye I agree that the title doesn’t usually get talked about until after new year. Was just my opinion that I don’t think city are as good as last year. Last season they’d of beat Liverpool at home and put away the chances. They’d of beat spurs and they’d of beat Arsenal like they usually do. KDB is a huge player and a big miss but as they have the best quality squad in the league they wouldn’t miss him as say like we’d miss Bruno. They’ve got enough quality replacement across that team. Although it would be interesting to see how they’d cope say Haaland got injured. They’re also conceding much more goals. 4-4 with Chelsea and 3-3 with spurs.
Oh fully agreed - it was a clusterfeck. But this is why he had to be sent to the screen to confirm it - in some respects the loss of the corner is a bit of karma for the Brighton players appealing so vigorously.
His "if i speak" moment
Angry Pep is the best, can't wait for everything to crumble to hear his thoughts. He will probably run away and hide for a year or two.
Madness to think that wasn’t a penalty. It was a very obvious one.
You're overrating Mahrez's impact last season. And they're not exactly starving for goals (scored 8 in the last 3 games), so while KDB walks into the side when fit, it's hard to say they miss his creativity too much.
I do agree with you that they miss Gundogan, but not for his goals. Gundogan (and Grealish to a lesser extent) were pivotal in City being able to retain possession and see out games.
Doku, Alvarez and Foden aren't patient players, willing to hold the ball to allow the team to set into position. They're looking to make something happen. B Silva alone can't overcome that dynamic. So what you see is a lot more turnovers and opportunities for the opposition to counter and transition.
And further back, Pep is trying to shoehorn Akanji into the Stones role in midfield and it's not working 100%. Rodri is great but he can't do it all, and his strength isn't running backwards trying to get back possession. City can't afford to drop Akanji from the midfield but they need Stones back ASAP.
I think the perfect starting 11 for City, with no injuries, looks like this:
Haaland
Grealish B Silva KDB. Foden
Stones Rodri
Ake/Gvardiol Dias. Walker
Ederson
Perfect mix of athleticism, ball retention, pausa and goal threat. Right now their balance is off and it's showing in goals conceded.Grealish B Silva KDB. Foden
Stones Rodri
Ake/Gvardiol Dias. Walker
Ederson
Agee, whats wrong now is we're too chaotic, Haaland, Doku, Alvarez and Foden is a front 4 who play without control. They are all always looking for the killer pass or killer dribble etc... no one in that 4 has any patience. It's almost Liverpool like. In midfield, Bernardo is my fave player, but he gets sucked into the nature of the game, he'll play with control and poise when the rest of the team do, he'll play end to end chaotic when the team do. So its all a little headless chicken with Akanji stepping into midfield too. Rodri must feel like he's stuck standing at the net in a tennis match in our current system.
Hopefully Stones is fit for Villa because they're a tough nut to crack at Villa Park. Looks like we're going there without Doku, Grealish, Rodri, and Nunes. Its gonna be a touch ask if Haaland gets suspended too.
Best case scenario, will be
Ederson - Walker, Dias, Gvaridol - Stones, Kovacic - Bernardo, Foden, Alvarez - Haaland and I'd worry about that team at Villa Park. Swapping Stones for Akanji and it gets very worrying.
If you only line up with 10 players you'll be in trouble for sure.
It feels like there two things going on, which are a bit connected.
IMO, the biggest is missing Stones. Akanji just can't step into midfield in the same way and he doesn't have the same comfort playing alongside Rodri as a pair.
And then the second is moving from a Grealish/Bernardo wing pairing to Doku/Foden in most matches. Its not really clear to me why Pep has opted for this change. Having a player like Doku definitely creates a different dimension in attack but City was such a smoothly oiled machine last spring. Its like Pep took what was one of the most dominant sides in recent history and pre-emptively decided to change it significantly before other teams figured out counterstrategies. Which could be a genius move or could be too clever by half.
If you only line up with 10 players you'll be in trouble for sure.
It feels like there two things going on, which are a bit connected.
IMO, the biggest is missing Stones. Akanji just can't step into midfield in the same way and he doesn't have the same comfort playing alongside Rodri as a pair.
And then the second is moving from a Grealish/Bernardo wing pairing to Doku/Foden in most matches. Its not really clear to me why Pep has opted for this change. Having a player like Doku definitely creates a different dimension in attack but City was such a smoothly oiled machine last spring. Its like Pep took what was one of the most dominant sides in recent history and pre-emptively decided to change it significantly before other teams figured out counterstrategies. Which could be a genius move or could be too clever by half.
I forgot Lewis in the midfield but he's so lightweight he offers little defensively anyway.
Stones is the big miss for sure, Akanji I think is fine on the ball but positionally poor (which he is occasionally even at CB).
I agree on the wings too, to an extent. The front 4 is just too chaotic and lacking the poise and control we're used to. I think one of Jack or Bernardo should always play. So Jack and Phil or Bernardo and Doku. I didn't like Jack and Bernardo when they played last season as I felt it was too slow and not attacking enough, though dominated the ball, kinda creates the opposite problem to what we have now with Foden and Doku. I have no idea why Pep is persisting with pushing the CB into midfield and not a fullback why Stones is out. I'd probably chance Lewis at LB so he can step in if Stones is not back.
I do think though the return of Stones and in the new year KDB will add a lot of poise and big game control to the team. Just hope it's not too late. You guys seem much more controlled than last season and last season's experience will see you stronger at squeaky bum time. Of course, when Liverpool are one of those runs where they're banging in late winners and coming back from the dead they're also a huge challenge.
Thankfully after Villa, we have a nice run to the new year and you guys and Pool have to play each other, might be the only thing keeping us with 6 or so points of the top.
Keane is right imo, i playeds centre half at way less less levels below, any ball coming in, im anticipating its over first guy, this at my level would drive me soft