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

Oh please! Have you seen the table? Swansea and West Brom are 9 points behind us. They will not have more points than us at the end of the season. Which means there is one place in the bottom three that we could - conceivably - fill. Thankfully there are plenty of teams below who are far more likely to take that spot than us. With key players coming back from injury and, no doubt, one or two additions to the squad in January, there is no doubt at all that we will start picking up the points we need. We will not go down. So please don't keep going on about it, there's a good chap

 

Regardless of what numbers you type on the page, they are classic wing-backs: Good at getting forward and bad at defending.

 

Agreed, certainly about the commentators; and on the BBC the commentator was effectively confirming the ref's decisions in the face of the evidence of his own eyes. (also am I the only one who thought Wague's tackle was superb, whereas the tackle on Peyeyra was a clear pen?)
I also think that City were trading on their fearsome reputation a bit; a less respectful and more confident side than Watford could have got a lot more out of that game.

 

Fair comment.. it's just the walking with the ball thing that bugs me. At least break out in a jog and make it look like you're earning your considerable income!

Re the offside.. i went back and looked at it. They were all pretty central to goal.. surely that's interfering? Or was it the fact that it went to our keeper first? In which case we are punished because it was a poor ball in.
This taken at the exact point the ball was crossed.



For our goal- Marginal (torso offside, feet not?) and not as central to goal..

 

I admire your sang-froid, sir. Good British attribute which is largely overlooked these days. Nevertheless, it is the direction our results have been going and the nature of them that unnerves people. The bad bits of our season are all coming at once and it is entirely possible that the squad and the coach will find it very hard to change direction and return to winning ways.

 

Highlighting a sentence out of context again. I said unless there is some sort of change I don’t see where the wins are coming from. Somehow that computes with you that I’m saying we will go down.

Just try reading the entire piece before making comments, theres a good chap.

 

You said: 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.
My point is we do not need a radical change of anything. Swansea and WBA will not catch us and there are plenty of teams worse than us to to fill the relegation final position available to us

 

The Leicester result would suggest otherwise. And, let's be honest, were it not for a diabolical refereeing decision to disallow Wague's goal and Grey's p1ss poor finishing we'd have been out of sight against Swansea. I'm not some Mary Poppins character that believes everything is wonderful and I fully understand fans' frustration after the excellent start to the season, but the hysterical reaction by some contributors to the site to every setback is pathetic.

 

What price Marco Silva picks largely reserves for the Bristol game and, realizing the importance of the Southampton game, throws everything into that?
And, if we lose against the Saints, what price he doesn't last the season? Tony Pulis, anyone? He can organize a defence and we would only be doing what Everton have already done this season.

 

City's performance once they were 2-0 up reminded me of ours against Swansea once we were 1-0 up. City had the match won and could just play it around in midfield, with the odd desultory goal attempt which was usually an embarrassing miss. Unfortunately Watford didn't come back like Swansea did as City's lead was bigger than ours, so the result wasn't quite the same. If we'd been awarded that penalty we might have been in for an interesting last couple of minutes, though.

 

Early in the Season he was doing this, so that's why I wasn't concerned by his lack of goals at the time, but last 2-3 months saw him stop doing exactly this. If he can do this again then he won't even be a fan favourite but he won't be on the end of many fan's ire.

 

Do we have any reserves? I hope he picks a strong team on Saturday, as we don't need another demoralising flop. We have to start the recovery somewhere (if we're going to recover), and a match against a team with two bigger prizes to go for would be a good time to do it.

 

You were saying similar things last season. That we would be fine, finish mid table with plenty to spare.

We stayed up only because Hull lost at home to already Sunderland and at Palace. We were incapable of helping ourselves. We had to rely on the failure of others to ensure we survived.

Lessons were meant to have been learned this season, but we are as bad defensively now than ever before.

Our luck will eventually run out if changes are not made.

 

Yeah because Steve Gibson would clearly let us have him for nothing.

 

Thanks for posting those pictures - you make an interesting point. Aguero probably is technically offside and you could argue that Gomes wouldn't have spilt the ball without the other players in his line of sight (although we've seen make similar mistakes this season).

From my memory of the incident, I actually think that Pereyra was interfering with the goalkeeper more than Aguero because Pereyra was running across the ball. Ederson is distracted and drawn across as his interpretation of where the ball is going changes.

Gomes simply needs to keep hold of the ball and the attack is over.

 

I haven't said we'll 'finish mid-table with plenty to spare' - I've said we won't go down. Which, as you correctly recall, is what I said last year when all the numpties were wetting themselves because we'd hit a sticky patch. And, guess what, I was right

 

Oh dear. Another wet knickers reference. Not cool.

 

Oh dear. You use the word 'cool' as an adjective

 

Yeah.. all about interpretation of course.

You could also say that Gomes was distracted by forward players who had gained an unfair advantage by being in front of the Watford defence, who had actually held a good line. For our goal you could say that Pereyra was far enough forward of the ball when it passed him for him not to be interfering.
and thereby lies the main problem with the offside rule (bar things being blatantly missed) Interpretation of the laws of the game opens itself to all kids of debate.
Maybe time we simply scrapped the "interfering" rule as there's too much grey area?

PS Here are the goals in real time..

 

I agree with this. Fine margins can change results. We have had a few really poor performances but I also think we have had some really bad luck. More bad than good that is. Overall, I honestly think our performances demonstrate we are better than most of the teams below us. We will be OK.

 

Very true.

Thinking about it more, I reckon the offside rule is a major part of why people think that players cannot defend anymore. It's complicated enough understanding the replays, let alone having to defend against.

Scrapping it would probably lead to fewer goals and less controversy though, so not sure it will be changed soon unless it starts effecting the big teams disproportionately.

 

As someone above pointed out, that's 10 points from a possible 42 over the most recent run.

I can't see that people are being unreasonable when they point out that this is desperate form and that something needs to change to avoid us from going down. Do the math.

 

I was calm until someone pointed out all the ace teams we still have to play away: we're ****ed.

 

Once you take out all the free swings, all the new managers we'll face and lose to as part of their 'bounce' and all the teams who are on a long losing streak, who will break it against us, how many points are realistically up for grabs?

 

Agreed, completely. Without 5 minutes of madness against Palace and Swansea, and the most ridiculous non pen by Dier against Spurs, we'd be on 33 points and home and hosed. The reality is we have had 2 BAD games - Brighton and Huddersfield. We were more than competing against Burnley at Turf Moorwith 10 men. We were dominating Palace for most of the game til Cleverley's red mist. We thrashed Newcastle when under par. Even against Huddersfield any chance of turning it around was snuffed out by Deeney after half an hour.

We'll be fine. Not challenging for Europe as early results suggested, the disappointment which is maybe the reason for the meltdown, but with Chalobah, Hughes, Kaboul, Kiko to come back, maybe Zarate, and a couple of astute signings, we'll be fine.

Also give Richarlison a holiday. At the moment it reminds me of "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?". Another LB and Zeegelar as winger?

 

Look at the league table

 

Added to which the ease that some attacking players take a tumble.. the veritable wrestling match at corners/free kicks.. handballs given when the ball is blasted at you. They have a thankless task.

We used to say "who'd be a goalkeeper" but you can add defender to that these days.

 

I understand the point you’re trying to make here, but to say we’ve only had two bad games is selling the problem short.

Stoke and Swansea were really poor performances. The other collapses at Everton and Chelsea cannot be overlooked.

You have to look at the defensive issues. Without a strong base, everything else gets undermined. Players lose confidence and performances become subdued as no one wants to make the mistake. I believe this is where side is right now.

 

First trip to the Etihad - Visitors area was very sparse for a £140 million stadium tax payers gift to the worlds richest club, (Newcastle is still the best away area). Hotdog+crisps+giant mars bar + tea for the £10 voucher was reasonable. I thought Gray, (for his work alone for the full match), plus his goal was our MoM - Cleverley made a difference when he came on. Doucore put in a huge amount of work. Carillo gets a mention for his first assist (the boys on fire). Is Wague better than Mariappa? - I am not convinced. I thought this was a game to try three at the back. With the wing backs making it their responsibility to stop the crosses from the wings. Capoue has done his test drive to show perspective buyers he is match fit - though not fit for Silva to place him above Watson in the pecking order. Pereya showed he is not match fit. Silva looks as disinterested as someone turned down by the boss for their dream job. Having told the players he was going to Everton because they don't have the wits or skills worthy of his attention; they are now trying to get him the sack. It now reminds me of last season with the Leicester squad looking awful under Ranieri and similarly I suspect our fortunes will only improve once we change the head coach. Its a shame, i thought Silva would want to do a good job for us - but he doesn't. He knows he will get a better job regardless of our position at the end of the season. Its sad but that's where we are.

 

If you are correct Andrew and many of us have our doubts about Silva,it is more than a little concerning.
Time will tell if you are correct in your assessment of the relationship between coach and players. However if I were a prospective employer looking at a coach I would not be employing someone exhibiting such indifference.
We're all speculating but I really hope the whole lot of them unite and enhance their reputations.

 

It's ok, we'll pick up plenty of pride points for not losing 8-0 to them.

Proud of the lads.

 

The league table tells us we have a head start but if we continue to win 10 points out of every 42 available we will go down. Hopefully you are right and our form will improve but it's the current direction of travel and trajectory that is worrying. Don't expect any big megabucks additions to ride to the rescue in Jan, that's not the Pozzo's way. It's more likely that those around us will strengthen.

 

The fact that any single person on here is suggesting Pulis comes anywhere near this club is quite franky horrifying.

 

We also gifted west ham and newcastle about 4 guilt edged chances each but they were too ***** to take them.

 

Having seen the two penalty appeals on MOTD, I would say neither of them were pens and the ref got it right.

Wague made a great tackle and stopped the ball dead. Their forward then fell over it.

Similarly their defender played the ball moments before half catching Pererya.

By the way, I reckon Doucoure's (ahem) pass to Pererya for that pen claim was one of the few he got on target all night. Did you see the stats? Our passing accuracy 66% compared to their 96%. That, coupled with their domination of possession, was what did for us. Our passing was awful. I was counting their passes and there were rarely less than a dozen clean and accurate passes in each move. Ours rarely got above 2 or 3 before a pass was mishit or it was wellied forward to nobody but their defenders or passed all the way back to Gomes for him to welly it to their defenders.