7 minutes ago, dustbin719 said:

The Kepa incident, very very unfortunate and I wrote down my thoughts in the Kepa thread. I do think Sarri's reaction magnified the negative optics, but considering that this has seriously never happened before in top flight football, I'd be willing to give Sarri a pass. 

I have seen this once before though it was in a foreign match some time ago and the manager exploded at the time. Never seen it in the EPL.

Sarri now has 2/3 clean sheets against City, one of them a 120 minute game. Cant be that bad can we?

Have to give Sarri his due we was set up the only way we can, you cant go head to head with a team like City as we would have got beaten again. Emerson looks like he has been given a chance which many have asked for, CHO and RLC both came on with RLC looking good. These are the changes everyone has wanted to see but it's going to be interesting what Sarri does for the spurs game.

2 hours ago, coco said:

Sarri now has 2/3 clean sheets against City, one of them a 120 minute game. Cant be that bad can we?

In both games we kept clean sheets, we’ve set up the Chelsea way. Soak up pressure & hit on the counter.

Just now, shedpensioner said:

In both games we kept clean sheets, we’ve set up the Chelsea way. Soak up pressure & hit on the counter.

And people were f**kin sick of it under Conte. And Jose.

"Why can't we take the game to the big teams"

Edited February 25, 20197 yr by Stim

1 minute ago, Stim said:

And people were f**kin sick of it under Conte. And Jose.

"Why can't we take the game to the big teams"

People were sick of Conte’s attitude towards the club & his bleating in the media, he also took the tactic to the extreme against City last season.

Yesterday showed a balance between 2 styles, if we played like that in the league we’d be improving.

1 hour ago, Ernie_blue said:

Have to give Sarri his due we was set up the only way we can, you cant go head to head with a team like City as we would have got beaten again. Emerson looks like he has been given a chance which many have asked for, CHO and RLC both came on with RLC looking good. These are the changes everyone has wanted to see but it's going to be interesting what Sarri does for the spurs game.

he'll revert back to type. Carabao cup final, although a final, is still a cup game to managers in their tactical thinking. Obviously.  RLC, CHO subs showed that Sarri treated it as such. It may have the gloss of being a final, but you still have the "cup game" mindset.   He would not have made them changes if it was a league game.  It is going to take far more than yesterday to convince me he can win everyone round.  It wasn't a tactical masterclass, either.  We still have to improve immensely to win on Weds.

 

He couldn't play his style as he knew we'd get hammered, and i think he had no idea how to beat them so used the method which beat them before (common sense) but issue is, we have got worse since then, City have improved.  We had zero shots on target i believe, or 1.  In 120mins -  Regardless if it went to pens or not, thats w**k.  City probably didnt have many more but they absolutely bossed the game, we just made it a dull affair.  Which isnt always bad thing.  He impressed me slightly, but he is not safe

7 minutes ago, RickUK said:

he'll revert back to type. Carabao cup final, although a final, is still a cup game to managers in their tactical thinking. Obviously.  RLC, CHO subs showed that Sarri treated it as such. It may have the gloss of being a final, but you still have the "cup game" mindset.   He would not have made them changes if it was a league game.  It is going to take far more than yesterday to convince me he can win everyone round.  It wasn't a tactical masterclass, either.  We still have to improve immensely to win on Weds.

 

He couldn't play his style as he knew we'd get hammered, and i think he had no idea how to beat them so used the method which beat them before (common sense) but issue is, we have got worse since then, City have improved.  We had zero shots on target i believe, or 1.  In 120mins -  Regardless if it went to pens or not, thats w**k.  City probably didnt have many more but they absolutely bossed the game, we just made it a dull affair.  Which isnt always bad thing.  He impressed me slightly, but he is not safe

Disagree with that, we were the better side and were unlucky not to score. Most of those watching think that 

Shots on target is irrelevant. The chances we created were better. 

8 minutes ago, shedpensioner said:

People were sick of Conte’s attitude towards the club & his bleating in the media, he also took the tactic to the extreme against City last season.

Yesterday showed a balance between 2 styles, if we played like that in the league we’d be improving.

Reminded me of the style we had against city in Contes first season at the Etihad. Contain, frustrate, counter. 

That's a perfectly valid style of football

3 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

Reminded me of the style we had against city in Contes first season at the Etihad. Contain, frustrate, counter. 

That's a perfectly valid style of football

Yes, it is after conceding 6 against them.

Just looked on BBC match stats all against us apart from the foul count -

City 22   CFC 7.

23 minutes ago, RickUK said:

he'll revert back to type. Carabao cup final, although a final, is still a cup game to managers in their tactical thinking. Obviously.  RLC, CHO subs showed that Sarri treated it as such. It may have the gloss of being a final, but you still have the "cup game" mindset.   He would not have made them changes if it was a league game.  It is going to take far more than yesterday to convince me he can win everyone round.  It wasn't a tactical masterclass, either.  We still have to improve immensely to win on Weds.

 

He couldn't play his style as he knew we'd get hammered, and i think he had no idea how to beat them so used the method which beat them before (common sense) but issue is, we have got worse since then, City have improved.  We had zero shots on target i believe, or 1.  In 120mins -  Regardless if it went to pens or not, thats w**k.  City probably didnt have many more but they absolutely bossed the game, we just made it a dull affair.  Which isnt always bad thing.  He impressed me slightly, but he is not safe

That's true, if anything you could say that it was Mancity that adapted from the previous loss of 2:0 when we had the false 9 and didn't let us score this time. As much as fans say we were unlucky not to score from 1 or 2 situations, Mancity can say the same thing.

Bizarrely yesterday was both much better, and much worse, than I had imagined it would be. Sarri showed that he could be a bit flexible tactically and we managed to stop City from scoring. In fact we could consider ourselves unfortunate not to grab a winner after a good showing in second half. On the flip side it is hard to imagine that the Kepa incident didn't further finish Sarri's career at Chelsea. Kepa totally undermined Sarri's authority, no matter what spin they put on it afterwards. If this was our backup goalkeeper that would be one thing but Kepa is the most expensive player in the club's history, and tied to a long term contract. I'm not sure Sarri will be able to survive this, but I wish him the best and hope the team fight for him against Spuds.

 

11 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Bizarrely yesterday was both much better, and much worse, than I had imagined it would be. Sarri showed that he could be a bit flexible tactically and we managed to stop City from scoring. In fact we could consider ourselves unfortunate not to grab a winner after a good showing in second half. On the flip side it is hard to imagine that the Kepa incident didn't further finish Sarri's career at Chelsea. Kepa totally undermined Sarri's authority, no matter what spin they put on it afterwards. If this was our backup goalkeeper that would be one thing but Kepa is the most expensive player in the club's history, and tied to a long term contract. I'm not sure Sarri will be able to survive this, but I wish him the best and hope the team fight for him against Spuds.

 

kepa was a prat, too

But the incident hurts Sarri more for lack of authority.

We cant sell a 71m keeper, and logic says we wont drop him due to his price (maybe wrongly). Far easier for our board to chop the boss

I also think re. yesterday that a lot of it was players playing for themselves.  They want a medal, or a cup win regardless who coach is. 

It wasn't a big masterstroke as i said, it was everyone out for themselves in a way

4 minutes ago, RickUK said:

I also think re. yesterday that a lot of it was players playing for themselves.  They want a medal, or a cup win regardless who coach is. 

It wasn't a big masterstroke as i said, it was everyone out for themselves in a way

I think you could be right sadly. We will know for sure based on how the same players perform in the next few games. 

We played that formation and beat them with it before.

 

Just now, Stim said:

We played that formation and beat them with it before.

 

very true, but both sides have gone opposite ways since. Hence City absolutely bossed it in the majority. A cup final is a one off. Sarriball (ugh) will be back Wednesday i suspect.  Pleasantly surprised if not, though

4 hours ago, coco said:

Sarri now has 2/3 clean sheets against City, one of them a 120 minute game. Cant be that bad can we?

No we’re not that bad and those performances are evidence of what many have said. If Sarri can be more adaptable then we’ve got a team capable of better results than we’ve been getting.

A little more pragmatic and a little more direct in our approach play and we might see better results.

It’s when we’re trying to dominate possession we look toothless.

Sometimes less is more and I think yesterday is proof of that.

I think we all agree that Sarri could give his strategy a better chance to survive in the long term if he is willing to be more flexible in the short term, and play the counter game against this type of opposition.

5 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

No we’re not that bad and those performances are evidence of what many have said. If Sarri can be more adaptable then we’ve got a team capable of better results than we’ve been getting.

A little more pragmatic and a little more direct in our approach play and we might see better results.

It’s when we’re trying to dominate possession we look toothless.

Sometimes less is more and I think yesterday is proof of that.

In the first half of the season, despite having Morata, we were scoring freely and getting plenty of possession, but like you say, we now seem to have a horrible bi-product of all this possession, a toothless attack. We look far more dangerous when a game is end to end with possession swinging between two teams. It's a conundrum Sarri needs to find an answer to.

1 hour ago, Strider6003 said:

Yes, it is after conceding 6 against them.

Just looked on BBC match stats all against us apart from the foul count -

City 22   CFC 7.

Stats can mean anything. On expected goals it was 1 each. 

In my view, our tactics were spot on and if we were more clinical we would have won. I don't think city created anything clear cut enough to warrant winning. 

1 minute ago, bisright1 said:

Stats can mean anything. On expected goals it was 1 each. 

In my view, our tactics were spot on and if we were more clinical we would have won. I don't think city created anything clear cut enough to warrant winning. 

Agree though I do recall Jorginho taking a booking for the team and of course we were also fouled in interesting positions too.

5 minutes ago, coco said:

In the first half of the season, despite having Morata, we were scoring freely and getting plenty of possession, but like you say, we now seem to have a horrible bi-product of all this possession, a toothless attack. We look far more dangerous when a game is end to end with possession swinging between two teams. It's a conundrum Sarri needs to find an answer to.

I just think we need a middle ground between Sarri-ball and Suffer-ball.

Sarri’s trying possession game is allowing teams to sit deep and compact making them hard to break down, especially in the absence of a top quality striker.

Conte (second season) was too defensive with no freedom for the attacking players.

What I would like to see is a compromise of those two mindsets. The second half yesterday was pretty close.

Yesterday’s performance was evidence to me Sarri’s got the ability to get us playing differently. Hopefully he can use it as a launchpad for a strong end of the season.

Fingers crossed.

1 hour ago, RickUK said:

he'll revert back to type. Carabao cup final, although a final, is still a cup game to managers in their tactical thinking. Obviously.  RLC, CHO subs showed that Sarri treated it as such. It may have the gloss of being a final, but you still have the "cup game" mindset.   He would not have made them changes if it was a league game.  It is going to take far more than yesterday to convince me he can win everyone round.  It wasn't a tactical masterclass, either.  We still have to improve immensely to win on Weds.

 

He couldn't play his style as he knew we'd get hammered, and i think he had no idea how to beat them so used the method which beat them before (common sense) but issue is, we have got worse since then, City have improved.  We had zero shots on target i believe, or 1.  In 120mins -  Regardless if it went to pens or not, thats w**k.  City probably didnt have many more but they absolutely bossed the game, we just made it a dull affair.  Which isnt always bad thing.  He impressed me slightly, but he is not safe

City "absolutely bossed the game". Are you having a laugh? They were definitely the better team in the first half, but they barely laid a glove on us in the second half and extra time and we were the team getting into the more dangerous attacking positions. There was a 15 minute spell in the 2nd half where we had 73% possession and were playing some absolutely lovely football.

Sarri got his tactics spot on yesterday. We're at out most vulnerable in the first 30 minutes so playing more reserved at the start was a good idea and what many fans were asking for. If we don't concede early our passing game generally takes over as our opponents (such as City yesterday) can't sustain their intense pressing game for the full 90 minutes. Especially against a team that keeps possession as well as we do now. 

I was really please to see Emerson start and CHO/RLC coming off the bench. All played well. I actually thought we looked great with Hazard, CHO, RLC and Willian all on at the same time. And Kante was an absolute monster yesterday.

Very encouraging signs despite the defeat. Huge game on Wednesday now, we need a big performance and so does Sarri.

Edited February 25, 20197 yr by DannyVblue

2 hours ago, DannyVblue said:

City "absolutely bossed the game". Are you having a laugh? They were definitely the better team in the first half, but they barely laid a glove on us in the second half and extra time and we were the team getting into the more dangerous attacking positions. There was a 15 minute spell in the 2nd half where we had 73% possession and were playing some absolutely lovely football.

Sarri got his tactics spot on yesterday. We're at out most vulnerable in the first 30 minutes so playing more reserved at the start was a good idea and what many fans were asking for. If we don't concede early our passing game generally takes over as our opponents (such as City yesterday) can't sustain their intense pressing game for the full 90 minutes. Especially against a team that keeps possession as well as we do now. 

I was really please to see Emerson start and CHO/RLC coming off the bench. All played well. I actually thought we looked great with Hazard, CHO, RLC and Willian all on at the same time. And Kante was an absolute monster yesterday.

Very encouraging signs despite the defeat. Huge game on Wednesday now, we need a big performance and so does Sarri.

I really hope Sarri goes with a similar approach against Spurs. Emerson has to start again. Hopefully RLC and CHO get decent minutes too.