- Jun 13, 2008
- 21,907
- 32,629
Reading some of this stuff you’d think we were on the end of another 5-1 hammering by them. Or that we’d lost 3-0 at home to some average mid tablers. This Man City side are arguably the best footballing side in Premier League history. What were people really expecting? That we were going to go there and play them off the park with virtually the same side who last season lost to them twice up there and once at home? Or who lost 4-1 up there the season before that?
For me, as I said in the ratings thread last night, the disappointing aspect of it is not learning from previous games against them or showing any preparation and ability to adapt and learn.
We rocked up again against them seemingly oblivious to how they go about playing football - the triangles they play in the wider areas trying to create overloads etc. That's about three or four seasons in a row where De Bruyne has run riot against us and just had the freedom to do whatever as we leave that right half space/channel he loves completely vacant for him and our fullbacks totally exposed.
I'd hope no one was under any illusions about the task of playing City, you have to endure watching your team under pressure and without the ball for long spells and you'll probably get beat. But time after time we don't seem to be learning against them and make things far too easy. We're miraculously escaping with results when, to be quite honest, we don't really deserve to, and whatever our plan has been has totally not worked.
There's other stuff like how we construct our possession against decent high pressing teams, which we still struggle to solve, but i'll leave that. However to reach the very top we've got to improve and find solutions in some of these games. We very much look second best - that I can accept, but the way I view football I don't like seeing deja vu games where it looks like no effort to learn from the past and to keep getting exposed by teams in the same way. Win, lose, or (fluke) draw.