UEFA Champions League/Europa League 4/5/6 December *** Spoilers ***
- Thread starter Cosimo
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Silva hasn't been great for about a year now, had a great start to last season but apart from that he's been no where near as good as the hype around him suggests. Mata for example is much more consistent
Caporegime
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He is, but he also has a tendancy to drift in and out of games and be a weak girl too often. He and for some reason Hazard got loads of praise for the Arsenal game, when we were terrible and Hazard was completely crap and Mata outside of his delivery for the goals, was actually terrible, gave the ball away constantly, misplaced passes, etc.
Spanish = automatic fawning, nothing more or less. The only player who didn't automatically get it was Cesc as he was at Arsenal before Spain won 3 international titles. Silva didn't get bought by Real or Barca for a reason, he's small, he's got a tendancy to kick out and trip a lot when the game isn't going for him, he disappears in big games. Its why he gets less rated friendlies and less starts in big games for Spain, same for Santi, and to a lesser degree Mata. Mata is easily the best of the three, and while he can drift in and out of games, when he's in the game, he can be incredibly effective with some really fantastic passing to create goals.
I don't think Mata is necessarily brilliant at defending or anything, but when the game isn't going their way, backs to the wall kinda game, at least he tries to defend and help the team, Silva never does and Santi hasn't proven effective at that yet.
Wenger when talking about this game seems to keep saying things similar to "lots of younger players", not much experience and then single's out Meade for a decent performance.... which would be because the other young players, Jenks, Coquelin, AOC, have all played several champs league games before, loads of first team games and while "young" aren't inexperienced or new. For an "youth" side, he played very few reserve/youth players, and only had one new face in the team at any one time. I think back to similar situations a decade ago, a throw away already qualified CL game or a early FA/league cup round, and we'd have at least 5 reserve team members in the team and we'd still look better than we did last night.
So Rooney's starting tonight to keep him fresh for the Derby, good idea in principle especially if he scores another couple of goals, if he gets injured though we'll be screwed come Sunday....
Team for tonight then....
--------------De Gea--------------
Rafael---Smalling---Jones---Evra
--------------Carrick--------------
-----Cleverley--------Giggs-----
--------------Powell-------------
-------Welbeck-----Rooney-------
Subs: Lindegaard, Wotton, Buttner, Scholes, Fletcher, Young, Hernandez
Not sure I like the idea of starting Cleverley or Carrick either but there's no one else
Team for tonight then....
--------------De Gea--------------
Rafael---Smalling---Jones---Evra
--------------Carrick--------------
-----Cleverley--------Giggs-----
--------------Powell-------------
-------Welbeck-----Rooney-------
Subs: Lindegaard, Wotton, Buttner, Scholes, Fletcher, Young, Hernandez
Not sure I like the idea of starting Cleverley or Carrick either but there's no one else
Its all well and good saying we should sign X and Y not Z but if the player doesn't want to join what choice do we have.
The likes of Bayern, Barcelona, Real and so on don't want to sell their best players so how can we sign them. Besides its not the lack of Messi and RVP our team is still full of great players, we couldn't beat Ajax and Dortmund showed us up twice. We can't keep thinking oh if we had De Rossi we would have won that match or if we bought Hazard we would have qualified. Its embarrassing that with the players we already have we didn't qualify.
As for the summer signings, we didn't get our supposed top targets but we let players go so they had to be replaced. Johnson and De Jong didn't want to sit on the bench so we had to replace them with players like Rodwell and Sinclair.
In Nastasic and Garcia I think we have bought two good players and Nastasic definitely a improvement on Savic and Kolo, Garcia when he is fully fit will be an improvement on De Jong.
The likes of Bayern, Barcelona, Real and so on don't want to sell their best players so how can we sign them. Besides its not the lack of Messi and RVP our team is still full of great players, we couldn't beat Ajax and Dortmund showed us up twice. We can't keep thinking oh if we had De Rossi we would have won that match or if we bought Hazard we would have qualified. Its embarrassing that with the players we already have we didn't qualify.
As for the summer signings, we didn't get our supposed top targets but we let players go so they had to be replaced. Johnson and De Jong didn't want to sit on the bench so we had to replace them with players like Rodwell and Sinclair.
In Nastasic and Garcia I think we have bought two good players and Nastasic definitely a improvement on Savic and Kolo, Garcia when he is fully fit will be an improvement on De Jong.
Personally I cant see Garcia ever being better than De Jong, he looks like an extremely average player and the only team that did good out of the Sinclair/Johnson merry-go-round is Swansea because they've replaced Sinclair with Hernandez
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Evra won't be playing, Buttner is.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Vermijl playing instead of Rafael, too.
Hopefully Scholes & Giggs start together along with Powell - Fergie has said he isn't picking a team with the weekend in mind, purely going off who needs games for match fitness etc whilst keeping it respectful to the battle for second place.
So I'd hope that means he wheels out Scholes/Giggs with a blend of youth and people needing some fitness.
Caporegime
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I've just realised I'm away on Sunday, thank god.
Caporegime
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For me whats happened is, owners backed Mancini, spent a buttload over 2, 2.5 seasons. They won a title and they wanted Mancini to simply build on that and didn't want to back huge spending in Summer. Mancini started throwing his toys out of the pram, certain managers expect to continue spending at "rich" clubs continuously, while every rich club has after a point, asked their manager to make do with whatever ludicrously expensive squad they've put together.
Basically I can't see them backing another spending spree and will be more inclined to think along the lines of, he's flopped in Europe with top teams for donkeys years, is throwing another 50mil his way going to change his utter inability to succeed in Europe... almost certainly not. Do they need another 50mil on Sinclair's, Rodwell's, Garcia's and Maicon's, the wages that go with it, and how will they get rid of people to replace... I can't see it happening.
Ultimately the guys they need to replace to improve the overall quality of the team are the guys he's just brought in, and they haven't got a chance in hell of shifting any of that lot with the wages they'll be on and performances. Maicon, no one in their right mind would buy him, not unless City subsidise their wages.
I can only hope for some of these peoples sake, that some of the manager contracts people have been getting allow to fire people on the cheap. Backing Mancini on a new deal when he's flopped for years in Europe, without a way to get out on the cheap would be mental. I can't believe Real signed Jose up to such a stupidly long term deal considering his lack of staying anywhere for more than a few seasons, and generally leaving a problematic squad behind him.
We won't spend in Jan I don't think,
Txixi and Soriano will be very wary of signing players after the last window. Possibly some sales though.
There is a lot of arguing on city forums about our summer spending and how bad it was but I have said on there, it doesn't matter how much we spent or who on our team should still be able to get points against the likes of Ajax and Dortmund. Its not as if we have sold Yaya and Aguero then replaced them with Sinclair and Rod well. The signings in the summer simply added to the squad and in some instances improved upon on the player they replaced eg Savic out and Nastasic in. Really cannot see why they are getting worked up, I guess it is just ranting still
Txixi and Soriano will be very wary of signing players after the last window. Possibly some sales though.
There is a lot of arguing on city forums about our summer spending and how bad it was but I have said on there, it doesn't matter how much we spent or who on our team should still be able to get points against the likes of Ajax and Dortmund. Its not as if we have sold Yaya and Aguero then replaced them with Sinclair and Rod well. The signings in the summer simply added to the squad and in some instances improved upon on the player they replaced eg Savic out and Nastasic in. Really cannot see why they are getting worked up, I guess it is just ranting still
Because you sucked
We won't spend in Jan I don't think,
Txixi and Soriano will be very wary of signing players after the last window. Possibly some sales though.
There is a lot of arguing on city forums about our summer spending and how bad it was but I have said on there, it doesn't matter how much we spent or who on our team should still be able to get points against the likes of Ajax and Dortmund. Its not as if we have sold Yaya and Aguero then replaced them with Sinclair and Rod well. The signings in the summer simply added to the squad and in some instances improved upon on the player they replaced eg Savic out and Nastasic in. Really cannot see why they are getting worked up, I guess it is just ranting still
Do the majority of city fans agree that manchini isnt very good though? Regardless of summer signings that Man City squad should have quailified for the knockout stages, at the very least.
Ajax maybe (although they showed how technically good they are not only in the games against you but also the games against us last season) but Dortmund now have to be genuinely considered as one of Europe's top teams I mean even those who may of thought the results against City were a fluke this is a team that almost beat Madrid on their own patch and then did beat them in their home game.
No one will want to draw Dortmund in the next round (I fear we will though)
Newbie there are plenty. Some have been calling for his head since last season.
Tom i agree, Ajax are a good team and Dortmund are a very good team but we still should have got points against them. Its easy to forget some players we have but many are up there with the best in the world in their respective positions so you can be forgiven surely when you think you shouldn't be completely overrun and outclassed like we were?
Tom i agree, Ajax are a good team and Dortmund are a very good team but we still should have got points against them. Its easy to forget some players we have but many are up there with the best in the world in their respective positions so you can be forgiven surely when you think you shouldn't be completely overrun and outclassed like we were?
Going to Celtic tonight for their game against Spartak Moscow. I'll be in the Celtic end, but I'm not a fan (though rather Celtic than Rangers 
). Hoping it should be a good match, and Celtic will have to go out there playing to win as they need to better Benficas results against Barca.
First time at Celtic park as well, so that'll be interesting. Shaping up to be a chilly night in Glasgow though.
). Hoping it should be a good match, and Celtic will have to go out there playing to win as they need to better Benficas results against Barca.First time at Celtic park as well, so that'll be interesting. Shaping up to be a chilly night in Glasgow though.