FA Cup Final - Manchester City 6-0 Watford FC - 18/05/2019 Match Thread

It just backs up the view that goalkeepers are by far the least important and least valued part of a team. You would never ever see an outfield player dropped for a reserve.

Which goes on to show why goalkeepers should never ever win POTS. It's a lesser role.

 

One crucial thing people seem to have strangely forgotten in the Foster-Gomes debate is that Foster made some calamitous errors in the run-up to the final, which played a major part in us missing out on 7th place. In the case surely you would pick the more in-form and likely fresher goalkeeper, ie the one that got us to the FA Cup final against three fellow mid table PL sides vs one in a team that picked up 4 points in their last 24?

I don’t believe purely sentiment played a part in this decision, and it’s a bit insulting to Javi to suggest otherwise.

 

Of course it was sentiment. Foster was on fire before the semi final and we still picked Gomes out of loyalty. If Gracia genuinely thought Gomes was the better option he would have dropped Foster during the league run in.

 

The BBC encourage the opposite so they are interchangeable.

Shaun Wright Phillips wittering on about how hard it was City winning the treble and then presenter pipes up with “let’s bring in someone who has done just that twice, Alex Scott”

 

That’s pretty harsh. Doucoure is clearly Prem quality as well, and of the rest I reckon Holebas, Kiko, Janmaat and Cathcart could get into at least Palace or Newcastle’s teams, Gray, Deeney, Hughes and Foster into at least Burnley or Southampton.

I think people saying that certain players of ours are Championship standard are overestimating how good the Championship is. Without GD and RP, the squad is still a good deal better than the one that nearly won the title in 2015. Out of the 11 sides that came up with us and since, 6 have gone back down in the next season or two, and all of them except Wolves have finished below us at least once.

 

Wholesale changes aren't needed but some very obvious ones are I'm sure you'll agree.

 

He won't be going to Heaven, that's for sure.
Gracia has booked his spot thanks to Pastor Gomes.

 

I imagine with the Premier League trophy on one side, the FA Cup on the other, and with the League Cup on the floor by the bed in case he gets caught short in the night.

 

Doucoure is a midfield player, and I covered that in my quote of "We have a Premier League midfield". The others would get into squads of lower EPL sides, but I don't think many would be regular starters if I'm honest. They are still good enough for our squad, but we do need to raise the bar in defense and up front.

 

Oh I agree. I'm just telling you what I worry Gino will think based on this season's performance.
I think we have a bottom 6 squad as it is, would be battling against relegation next season if we sell Doucs and don't use the funds to strengthen, and in 5 years we'll look back to the high water mark of 11th and cup final in that glorious season 2018/19.

 

The run of 2 wins in 9 did include 4 top 6 sides, three of them away from home, in fairness. But yeah, hard to defend the last four games after 7th place was in our hands when we had Wolves to play and a run of fixtures comparable to theirs.

In all honesty, I’d prefer us to start badly and with some fresh and astute signings in the next but one transfer window finish the second half of the season with momentum for the next one. Makes the season more interesting and less frustrating that way and makes me have more confidence in the players’ fitness level and desire to be at the club long-term.

 

Where does he keep his steroids?

 

Guardiola so ruthless that he didn't play their Top Scorer in Aguero and picked Gundogan whilst sitting De Bruyne on the bench? He made similar decisions based on the players who had played most in getting them to the final.

 

Sorry I misread your post, and forgot you already mentioned Foster. D’uh!

And of course Capoue is clearly PL quality, how could I forget.

 

Very true HB1. Many of us last summer called for another striker and a couple of CBs. I think Prodl and Britos will leave and Success has not taken his chance so needs to be sold along with Sinclair. Kabasele has indeed been inconsistent leaving just Mapps and Cathcart who are not getting any younger. In my view Wilmot should be given a chance at CB rather than midfield. Unless Dodi or Cucho rock up we do need a quality striker this time around.

 

TBF Jesus is pretty much on a par with Aguero who would have come on had they needed him. KdB was on his way back from injury.

 

De Bruyne certainly didn't look injured. But I take your point.

But the point of the OP was that Guardiola would never be so naive as to not play his best team but his best team has Aguero in it - I think everyone would realise that. It's also dubious that Gundogan or Mahrez are in their best 11. And Sane and De Bruyne not.

 

De Bruyne returned to training this week and wasn't match fit. It would have been more of a risk to start him.

Take your point with Aguero, but a number on the City forums before the match argued that Aguero really wasn't playing well recently. From memory, I think I read that he "only" scored 2 goals since April 1st, although I'd probably fact check that in case my memory is failing me.

Mahrez always destroys us and Gundogan is their best like-for-like replacement for Fernandinho.

 

Then it's the managers fault for not resting players often enough and still picking players woefully out of form. It doesn't sit well criticising Gracia after this season but that is the harsh reality of what you have said.

 

There's a secret compartment in the back of the Community Shield.

 

Think the Prem is beginning to break into little mini leagues, obviously the bottom few teams aren't that far off Championship standard if at all, but there is a difference emerging between the middle of the Prem and the Championship. Definitely shouldn't rest on our laurels though! We could go either way, keep a hold of our key players, strengthen smartly and be a top half team, or we could lose the likes of Doucoure and Deulofeu, have injuries, see older players decline and sign a bunch of duds! Don't think that'll happen in one go though mind you!

 

Foster's form has been awful since the Wolves game. There is little evidence at this time to say he would have made any difference at all.

 

Fernandinho, one of their greatest players, is a supreme master of the unpunished professional foul

 

Perhaps that's true, although in fairness, without Quina and Clev, we're left with Chalobah, who looked well off the pace in some of the earlier Premier League games. Played pretty well against Chelsea, but who knows how he'd have done if he'd have had to play more games? Perhaps Wilmot could have been retained rather than loaned out to Udinese, but did Gracia get a say in that?

 

The problem with that is would players that could make a difference want to sign for a club who have started the season badly and could well be staring relegation in the face!

 

Actually I think it has the opposite effect. Players want to play for a manager they can trust, who will treat them fairly and will keep to his word. Someone like that can quickly gain the trust of his players, and when you're dealing with big players, it's vital to have them trusting and believing in you. Without that, you do not stand a chance.

 

Good points, the midfield has been pretty much top 6 level all season, but ultimately it does look like they ran out of steam. Add to that an early booking for Doucs and our weaknesses elsewhere and it was a recipe for disaster. While I wouldn't call this a fluke result, if it had been us against City in the League Cup final, I dare say we'd have given a much better account of ourselves!

 

We were looking over our shoulders when Deulofeu arrived to be fair. Not staring relegation in face as such, but in a bit of a pickle definitely!

 

Yes, this is the million (or maybe 50 million) dollar question. It could be our tactics, that we play too open against the top teams or it could be cos our best players are generally midfielders and our goalkeeper which makes it easier for top teams to score against us and stop us scoring. In some games it looks like we r going 'toe to toe' but really all that is happening is our midfield is competing well while the opposition have better strikers to score their goals and better defenders to stop us. 7 of del boys goals were against 2 relegated teams, he looks world class against **** teams or a knackered wolves Even when Troy does score from open play it's almost never against a top 10 team let alone top 6. Andre can score against anyone cos of his pace and movement but his build up play isnt the best and Isaac never scores.
I think we should be proud of our players for doing so well against the bottom 14 given their shortcomings. It suggests they are pushing the limits of their abilities in those games. The wage bill and our net spend over the last 4 years are lower than our league position which is a big achievement. We can complain about the lack of money spent on our defence but personally I view it as a work of absolute genius to spend so little on defenders and comfortably survive in the PL 4 years in a row. Absolute genius.

 

Accept your point re: RP & Hughes, but replace Capoue & Doucoure with whom, exactly?

 

I agree with the genius part of our ownership, but you do get what you pay for. The defense is not good enough. We've spent next to nothing on it and it shows. We're not staying up because of our defence. Having said that, it did play a big part in our very first season. Only 20 goals conceded in the first 19 matches. Since that time it's been pretty appalling. Only 7 clean sheets in the league, meaning in 31 matches we've conceded one or more goals. It's a real problem that we are so easy to score against, and puts a lot of pressure on other parts of the team having to score at least two to win.

For a low level club, of which I guess we are, we have to be solid defensively. From that you can have confidence when you attack. There are clubs at our level with much better central defenders. I'd take Dunk and Duffy from Brighton, Mee and Tarkowski from Burnley or Ake from Bournemouth. All of these players would vastly improve our defence and they are players well within our scope of pulling power.

You could even look at the Championship to see Dawson at West Brom, or Cahill on a free from Chelsea. I'm not expecting Watford to sign a world class defenders, but I would like to see players who are solid reliable Premier League central defenders as priority signings for next season.

 

I admit they have had injury worries but there has been occasions where both Cleverley and Chalobah have been on the bench. Fit enough for the bench, fit enough to play. Quina has only really recently been injured. Wilmot was being used as a CM. There has been times when there have been options.

As I say, hard to criticise Gracia after the season we have had. And we all may have done the same thing as he in the situation. But if players were burnt out in the last few weeks, we haven't been wise to it. And the composition of our squad isn't balanced enough to compensate.

 

Do you think they'd see us a step up or sideways ? If the latter why would they move ? None of those would be cheap enough for Gino even if they wanted to move to us. Far more likely that any signings will come from Italy/Spain.

 

I'd take them all too. But I am near certain they are all out of our financial pulling power.
If that is true, we should be looking at getting these types of players before they get to that point...

Jake Cooper, Liam Cooper, Craig Dawson, Ezri Konsa, Calum Chambers, Andreas Christensen....all within our scope and capable of being our version of the players you mention. This is the market we will be in I hope.