Manchester City 2-1 Watford Tues 24/09

I thought Porteous had a great game apart from the first goal. I’d even cut him a moderate bit of slack for the first goal as he was played in under pressure.

 

Woeful delivery again (shock) from the free kicks by both Chak and Ince.

 

I don't think the lack of VAR made any difference to the ridiculous decision to disallow Baah's goal. No way in the world would some Stuart Attwell clone have overturned the ref's on-field decision and gone against City.

 

Some Positives:

- one of our best results against them in recent years
- we were obviously under the cosh but I think we still showed an ability to counter and created good opportunities
- Baah, He’s exciting and unknown.
- Even at 2-0 we were defending with commitment and energy which I take as a sign of good team spirit as it would have been easy to roll over.
- Chak
- we’re not funded by oil with a sense of entitlement to automatically expect to win every game and league and cup
- our away fans

 

I agree. If you take away the error for the first goal, I thought he was solid and defended aggressively.

 

in hindsight having been able to finally see the replay I’d sadly say you are probably right, despite having been utterly indignant about it at the time

 

I'll concede he was good against Grealish in the same way we conceded an early goal.

 

As good as a win as far as I'm concerned. When is the draw for next round?

 

What about hair oil and olive oil which the Italians produce in abundance.

 

I wondered why we only lost by 1. Jack Gaughan has the answer:



Apparently, making 9 changes doesn't factor in to this assessment.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...rdiolas-advance-Carabao-Cup-fourth-round.html

 

Hmm, good point well made, my bus driving friend.

 

That article reads like something out of a Man City fanzine. Was it really written for a national newspaper?

 

Because we didn’t win I am not officially required to walk down the high street naked, as promised. But I felt it appropriate to flash my wife behind closed doors, given the sense of elation that a slender loss engenders.

 

Bond - Had a decent game IMO. Not at fault for the goals, and made some good saves.
Ebosele - Also had a decent game. Looked OK to me.
Porteous - Apart from the first goal **** up, he had a decent game IMO.
Ogbonna - Had a good solid game, quiet but effective.
Morris - Reasonable game overall.
Larouci - Considering who he was up against, I thought he did not do too bad, despite being roasted a few times.
Ince - Great goal, and a great goaline clearance, did not really notice him much other than that, but that was enough IMO.
Louza - Waste of space IMO, did nothing, and missed a very good chance that he should probably have netted.
Sema - Decent all round performance, did his job well, IMO.
Baah - Surely did enough to retain his place for Saturday, was unlucky to have his goal chalked off, but it was probably right, just!!!
Bayo - Does he actually know he's supposed to put the ball between the posts and in the net? I'm not sure he does?

Chakvetadze - Great performance, looked really sharp.
Vata - Can't say I really noticed him very much.
Pollock - likewise did not really notice him very much.
Dele-Bashiru - A few decent touches, did OK.
Dwomoh - Not on long, but did so much more than Louza, a decent little cameo from him IMO.

 

We wuz robbed!

 

I’m sure all nine would have played if they had just had 24 more hours recovery time. The football authorities are clearly out to get them, what with this and those 15,000 trumped up “broken rules” charges.

 

Some are born with class and some have class thrust upon them:



Just when I thought that I couldn't possibly dislike City any more...

 

In my view we counter attacked with pace very well late on through Chak mainly but
with other willing runners.
Can someone explain to me what it is exactly that Bayo does ?. I never see him running at
defenders with the ball . Goals are a very rare commodity and he can be bullied by a lump at the back. Please don't say that he "presses well" because you need zero technical
ability to be able to press.
Louza just wandered about occasionally giving a loose ball away but everyone else gets a thumbs up
from me regardless of any errors .

 

Meh, let two pathetic goals in, the first was criminal. It’s one thing to be cut open by a much better team, but to giftwrap and then personally hand deliver them a goal on a silver platter is unforgivable, it just highlights such a pathetically weak mentality.

Grew into it a bit more in the second half, which is understandable when they’re comfortably winning and are sitting back a bit more (and despite them still having enough chances to win a few more games) but as is often the case, our cutting edge and decision making in the final third was pathetic.

The amount of times we got into a promising position where we were matched up player for player, or even had an extra man and then somehow contrived to make such terrible decisions was soul destroying.

I think on one occasion we inexplicably passed it all the way from their box back to our own keeper.

We didn’t get humped, we scored a goal and we didn’t embarrass ourselves, but with a bit more brainpower and mental toughness we get a result. They made 9 changes, played some actual children and didn’t really care about going through, but as usual we still found a way to **** the bed in multiple ways.

 

"Come 'ere pet - take a look at me slender loss!"

 

2 poor defensive mistakes, one you would expect to get punished with every week, one you would get away with 9/10.
OK we rode out luck, but we were well organised, had a game plan that we stuck too and had moments where we caused them problems.

Baah must be a nightmare to play against. Not a center forward in the traditional sense, but a great outlet, which really suited the way we played last night.

A shout out to Porteous. Despite his poor error at the start, coped well with Grealish all night getting some vital tackles and blocks in as well. Also shout outs to Morris and Ince. Defensively did exactly what they needed to and both did well.

A decent performance, enough to boost moral and team spirit going into Saturday.

 

I am a man of means - of slender means.
(Morrissey)

 

He protests too much. Their line up included four of the last England tournament squad, Stones, Walker, Foden and Grealish the latter being the joint most expensive English player ever.

 

Got the home leg to play yet.

 

Weren't Soton also top of the league when we beat them 7-1 in the 2nd leg ? This is far from over.

 

Considering their starting line-up consisted of Grealish, Doku and Nunes who all cost them around €240m combined it kind and of tempers your expectations a bit.

We certainly showed an improvement on the Norwich display which is positive but we still have individual errors which need to be ironed out and some players think they are better than they actually are or can't be arsed to put a shift in. Hopefully Clevs can motivate Louza more (or we sell him in January) and thankfully Bayo is only around this season.

 

If Louza could put the effort in that Bayo does he would be worth his place. However this arrogant individual doesn't have a team ethic, so I hope never to see him in a Watford shirt again.

 

To be fair we made 8 changes and give some minutes to players that haven't really played for us. I would debate that we probably cared less about going through than City did seeming as we had no chance of winning the competition anyway and I don't buy the myth that City don't care about the competition seeming as they always seem to win it or at least be in the final. They still played Foden, Grealish, Stones,, Doku, Walker and Nunes who they bought from Wolves for over 50 million. The only actual inexperienced kid to start was that branthwaite and in fairness he got saved by the referee for Baahs disallowed goal.

 

Nice to not be completely embarrassed for once. Probably won't equal that result against them for another 10 years. Thank **** City chose not to put out a full-strength team, we'd of lost by 6 or 7 otherwise.

Baah looks dangerous, surely has to start against Sunderland?

Feel Ince probably deserves more time off the bench in future Championship games.

I can see why Louza is no where near the starting XI, felt like there was potential there when he first joined.

Bayo is still and always will be complete and utter turd.

Back to concentrating on lower mid-table.

ORNETS

 

We probably won't play them again for 10 years.

 

Pep literally said “I’m not wasting my energy on the league cup” they may have never previously taken it seriously but this is the first time he’s openly said, I literally do not care about this cup.

They didn’t want to get through and were there for the taking, a bit more common sense, composure and most of all self belief and perception of the situation in front of them and we could’ve gone through.

Who cares if we still wouldn’t win it? Why not worry about that in the next round. With City out of the way we’d have / considerably better chance than we ever did before.

 

Plus some squad player who cost £53m and scored. Harry would definitely have described this as 'bare bones.'