Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [6th - 11th April 2012]

Must admit I found it bizarre that Mancini didn't sub Balotelli who had already been booked and was boiling over - it's almost as though he wanted him to get sent off to deflect attention away from their failings in general (Sky annoyed me a bit after the match, aside from an interview with Arteta there was basically no credit to/analysis of Arsenal, just talking about Balotelli).

I said it ages ago but I don't understand why MC have to take a risk on Balotelli, he's a liability and when you are the richest club in the world you don't need to take risks like that, just buy some players without the attitude. At a club with lower resources, say a Spurs, I could understand taking a punt on somebody that you know could be trouble but may take you to the next level with their ability.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Utd deserve the title, I still don't think they've come anywhere near City's form in the first half of the season, but it doesn't matter, City were tearing people apart, but winning 6-1 against Utd is still only 3 points. Utd haven't won many games as well, winning to games by 1 goal is obviously better than winning one 6-1, and losing one by a single goal.
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This is a very good point.

I was astounded that Balotelli didn't come off at half time, and then when Tevez came on for Aguero I ended up lost for words, bizarre thinking. I also agree to an extent that Mancini just uses Balotelli to deflect criticism from his generally clueless management.
 
Dont know if anyone has mentioned it but Mancini has come out and said Balotelli wont be playing again for City this season and theres every chance they will try and off load him in the summer...well thats what i was reading on the SSN breaking news ticker.

Personally i think Balotelli is a character off the field but on the field hes a liability...would i have him at Arsenal??...nope not in a million years, he may be a good player but today he showed hes an absolute disgrace with some of his tackles.
 
HangTime said:
You can't just dish out medals willy-nilly though, you have to draw the line somewhere otherwise Hargreaves would get one for the 9mins he played last season or whatever it was. 6 games out of 38 is a pretty small proportion.
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He's still club captain, comes in at half time, gives pep talks, gives advice and comes in for training. He only played 6 games due to a really bad injury, but his impact in his role as Captain can't be underplayed, he's still been important.

awaybreaktoday said:
Balotelli would be good at united. I would love to see him play for us. Under fergie he would become an absoluty fanatastic player. Fergie knows how to get the best from poeple...
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So does Mourinho and he shipped him off and described him as "Unmanageable".
 
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The look on the Man City owners faces was a picture. It's a shame there isn't a tighter finsh to the league, but the battle to stay in the premier league looks like it will go all the way to the last game !!!!
 
It's pretty much written in a player's job description that if they feel any contact in the box then they go down. Managers basically get annoyed if their players try to stay on their feet and mess up the shot because they are put off or off balance. I agree it is just trying it on most of the time, same way the players appeal for handball at every available opportunity.

Old fashioned "honesty" in the game has pretty much died out. It is pretty sad that this is the way football has turned out.
 
cm1179 said:
...milner was playing? wow lol didn't even notice him!
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Its hilarious how winning and being ahead in the league fools people into thinking certain players are great.

Milner, Barry, Koralov, Balotelli and Nasri were all VERY poor buys by Mancini, and as usual these are the guys they'll have the most trouble offloading. THey want to offload Balotelli, fine, not a bad idea, who will take him for both anywhere near how much he paid. Milner/Barry/Nasri both, won't be wanted nor even in the same ballpark.

While english football seems to want to vilify Balotelli as an excuse for Mancini, he didn't do anything dozen's of other players don't do every weekend, a couple bad tackles, boo hoo, one really bad tackle, so what. He's still scored 13 in 21 games and he's the only one people might actually want. The other guys have been monumental failures, cost a huge amount to buy, and are on huge wages for guys who are ****.

City most likely would have won the title had they bought better, they paid absolute top drawer prices, for average/ineffective players.

Had they bought much much better they really could/should have won the league, they really should have anyway. How many people are proclaiming Silva the best player in the league, great up till just before xmas with the rest of the team(though lazy, petulant and workshy anyway), since then he's been mostly meh.

Playing Barry all season was ridiculous, and dropping De Jong after being so brilliant for them the previous season was equally stupid. Making the same huge mistakes over and over, Nasri and Silva together rarely if ever worked. Insistence on using Koralov for his freekicks because he can score 2 in the league in a season..... Switching Koralov with Clichy constantly helped neither player, and considering how **** Koralov is defensively and their lack of wingers, there wasn't a reason to either.

Aguero is quality but has had no service for a couple months and motivation/man management wise Mancini hasn't been able to pull them out of their slump for 3 months. THey still got results but were so obviously going downhill since xmas and he couldn't turn it around in the slightest.

Utd started well but had a slump in performances and results, and what a title winning manager does, he turned it around.
 
Been a good year overall if United win the title.

Dissapointed with the pathetic cup performances, but it looks as if He's thrown everything at winning the league this year and tossed the cups off.

But I'll forgive him that for getting rid of Brown, O'Shea, Gibson, Diouf and (very much looks like) Berbatov this season.
 
I hope Man City owners go after Jose for next season, just for the interviews I miss him. It would add something else to the title battle and he's a master at absorbing all the interest and headlines to deflect from his players. City need that I think.
 
atpbx said:
tossed the cups off.
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Is that even legal? :eek:

On the topic of Man City's purchases, I have been saying that Milner and Barry aren't good enough all season. even when they were top of the league.. They both did well when playing for mid-table teams, but the difference in quality between them and midfielders for the other "big" teams is massive. And it's for that reason I hope that neither of them get into the England team for the Euro's..
 
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Monkeymatt said:
Is that even legal? :eek:

On the topic of Man City's purchases, I have been saying that Milner and Barry aren't good enough all season. even when they were top of the league.. They both did well when playing for mid-table teams, but the difference in quality between them and midfielders for the other "big" teams is massive. And it's for that reason I hope that neither of them get into the England team for the Euro's..
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Well, Milner and Barry are good enough, just not good enough to be first choice for a team with title aspirations. They're great squad players but both are typically English lots of effort, little ability footballers.
 
Poor management and player disruptions have cost City the title.

The way they have handled both the Tevez and Balotelli situations is unbelievable. I think losing Yaya Toure to the African nations cup also played a big part as they missed him a LOT when he was there and he hasn't been the same since he got back (probably fatigued).

He also hasn't utilised his squad properly (players not looking tired at the "business end" of the season), which Fergie is a genius at doing. Even with all the injuries we have had this season we have coped tremendously.
 
I personally think Balotelli is adicted to the buzz you get when you get away with doing something "naughty", especially if it is right under the nose of an authority figure, i.e. ref, manager, FA etc. He's probably been like this since a child.
 
Miguél said:
Poor management and player disruptions have cost City the title.

The way they have handled both the Tevez and Balotelli situations is unbelievable. I think losing Yaya Toure to the African nations cup also played a big part as they missed him a LOT when he was there and he hasn't been the same since he got back (probably fatigued).

He also hasn't utilised his squad properly (players not looking tired at the "business end" of the season), which Fergie is a genius at doing. Even with all the injuries we have had this season we have coped tremendously.
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Yaya and City's form dropped well BEFORE the ACN, Yaya infact looked improved for his first few games back from the ACN without really any break, but likely for the whole period training and playing games at a far lower intensity than he would have been for City so even playing it was like a mini break.

I think one of the main reasons for Yaya and Silva's severe drop in form(Silva's much MUCH more than Yaya's) was down to playing them basically every single game till xmas. There are a few managers out there who just aren't good at rotation, but play the rest of their squad when they are forced to through injury rather than through rotation.

IE De Jong played every 2-3 games from when he got fit(was injured start of season IIRC) and when they finally had to play him, he would have been far more in form. As it was he had a couple games near xmas where he was all but terrible, he just looked unfit, out of form and not sharp at all, while several games later he looked back to his old self.

He did that with too many people, no rest for Silva/Yaya, few games for De Jong and ridiculous decision to play Barry over anyone else.

He doesn't even have the English work rate thing really, he's slow and stupid, defensively in error all season long, mis reading runs, doing stupid things all over the pitch, wrong decisions going forward, poor positioning. City could and should have played a 4-4-2 simply dropping him for a striker, he hurt more than he helped. Yaya almost completely free to go forwards and De jong covering defensively is a very very potent combination.

Ultimately City excelled when the attack was working, and started to suck when the forwards got no service, two strikers works better than one, two strikers playing as strikers rather than one as a very very poor winger also works better. 4-3-3 is the latest "in" system yet there is still only 3-4 teams who actually play it better than they play in a 4-4-2.
 
Silva has played 30 EPL games this season , plus god known how many European / other cup games

I have to admit I was a little surprised that Rooney has clocked up 27 EPL appearances (subs for both are about equal with 2/3 each)

43 / 36 in total appearances this season, so while not a huge difference - this is probably one reason why Rooney looks fresher and still affecting the team positively while Silva looks exhausted.

Evra has played 30 League and 40 games in total (most other Utd players have been affected by injury /general rotation), and in some games this has shown to have an affect (whether its aging legs or SAF not trusting Fabio) but PE has been showing his age a little this season.
 
Looking forward to our visit to West Ham today, West Ham form at home hasn't been to good this season so there a chance for an upset. It will be a tough game especially as we just played on Saturday so our squad will be a bit light today. Won't be dissapointed with a draw, a win will be brilliant.
 
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