[Classical Mechanic]

Said it in another thread, but unless Valencia is crossing from the right or Rashford is making his runs, there is absolutely no creativity from our other players. I don't mean lumping the ball into the box, but some creative play to open up a chance. We will bully the poorer teams in the league, but we will suffer more frustrations like today if we do not make a huge improvement. Rashford should be a starter for now and Mkhitaryan needs to be given encouragement by being named a starter.

So Mkhitaryan puts in the worst and most cowardly performance of the season so far and you think that he should now start automatically?

 

[Verbalkint]

He really isn't. They are 2 really good, young players. Both should probably start, picking neither today was crazy.

Well, yeah man. Martial's a very good young player too, and i agree that they should both start. Just wonder what's up with Martial currently, he looks fatigued to me.

 

[Bruno8]

We miss Carrick in midfield and once he starts to get games we will see a massive improvement in how we control the match. Age aside he still the best midfielder we have

 

[TheNewEra]

I personally think City had one big advantage in Silva and KDB yesterday, two players with good experience at the top level and also a year in the Premier League (KDB) and Silva more-so.

I felt Mkhi and Pogba weren't ready for yesterday (Pogba was great) but still needs to develop understanding the the midfield because him and Fellaini left gaps.

Would say that Blind got caught twice but could have won the game. Season is long from done.

 

[Z_Wolf]

As long as Jose refuses to play 3 in midfield, We will drop points here and there. Otherwise, we can win the league because I can see city dropping points especially once CL starts. With their intensity it's hard to play 3 games a week.

 

[Frank Grimes]

Well, yeah man. Martial's a very good young player too, and i agree that they should both start. Just wonder what's up with Martial currently, he looks fatigued to me.

A rest will do him good, played a hell of a lot of games lately plus his split with his wife can't have done him good. Yesterday was no day to drop him though.

 

[VivaObertan]

I don't understand why the majority are placing the blame on Jose's tactics. In my eyes, they were absolutely fine - unfortunately our wide players were non-existent in the first half and our front two continuously lost possession of the ball.

That's not tactics, it's a lack of quality on the day.

Mkhitaryan, Lingard, Zlatan, Rooney were all atrocious and failed to carry out the manager's orders.

 

[worcesterred]

It's not. They were the better team on the day and deserved the win. No matter how much it pains me to say it.

The thing is that the season has just started and nothing is set in stone in the first month. We need to pick ourselves up and go again on Thursday.

I see. On what basis didn't City deserve the 3 points in your view then? I'd say the general concesus on the forum has largely been that City were the better side.

U wot m8? We were completely outplayed in the first half and for large parts in the second.

What is annoying is that once we stopped playing the awful, terrifying containment tactic and actually moved the ball about, we matched 'em. We had the personnel to go toe-to-toe, and demonstrated as such for parts of the second, but Mourinho bitched out and by the time he switched it up it was too late. Even more annoying given we were at our own place ffs. Understandable if you're away from home, otherwise its just not a good look. It'll no doubt serve as a lesson learnt, though.

The first forty minutes was a case of us committing hari kari, including the concession of two very soft goals from individual errors which proved terminal. I have no problem with saying that we deserved to lose that game, because we certainly did as a result of those defensive blunders. It's pushing it however to say that City deserved the win.

 

[rooneyaldo]

Is Carrick injured? He would be a better partner for pogba in holding midfield against a technically superior opponent.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Is Carrick injured? He would be a better partner for pogba in holding midfield against a technically superior opponent.

No. He's old. We needed energy yesterday. Three players with energy. We were completely outnumbered in midfield. They would have turned Michael inside out.

 

[SteveW]

He hasn't picked the wrong team other than today.

I disagree. There's a lazy opinion that if you win you must have picked the right team. Sometimes you win despite picking the wrong team. There's been a lack of pace throughout our attack in every game so far.

 

[SteveW]

Honeymoon over already?

Results sometimes mask things. He needs to stop picking names

 

[Tosicsleftpeg]

I don't understand why the majority are placing the blame on Jose's tactics. In my eyes, they were absolutely fine - unfortunately our wide players were non-existent in the first half and our front two continuously lost possession of the ball.

That's not tactics, it's a lack of quality on the day.

Mkhitaryan, Lingard, Zlatan, Rooney were all atrocious and failed to carry out the manager's orders.

I agree, especially with Lingard who had a game that would have made Bebe blush.

I think defensively we did OK when you consider how dominant they were and how exposed the back 4 was all game. If you have players like Silva and KDB breaking the lines constantly you are going to struggle unless your midfield works tirelessly and we definitely didn't get that.

Rooney is definitely looking worse for wear but bloody hell he worked hard all game, special mention to Bailly and Shaw who I thought were great and really emptied the tank out there.

 

[sebsheep]

I don't understand why the majority are placing the blame on Jose's tactics. In my eyes, they were absolutely fine - unfortunately our wide players were non-existent in the first half and our front two continuously lost possession of the ball.

That's not tactics, it's a lack of quality on the day.

Mkhitaryan, Lingard, Zlatan, Rooney were all atrocious and failed to carry out the manager's orders.

It's difficult to tell. There was some very poor performances from a few players in the first half especially Lingard and Mkhitaryan and when players are failing to control or pass the ball you can't blame that on poor tactics. Jose also said that players weren't following his instructions.

At the same time, people spoke about having 3 in midfield before and after the game and I think there is an argument for setting up wrong. City really look to crowd the central areas and are very fluid centrally when they have the ball, we had Pogba and Fellaini in there chasing shadows. We looked better as a 3 even though we no-one was really performing a defensive role in there for a lot of the second half. Guardiola made a change very quickly because he could see what moving to 3 in the middle did for us. Unfortunately by the point it was okay for them to play on the counter so we'll never really know what starting with 3 in the middle could've done for us, It couldn't have been much worse though.

For me it was a case of both poor performances and setting up poorly initially.

 

[ti vu]

It's difficult to tell. There was some very poor performances from a few players in the first half especially Lingard and Mkhitaryan and when players are failing to control or pass the ball you can't blame that on poor tactics. Jose also said that players weren't following his instructions.

At the same time, people spoke about having 3 in midfield before and after the game and I think there is an argument for setting up wrong. City really look to crowd the central areas and are very fluid centrally when they have the ball, we had Pogba and Fellaini in there chasing shadows. We looked better as a 3 even though we no-one was really performing a defensive role in there for a lot of the second half. Guardiola made a change very quickly because he could see what moving to 3 in the middle did for us. Unfortunately by the point it was okay for them to play on the counter so we'll never really know what starting with 3 in the middle could've done for us, It couldn't have been much worse though.

For me it was a case of both poor performances and setting up poorly initially.

About the setting up wrong part. Then it's mutual related to wide players and no10's performance. Let say our wide men having a good game and dominate one on one. Then City center midfielders have to stretch out wide to help cover and the crowded center would be lessened. Here our 3 attackers lost almost every 50-50 challenge and second ball with their markers.

 

[Mark_Barca]

I was impressed by Nolito and of course KDP, Silva and Fernandinho were superb, but the real MOTM was Otamendi who was outstanding IMO.

Great analysis.

In regards to the points above. Otamendi was correctly slated at times last season for his performances, but I thought some was OTT, mentioned that Pep would turn into a much better CB this season. He's been brilliant so far this season. As for Nolito, many on here were acting like he was average, wouldn't be a good signing, he's a quality and very intelligent footballer and will have a big role to play at City this season.

The one thing that has surprised me this year, is Fernandinho. Predicted he would be a squad player, but at the moment he deserves to keep his place.

 

[RORY65]

I don't understand why the majority are placing the blame on Jose's tactics. In my eyes, they were absolutely fine - unfortunately our wide players were non-existent in the first half and our front two continuously lost possession of the ball.

That's not tactics, it's a lack of quality on the day.

Mkhitaryan, Lingard, Zlatan, Rooney were all atrocious and failed to carry out the manager's orders.

Well then why pick two wide players who haven't started a league game yet and are just back from injury when you already know that your 2 most advanced players centrally have no pace? Surely Mourinho might have spotted in training (or earlier than half time) that there was no energy coming from the front. He might have also worked out that having 2 men in midfield, one who is also immobile (Fellaini) and one who has very little defensive instinct (Pogba), might be an issue against a Pep Guardiola side containing players of the quality of De Bruyne and Silva.

I'm surprised people seem to think it was such a tight game, apart from about 5 minutes at the end of the first half and 10/15 minutes at the beginning of the second half, I thought City were very comfortable and clearly superior. The last half hour or so we created nothing and just resorted to long balls whilst they wasted numerous chances to pick us off on the break and the first 40 minutes was more one-sided than the 6-1 game was. The worrying thing is we have a couple of players who will get sharper but no additional players to come back, they've still got Aguero, Gundogan, Sane and Jesus to come in. We're still going to be bang in this title race because we have a lot of quality players who should mean we can easily put away the poor sides unlike under Van Gaal but Mourinho's going to have to learn a lot from this for big games to come.

 

[Oneunited26]

What we know, I was right about playing Pogba and Fellaini in a 2 man midfield, when you have the static rooney and zlaten, we were going to get overrun, Mourinho has to have a long hard think. He needs to play herrera and rashford more, lingard, what the hell was Jose thinking? Its pretty obvious going forward, ESPECIALLY in the big games he must play 433, martial rashford Mkh and zlaten no question are our best front 4

the team going forward in the big games
DDG
valencia blind bailly shaw
herrera fellaini pogba
Martial zlaten rashford

Usual team
DDG
valencia blind bailly shaw
Pogba fellaini
mkh rashford martial
zlaten

Problem is? we have so many options, who do you drop? rooney is defiantly one of them, but jose must use herrera and rashford more, and playing rooney and zlaten is these type of games is rooney and RVP all over again. But in the next few years to come, the engine room must be revisited as we will need that anchor man, unless herrera and morgan step up, which herrera showed second half how much of an influence he can have on this team. The moment he played lingard,a half fit Mkh, leaving pogba and fellaini isolated, and rooney zlaten upfront, we were asking for problems

 

[VP89]

I don't understand why the majority are placing the blame on Jose's tactics. In my eyes, they were absolutely fine - unfortunately our wide players were non-existent in the first half and our front two continuously lost possession of the ball.

That's not tactics, it's a lack of quality on the day.

Mkhitaryan, Lingard, Zlatan, Rooney were all atrocious and failed to carry out the manager's orders.

There wasn't really a press involved at all in the first half. It's only in the second where we started to press high with Pogba and fellaini further up the pitch.

Wrong selection aside, I'm surprised mourinho didn't order the team to start pressing city more until after half time.

 

[M Bison]

I don't get the many points about city packing the midfield. They played the same formation as us, Silva and Fernandinho just did a number on Pogba and Fellaini.

For me the game was won and lost in CM. They looked like they had far more energy, constantly pressing and harrying the ball and it spurred the rest of the team on.

We looked slow and lethargic and were second to everything, the first goal was Sunday league style defending from Miki, Bailley then Blind but it represented the entire first half and our attitude to the game, which for me was driven by the Midfield.

 

[ivaldo]

We miss Carrick in midfield and once he starts to get games we will see a massive improvement in how we control the match. Age aside he still the best midfielder we have

Hell to the no, he's proven he's a spent force and in games like this he gets utterly overrun. He's best reserved for the dregs of the league and cup football.

 

[RedPnutz]

I don't understand why the majority are placing the blame on Jose's tactics. In my eyes, they were absolutely fine - unfortunately our wide players were non-existent in the first half and our front two continuously lost possession of the ball.

That's not tactics, it's a lack of quality on the day.

Mkhitaryan, Lingard, Zlatan, Rooney were all atrocious and failed to carry out the manager's orders.

This. People seem not to realise tactics need to be carried out by actual players, not programmed AI.

We simply had out key outlets Lingard and Mhiki having off days, which failed to help us release pressure.

 

[notcool]

I don't get the many points about city packing the midfield. They played the same formation as us, Silva and Fernandinho just did a number on Pogba and Fellaini.

They didn't. They played 4-3-3 and we played 4-2-3-1. At least in the first half.

 

[RedMachine03]

 

[JaffyJoe]

Why is Herrera getting MOTM votes? he was running round like a headless chicken and completely vacated space in the middle. If Sane was more aggressive and City players moved with more urgency it could have gotten embarrassing.

 

[JaffyJoe]

Second half was also poor. Mourinho really messed up this game. Our problems are personnel related and until he takes out certain players the team won't reach it's full potential.

 

[EyeInTheSky]

Micky and Lingard lost us the game. They both had a stinker.

De Bruyne was brilliant. City fans are going to have heart attacks with their newly acquired goalkeeper.

It was Rooney that's started the early onset collapse, he had easy options to get multiple players in behind city but decided to go for an impossible Hollywood diagonal ball with no margin of error and no real angle and it got blocked and mounted forward leading to their goal. Linguard and the rest were additional issues.

Needlessly Loosing the ball to city each time we have men foward just makes it easy for them

 

[Sam M]

Why is Herrera getting MOTM votes? he was running round like a headless chicken and completely vacated space in the middle. If Sane was more aggressive and City players moved with more urgency it could have gotten embarrassing.

Hererra was very good actually, with hindsight he should have been parachuted in from the start. He was also excellent as a 6 against Bournmouth. Did you watch that game, or only this one so far this season?
Valencia and Shaw were the only others who weren't outright poor.

Changes for Watford? You would expect Smalling to step in, and one of Rashford and Martial to get the nod. Perhaps Mourinho will try Schneiderlin. Will he change the midfield format? Plenty to look forward too and be optimistic about.

 

[JaffyJoe]

Hererra was very good actually, with hindsight he should have been parachuted in from the start. He was also excellent as a 6 against Bournmouth. Did you watch that game, or only this one so far this season?
Valencia and Shaw were the only others who weren't outright poor.

Changes for Watford? You would expect Smalling to step in, and one of Rashford and Martial to get the nod. Perhaps Mourinho will try Schneiderlin. Will he change the midfield format? Plenty to look forward too and be optimistic about.

He should start but what he came on and did yesterday was a no no. He vacated the space and kept ball chasing. City were able to run at our defence 4 on 4 and even 5 on 4 at times. We had no control in there and he shouldd have brought that.

He did well against Bournemouth but he didn't come on a do that yesterday that's how I want him playing beside Pogba. Neither Pogba or Felliani do well marking space and those gaps were exploited by Silva and KDB. If say we swapped Rooney and Felliani for Schneiderlin and Herrera we gain better cover for the defence someone other than Pogba that is competent in first phase Build up and Pogba can play further forward as an 8 and focus on his main strengths. I'm still a fan of Blind and Bailly, they weren't helped by Pogba and Fellaini yesterday but I love their balance.

Why did we play last 30-35 minutes like there was only 3 minutes left? We kept launching it long, players running up leaving huge gaps on the counter, no attempt to build play isolate fullbacks and get our wingers up against them 1 on 1. We were crossing on the side of Otamendi and Kolarov, arguably their two best headers of the ball.

Just a horrible performance individually from players and tactically from the manager..

and I'm about to watch the game again.

 

[glazed]

There doesn't seem to be much consensus on why we lost, other than De Bruin played really well and we had the wrong team in the first half.

What interests me, and makes me quietly happy, is that Jose had a go, instead of fielding a defensive side. I doubt he's do the same at the Etihad. At Chelsea I always thought of him as a bit of flat track bully, crushing lesser teams with tall strong lumps of muscle in his spine, but playing defensive shutdown football against better ones.

 

[Tyrion]

I don't understand why the majority are placing the blame on Jose's tactics. In my eyes, they were absolutely fine - unfortunately our wide players were non-existent in the first half and our front two continuously lost possession of the ball.

That's not tactics, it's a lack of quality on the day.

Mkhitaryan, Lingard, Zlatan, Rooney were all atrocious and failed to carry out the manager's orders.

I think you have a point but part of why they under performed was the pressure they were under. A stronger midfield would have made it easier to pass the ball back and around so players could avoid getting trapped by 2 City players (which happened a LOT to Mkhitaryan).

 

[RC89]

Can't remember a game were mourinho got his tactics so wrong. He made brilliant changes though as he has a history of doing and we made a game of it in the second half. The Rooney dilemma is already costing us. He wasn't the worst player on the day but having him in the lineup forced us to play a two man midfield. Against any top team it's going to be a problem, against Pep it's suicide.

 

[VivaObertan]

I think you have a point but part of why they under performed was the pressure they were under. A stronger midfield would have made it easier to pass the ball back and around so players could avoid getting trapped by 2 City players (which happened a LOT to Mkhitaryan).

I think the point was that we weren't supposed to play our way out of their dynamic pressing but instead bypass it 'by missing the first station'.

It's difficult to say really, especially when we don't know precisely what we were trying to do or what the underperforming players were instructed to do.

This wasn't like LVG vs Arsenal last season, the tactics weren't baffling and clearly inhibiting our play. Certain people just didn't show up which ruined our system, IMO.

 

[ti vu]

Well then why pick two wide players who haven't started a league game yet and are just back from injury when you already know that your 2 most advanced players centrally have no pace? Surely Mourinho might have spotted in training (or earlier than half time) that there was no energy coming from the front. He might have also worked out that having 2 men in midfield, one who is also immobile (Fellaini) and one who has very little defensive instinct (Pogba), might be an issue against a Pep Guardiola side containing players of the quality of De Bruyne and Silva.

I'm surprised people seem to think it was such a tight game, apart from about 5 minutes at the end of the first half and 10/15 minutes at the beginning of the second half, I thought City were very comfortable and clearly superior. The last half hour or so we created nothing and just resorted to long balls whilst they wasted numerous chances to pick us off on the break and the first 40 minutes was more one-sided than the 6-1 game was. The worrying thing is we have a couple of players who will get sharper but no additional players to come back, they've still got Aguero, Gundogan, Sane and Jesus to come in. We're still going to be bang in this title race because we have a lot of quality players who should mean we can easily put away the poor sides unlike under Van Gaal but Mourinho's going to have to learn a lot from this for big games to come.

Even in those underwhelming 40 minutes, there are times Pogba could break through the midfield just to have his teammates to ruin his effort. A guess of the tactic being deployed. Using these 2 wide players who is defensively & tactically nous to hold out to burn City energy, so in the second half getting a more attacking pacey attacker to decide game, may be? Blame also be shared with Blind for two goals and Bailly for the first goal. That is basic defending yet being made in high profile game.

City was not really comfortable when our game clicked and we can tap into the conversed energy to press and our physicality with aerial ball. The amount of volleys (half chance) Zlatan was afforded in this single games is quite plenty. Had we have more quality crosser then it could be very different. City did well in keeping possession to limit our chance, but couldn't negate our game. Had they don't have the leading cushion then second half could have been unpredictable. That means our shit first half with more than just 2 players failed killed our game plan. Football is 90 minute game. We dominated LVG's Bayern in first half, but eventually lose the battle by conceding 2 irritating goals.

 

[mitchmouse]

First up: those saying people are fed up with Jose and want Pep: Pep was always my first choice and I said on here we should have dumped LVG earlier and signed him up. That said, Jose was the guy I wanted once we hadn't done that. He is a huge improvement on the past two wastes of space: he showed yesterday that he has a Plan B (and possibly C) where as Moyes and LVG barely had a plan A. As for the game: we were totally outplayed for 40 minutes and at that stage would have happily gone in only one down but having scored that goal, we probably should and certainly could have gone in at 2-2. We could have scored again in the second half with a bi of luck and the Rooney penalty but we didn't really create a clear-cut, golden chance. We certainly didn' put enough pressure on Bravo in the second half and proved what I've been saying for a while: we need a top top-class winger (of for David Beckham yesterday). Strangely, I felt Basti would have been useful too, to bully some of their midfielders. On the positive side, we matched them in the second half (and they are a better team, with a stronger squad than us in terms of being farther down the road; they didn't need to rebuild as much as we did from last season) and, as I've said, we should have had a penalty and Bravo would have had to be sent off if one of the poorest refs in the business had had the guts to give it. On the poor side: we are not as defensively strong as some people say so I believe the stories that we were in for Varane in the summer: both CBs were at fault: Blind was hesitant but Bailly didn't even jump for the flick on. I felt DDG didn't do enough either; I don't hold with this "given the eyes nonsense, keepers are taught to watch the ball. In conclusion: we will beat a lot of sides but will struggle against the top teams occasionally. We still need another creative player but we would have been hammered in a game like this two or three seasons ago

 

[Tyrion]

I think the point was that we weren't supposed to play our way out of their dynamic pressing but instead bypass it 'by missing the first station'.

It's difficult to say really, especially when we don't know precisely what we were trying to do or what the underperforming players were instructed to do.

This wasn't like LVG vs Arsenal last season, the tactics weren't baffling and clearly inhibiting our play. Certain people just didn't show up which ruined our system, IMO.

That's a good point. Any plan executed that badly looks like the wrong plan. I was thinking about the comparison with the Arsenal this morning when I was watching Sunday Supplement and they were really hyping up City. I don't think you can learn that much from 30-40 minutes unless you also take into account the rest of the game which I didn't think they were doing.

 

[Burrow]

I really dont understand 'The Telegraph's rating criteria...

De Gea 7; Valencia 6, Bailly 5, Blind 5, Shaw 5; Pogba 6, Fellaini 5; Mkhitaryan 3, Rooney 7, Lingard 4; Ibrahimovic 6; Rashford 7

 

[sunama]

I personally think City had one big advantage in Silva and KDB yesterday, two players with good experience at the top level and also a year in the Premier League (KDB) and Silva more-so.

Agreed.
Someone said earlier in this thread that if we had KDB in our team instead of Rooney, we'd have won the game...which I agree with.
The truth is that some of our players just did not put in a good performance. Ibra was wasteful (I still believe his is our best striker), Rooney was average (which is now normal for him) and Pogba was also average. When you add in woeful performances from Lingard and Miki, is it any wonder we lose?

City on the other hand: they had about 5 players who put in seasons best performances. And for the record I do not believe MCFC will play as well as that, throughout the season.

While our form dipped, I think MCFC peaked at just the right time.
The good news for us is that we will improve and there are still 34 games of the season to go.

 

[M Bison]

They didn't. They played 4-3-3 and we played 4-2-3-1. At least in the first half.

KdB played the same position as Rooney just did a better job of it, same with our respective CMs.

 

[sunama]

De Gea 7; Valencia 6, Bailly 5, Blind 5, Shaw 5; Pogba 6, Fellaini 5; Mkhitaryan 3, Rooney 7, Lingard 4; Ibrahimovic 6; Rashford 7

I'm not sure if the Telegraph journo was watching the game.

Baily was one of our best players yesterday. As was Fellaini.
Rooney our highest rated player? Are they serious!!!!