Manchester City 3-1 Watford FC - 02/01/2018

More so for them than us as they’re only out of the relegation zone on goal difference, but yes lose to them and it’s clear we’ll struggle to stay up.

This is the stupid thing about our defeats to Swansea and Palace, as disappointing as it was to lose the lead in those games its far more important not to let a team below you gain points on us, our team is currently so weak they couldn’t grasp that and even get a draw. It’s vital we just don’t lose against Southampton as it keeps them 5 points away not 2!

 

The fact that silva kept the goal difference down shows his tactical nouse. Goal difference will be our saviour

 

I take your point but it would have been easy to capitulate to a City team that we all recognise as being superior to the rest of the PL.
The team need to show a more clinical edge against Saints and I would go as far to say this game will be the biggest of Silva's career.
His credentials are going to be on closer view than his watch!

 

I think it was more of a let off by City with some woeful, wasteful finishing than anything else. Watford did keep going and finished well, but I think you shouldn't read too much into it.

Forget being 10th. We are within 5 points of relegation, and we're in a scrap if we lose to Southampton. I don't think Silva will survive if we lose to them as well.

 

To be fair, the fat man missed the easiest tap in of his life against Palace so probably worth remembering.

 

It’s a fair point. Game on and it’s 2-0 after 14 mins. However the team deserves some credit for not getting a tonking after that. Saints game is huge.

 

Yes.....how can I forget it. Gray has missed sitters, Richarlison has missed sitters and so has Deeney. Gomes has made mistakes, Janmaat is a liability as is Holebas. Zeegelaar is showing signs of weakness and gives away too many cheap free kicks.

The defence is disorganised and is too easily breached.

There is a few good things about our side, but a hell of a lot wrong. The window of opportunity to turning it around is reducing match by match.

 

Positives:

a) We let them win the game inside the first minute so they didn't really need to get going for the rest of the game and therefore didn't smash our goal difference too badly
b) Somehow Capoue was our best player (not sure if this is a positive or a negative actually)
c) Carrillo has some end product all of a sudden
d) Gray scored
e) All things considered, our centre back pairing wasn't that bad

Negatives:

a) Our currently available full backs are really, really bad at defending.
b) Gomes. The errors are racking up now, all of them the same type - shots low down that he spills or lets through him.
c) Doucoure and Richarlison are starting to look really tired.
d) I don't see any of our injured players coming back soon.
e) We look scared, there's been a collective collapse of confidence and I'm not sure we have any leaders in the dressing room.

Lolz:

a) Jerome Sinclair being a Premier League footballer
b) Capoue doing an outrageous showboating no-look pass backwards into his own half to Zeegelaar, who then went on a mazy dribble but left the ball behind
c) Two of the clearest penalties you'll ever see not being given by the officials, one for each team

 

It seriously winds me up, every time he does that.

 

I thought we deserved to win.


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Despite being a fan of Silva until recently, I'm actually more concerned about relegation now under him than I ever was with Mazzarri. When we inevitably lose to Southampton, the few positives we're currently taking from tonight's non massacre will be revised to City having treated the game as a training match due to having had it won after 39 seconds and therefore letting us off the hiding we otherwise would have taken.

This transfer window is the most important the Pozzo's have ever had as our owners. Getting it wrong = back to the Championship.

 

You can’t just forget about the position. If we were 16th or 17th and 5 points clear then it would be far more precarious.
The fact is, we are one of the smaller clubs in the league and pretty much most seasons there will be times when we are looking over our shoulders. That can be said for probably 60% of the teams in this league.
As for tonight, like most people I feared the worst but we stuck in there, got a goal and also should have had a penalty. Fair play to Gray who by all accounts did ok and was in the right place to score. For all his faults he does at least keep getting in the positions to score. I wouldn’t class Southampton as a must win but more a mustn’t lose.

 

Why is that inevitable ?

 

Good post Knight GT!
I would only add that in not losing to Saints we have to set up to win,unless we sign The Kaiser in the next month! Our ability to close out a game is non existent.
I dread to think what RC will be like if Gabbiadini scores for them!

 

Exactly what I posted earlier. A draw is fine, obviously we should be going for the win, but if we’d managed to at least secure draws against Palace and Swansea then they’d both three points further away from us than they are now.

 

Just watched the highlights on Sky, and we do have huge problems with our wing backs. This is where most of our problems lie. The opposition can get in behind us far too easily.

After 30 odd seconds Sane skins Janmaat as if he wasn't there to set up the first goal. City had so many good chances to score and it only their poor finishing that prevented another rout.

Aguero and Stones missed sitters and there were numerous other chances you would expect a team like them to convert. They also hit the bar too and probably should have had a penalty.

Going forward we did look quite decent, but I wonder how much was that down to City going a bit gung-ho and leaving gaps. We certainly don't look that good going forward in any of our home matches.

Our problems are big, but there are a lot of poor sides outside of the top 6. We need to battle hard against these teams and get those victories. My concern is, we look far better away from home and we tend to get spaces to play going forward. At home, we've been dire all season, and this is where most of our relegation battles will be. The only really weak side we have left to play away is Stoke.

I really hope the club have some aces up their sleeve in the transfer market as we need strengthening at the back. Janmaat can go as far as I'm concerned, along with Holebas. They cost far too many goals. Zeegelaar is only going to be back up at best, as he too is weak defensively.

We need someone that can finish as well. That's going to be tough to find on a budget, but we're missing far too many good chances. Gray had two great chances before his goal, and he's just not a natural finisher. We cannot rely on him, but play against a high backline, he is sharp at getting onto the ball and running. He's just no good in a 1v1 situation.

City are a wonderful side, but they did have the slippers on tonight. Don't forget this team played only two days ago, so it was expected they may tire later on.

 

It is in my mind, because I've lost all faith in the teams ability to get a result when it really matters. And because we've contrived to lose to two different teams that were bottom of the league, despite leading both games with only minutes to go. I'm also convinced that any decent signings we make will be out injured within a few weeks of being here. A lot of negative projection on my part, but that's what this team has done to me over the past few weeks. I normally wouldn't be so down about it - it's just that earlier in the season they were playing so well, even when they lost.

Goes without saying that I hope I'm completely wrong.

 

After being one down in the first minute I expected the pre-match predictions of a complete tonking to come true, so only losing 3-1 almost feels like a win, and Gray scored as well

 

Southampton fans are saying that losing their next game to us, is inevitable also .

I’m confused , who should I believe ?

Unless we see the first ever game in history where both teams lose .

Is that what you are saying will happen ?

 

Just back, my thoughts:

• Man City are superb but let us off lightly tonight
• That said, despite the appalling start we were well organised and disciplined and I couldn't fault anyone's effort
• I wasn't convinced it was a penalty, although the officials did tend to give City the benefit of every doubt
• £10 for fish goujons and chips was a bit steep

 

I only saw the game on a stream so am in no position to comment on the display, but well done to all the Hornets who made the journey

 

fish goujons! What utter madness is this?

 

Not much to be said but here we go:

Kabasele was fantastic and Wague not far behind. Felt sorry for them, you can only withstand constant bombardment for so long.
Ditto Gomes despite the obvious error.

Enough has been said about the woeful fullbacks. I don't care about the crosses coming in, as lets face it you're up against a hugely potent, speedy attack. The positioning and lack of awareness about the far post is still disgraceful.

Midfield understandably knackered. Gray decent. Frustrating, but once again the instinctive chances go in and the thoughtful ones don't. Aguero probably just as bad, in all honesty. His finishing has been pretty awful this year (once you consider just how many chances he gets).

Shame that when we pulled it back to 3-1 we were so knackered. At the time I felt we could have salvaged a bit of confidence by giving it a bit more of a go, even if we had lost 4-1. Perhaps in hindsight, we were never getting another two so energy preserved.

Annoyed that my bet of 6+ City goals didn't come through.

 

Zeegelaar main man at fault for first and third goals; he falls asleep when he's meant to be defending, huge defensive liability.

We weren't playing with wing backs - it was a 4-5-1 again. City were getting in behind our full-backs Janmaat and Zeegelaar way too easily, due to Janmaat's lack of pace and Zeegelaar's lack of awareness and alertness.

Wague has been a positive since coming in at least and has been the only one of our CBs along with Kabasele and Kaboul to have looked good enough on the whole this season so far.

 

Whilst they are going to walk this league, Palace demonstrated how to defend against them. Unfortunately Silva doesn't have the technical nous of Uncle Woy.

 

In isolation the game and performance would go in the 'ok' file. We showed a good bit of fight and some of the passing moves going forward were reminiscent of early season promise. The fact the game comes on the back of our lengthening poor spell made it look a lot worse than it was. If we perform like that against some of the lesser sides we will pick up points.

Some thoughts on Man City.. it was obvious they were streets ahead of us in terms of overall play, as they have been for most other sides this season. But some of their labored approach play was infuriating to watch. Players like Silva just walking the ball around was like watching a pre-season friendly or a continental game. You could argue they were tired.. or showing their control of the game.. or that we should have been closing them down quicker. All valid points but i thought it was crap to watch at times & far from the normal play we are used to & love to see in England. I'm guessing we will see more of this in future as Premiership managers/players worry about fixture build ups.
Commentary- it's not their fault per se but listening to the way the commentators are now fawning over every little thing they do is puke inducing. Fair enough when they are in full flow but they only have to trip on their boot laces now and it's "What majesty from this City side" Take their second goal for instance. The commentary on the game i was watching went something like.. "and City score with precision again" It was an OG ffs!
Lastly.. it looked like they had three players offside for their third goal. One of the commentators briefly mentioned it but there was but a murmur in our shoutbox.. a place where normally people are up in arms about anything near a decision going against us. Had we all given up by that point?

Sorry if i sound bitter but there were certain factors of last night gaming i found pretty annoying.. and it wasnt strictly the fact we lost.

 

That's 10 points from a possible 39. Ouch.

 

It’s even worse than that. Only 10 points from the last 42.

 

Both Man U & Spurs were getting behind the wing back from the first minute (& this was with Femenia in the team).

All other teams have noted & exploited this.

When such a chronic problem, you can't just say that we will somehow pick up 4 or 5 wins.

 

Exactly. Unless there is a radical change, be it coach, playing staff, tactics, I don’t see how we will be able to win enough games to stay up. But we did beat a good side like Leicester during this run, so there is some hope, however slim.

 

Don't disagree with much of the top points. I think over the busy period, they were trying to conserve energy and let us chase them. It's boring, but very effective at holding out leads.

There were a number of players offside for their third, but the ref decided that they were not 'interfering with play'.

If you disagree, you'd probably have to scratch off our goal also, as Pereyra definitely distracted the goalkeeper from an offside position.

 

I think Silva's high pressing style got us off to a good start, but cannot be maintained through November/ December without quality rotation options. Our midfield looks absolutely shattered.

We're crap. But with a couple of good signings and some players back for injury, I'm fairly confident that we will scrape through.

 

Despite missing a number of easy chances, I thought that Gray did fairly well yesterday.

I'm not really too bothered about the tap in itself. More that he genuinely looked up for it, competed well for every ball and made some clever runs to stretch the defence. For the first time this season, he helped the team more than he hindered it.