Match Threads Man City vs Spurs - Match Thread

[mpickard2087]

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.

 

[Lilbaz]

BBC. 74-26
Livescore. 73-27
Makes one wonder how they come up with these figures and with such a disparity what game were they watching?

Possession isn't actually possession. It's based on how many passes each team makes.

 

[luRRka]

BBC. 74-26
Livescore. 73-27
Makes one wonder how they come up with these figures and with such a disparity what game were they watching?

 

[madroosta]

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.

The problem is though, whist we as a club are evolving don't you think that now Pep truly understands the players he has that he is going to help his own team evolve. He is a fantastic manager, as is Poch, the huge difference being the tools each of them have. Trippier cleared off and left us exposed on that side which definitely has a mental impact on the players, especially those that linked up/he linked with, Eriksen is stalling on his contract, same again in terms of mental impact, new boy/s in the team that need time to gel along with the current crop needing time with them to gel also. It's not like we've hit pause on the play button from the end of last season and started again. We are a different beast in my opinion and one that will come good over games against the lesser teams which allow us to build confidence and strategy.

 

[luRRka]

Possession isn't actually possession. It's based on how many passes each team makes.

Passes or touches. We had 689 touches to their 802. Comes out at 54%-46%.

The 73% or whatever is probably on time spent holding onto the ball or something

 

[John48]

I May not be a football expert, but it’s quite a feat not to look dangerous from a Pen.

Yep, sorry meant corners.

 

[doctor stefan Freud]

The morning after.

Most of us were drooling over the possibility of taking a point from this game prior to kick off. We achieved that.

Was the performance good? Not even close. We were way below par , we were outclassed, yet we got a point.

Should we be satisfied? Of course not. Not in the sense we know we can play better. But still, we shared the points, coming back twice from a goal down. There’s a very strong argument too that we were more clinical on the day compared to City, which statistically we were.

Should we be concerned? Maybe. But in truth, this is a team in transition. Ndombele and Lo Celso haven’t been signed to grace the bench regularly; they’re here to play lots of football. Sessegnon hasn’t been bought to train with the reserves, he’s here to break into the squad. I honestly don’t think we’re going to see the best from us for a good few weeks while our new identity is reconfigured. I expect us to be a work in progress for a little while yet. But fortunately there’s enough quality in the side to take points while this happens. It took Poch over a year to forge the identity of the team a few seasons back. While the rebuild is much less dramatic this time, it won’t happen over a preseason.

And my feelings on Eriksen are complicated by how historically he’s been excellent for us, yet over the last seven or eight months he’s been much more inconsistent. If this is the effect of a mind and heart looking for other pastures then it’s definitely time for him to move on. If Lo Celso offers Eriksen’s ability to initiate attacks and combines this with Lamela’s tenacity, I think we’ll manage without him. I really rate Eriksen but if his head has been turned, we’re never going to get the same out of him at the level of consistency required for us to forge ahead with our reconfigured identity

 

[shelfboy68]

City are a fantastic side with good player's but we also have good player's but pep coaches them differently in that they pass, move and get the ball back a lot quicker than our ponderous, controlled approach, it seems at times lloris had more touches of the ball than Kane did and showed way too much respect to them.
Pep tried to unsettle us by claiming we would challenge them and were the second best team in Europe all of which is nonsense, however before the game yesterday I would have taken the draw and I'm happy enough now but we must improve quickly so onto the next game coys.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

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.

Spot on mate it’s not very encouraging to be honest

 

[ardiles]

Passes or touches. We had 689 touches to their 802. Comes out at 54%-46%.

The 73% or whatever is probably on time spent holding onto the ball or something

Then we should have had a higher percentage because I recalled Rose hanging on to the ball every time he took a throw in.

 

[Col_M]

I have not read the match thread but have a question
Did we see var level out the mistakes today ?
Did not give pen to city (lamela)
Even out with aguero goal looking glaringly offside and everyone pretending they couldn't see it ?

Or do I not understand offside and need very strong glasses ?

Sorry if this has been done to death.

I don’t think there was much for VAR to assess. Nothing much with Lamela. Aguero’s goal wasn’t controversial in the least. KDB was ahead of him when he crossed.

 

[gerishep]

Man for man surely City are not that much better than us. Swap the managers for a year and I reckon Pep would be doing better than Poch. I'm afraid we don't look inspired more tired.

 

[fletch82]

I don’t think there was much for VAR to assess. Nothing much with Lamela. Aguero’s goal wasn’t controversial in the least. KDB was ahead of him when he crossed.

Was he I wouldn't know
At no point was he behind our back line and I thought it was hard to tell if he was behind the ball when it was played ?
All I know is normally replays will check that he was onside and on this occasion nothing was said/checked at all.
Just seemed odd is all.

Even so a point away to them at the beginning of the season when we are not settled yet is a bonus and I for one was thrilled with it.
I cant understand people moaning about us not playing like barca

 

[Gb160]

Peps teamtalk for when we play them next:

Lads, it's VAR.

 

[Houdini]

Possession isn't actually possession. It's based on how many passes each team makes.

What do they call the time/period between a player receiving the ball and releasing it?

 

[hughy]

When we struggle against mediocre teams with a full strength starting 11 I'll start to panic. Too much has been made about how poor we were yesterday, not sure what everyone expects when we're missing 2 or 3 of our big game players who would have usually started.

Next weekend is important for me. Newcastle at home is a game where we can really start to introduce and test Poch's preferred XI and formation for the season. I'm confident we'll be looking a lot stronger and feeling a lot better about ourselves by the time we play the Gooners.

 

[ILS]

My issue with the way we have played for the last 18 months is how many times we go back to Lloris from a good position on the pitch. I find we do it more when Sanchez plays due to his lack of confidence on the ball. Having watched Liverpool last season it's very rarely you would see VD or Matip pass the back to Alisson unless it was absolutely necessary. Klopp was only moaning about it yesterday.

This whole point takes me back to listening to Rio talk about his first training session at Utd and he took the easy option. Keane ran straight over to him and screamed in his face that this is "f..ing Man Utd and you do not take the easy option" Watching City and Liverpool their centre back's play forward more. People could argue it is down to lack of movement but instead of playing a ball into Kane from the halfway line we would rather go 40 yards backwards and ask Lloris to do it or ping it out of touch over the full backs head.

I get so frustrated watching this and it is something we have to change.

 

[Lilbaz]

What do they call the time/period between a player receiving the ball and releasing it?

They tried measuring it but they kept fucking it up. So now it's passes and touches.

 

[Houdini]

Passes or touches. We had 689 touches to their 802. Comes out at 54%-46%.

The 73% or whatever is probably on time spent holding onto the ball or something

That's called "possession"...

'Ball possession is the amount of time a team possesses the ball during a game offootball. Possession is usually expressed as a percentage (for example, 60% for team A, 40% for team B)'

 

[luRRka]

That's called "possession"...

And it's not how anyone except flashscore or whatever you mentioned measures "possession"