1 hour ago, Dr Gonzo said:

Really???

Sometimes we could do with his (Luiz) passing from the back. We got stuck passing from side to side so much today, partly from our inability to see the long forward pass or maybe the ability or confidence to deliver it.

Do I miss his defending; GOD NO.

Have to also give credit to City for keeping the pressure on our back line in the second half.

Edited November 23, 20196 yr by goose

8 minutes ago, dkw said:

None of that is right. 

Edit :

Meant Game Management was poor : Mistakes leading to goals , conceding after taking the lead , poor goal keeping , Kante playing front of Jorghino , defensive mistakes, wasting goal scoring chances, weak high pressure & alas poor Willian, Emerson were too soft to tackle or chase second balls. etc etc

*Lamps: Please learn to get a bus against big 6*

Edited November 23, 20196 yr by ZouMan

43 minutes ago, loz said:

No great surprise to come on after a defeat and find a stack of posts angrily reacting to us losing 8 0 to Colchester in the first round of the FA Cup.


A more humiliating result I've never seen! We should just torch the Bridge and open up a family bakery.

We played fairly well today away at City. Yes we lost, yes we could have played better and yes Kepa might not be all that but it was far from a terrible performance and we are not a top two team at the moment. Quite a bit off it. Expectations need to be honed in a bit.

We could do with not pissing around in possession in certain areas of the pitch quite as much and we clearly need to strengthen our striker options once the ban is lifted however that's a bed we made for ourselves.

Moaning about others' moaning is also moaning.  

People should be allowed to express their disappointment at losing even if we played relatively well. We also played well against Liverpool and Man u and lost. At some point it's not enough to just play well.  Heroic losers are still losers. 

Edited November 23, 20196 yr by TheSage

4 minutes ago, goose said:

Sometimes we could do with his (Luiz) passing from the back. We got stuck passing from side to side so much today, partly from our inability to see the long forward pass or maybe the ability or confidence to deliver it.

Do I miss his defending; GOD NO.

Have to also give credit to City for keeping the pressure on our back line in the second half.

Maybe the passing sideways / backwards in the second half was a consequence, as well as of their pressure, of having tried riskier passes in the first half that led to their goals. Taking more risks could have resulted in more goals for them and there would have been no way back in. Like this, keeping the deficit at one, we had a chance of nicking a draw and maybe SFL saw that as the most we could hope for at that stage? But who knows...

53% possession with some really good opportunities to score. Apparently that is some sort of new record against Pep. 
 

I feel that at times, we’re abit “nice” and naive, especially against top teams. We need to be ruthless in defense. The 2 goals felt too easy and soft. We need to toughen up in defense. 

Moaning about others' moaning is also moaning.  
People should be allowed to express their disappointment at losing even if we played relatively well. We also played well against Liverpool and Man u and lost. At some point it's not enough to just play well.  Heroic losers are still losers. 

Moaning about me moaning about you moaning is just taking moaning too far. Behave yourself. Now if you're quite finished I'm listening to Billy Bragg, putting up Vote Jezza posters and fine tuning my Russian accent.

2 minutes ago, TheSage said:

At some point it's not enough to just play well.  Heroic losers are still losers. 

At some point, yes, but at this current point, it should be enough that we are competing with these teams. In a season or two, depending on how things go, we would be looking to get points off these teams and challenging at the top again, but at this current moment, competing against these teams should be enough.

53% possession at the Etihad, sounds good, but when you see the heat map you realise possession means nothing without territory.

When City visibly upped the high press after 30-40 mins, we needed to get the ball up field and f**k possession, Tammy is capable of fighting for those long balls, its not like you just give up possession,

 

Surprised at people being upset and singling out players. I thought we'd all agreed this team was a work in progress. This was our typical performance against a top side this season, with all the good and bad things. City, for all their recent problems, is nevertheless a top side probably still with the best attack in the league.  Still, for the first time in a long time since Conte's depressing parked bus and Sarri's 6-0 humilation we actually went to Etihad and looked good. The team may have been nervous at the back, but we were breaking forward time and again, and with a better final pass and more clinical finishing could have got something out of the game.

This type of losses are part of the learning curve and in a long run are better than some wins that paint over our shortcomings. Our back four and Kepa were probably our Achilles heel tonight. Emerson had a mare on the left, Tomori and Zoma had trouble starting attack from the back and Kepa looked short of confidence. Our defense is the area I'd spent the bulk of our transfer budget on, when we actually get around to it. Doesn't mean we need to replace everybody, of course, but we need to improve by a large margin.

Edited November 23, 20196 yr by abramovich

Against top sides like City or Liverpool we can't play with Kante, Jorginho and Kovacic they overlap eachother in their roles. Drop Kovacic, get in with Mount and we would have more options in the attacking phase, in the last third and so on. 

I actually think that was a really encouraging performance. Bit like a rookie boxer going toe to toe with the world champion and barely losing on points.
A little more time and a little more practice and a few key additions and we'll have every chance of overtaking them next year.
We are a very fresh team and lack some experience that cost us occasionally but all in all it's looking real good in my view.

Could easily have come away with a point here. And it goes without saying that the difference between last seasons showing at the Etihad and this is like heaven and hell.

Lampard is building a damn good team here.

 

Hargreaves is more positive about our team than some of our own supporters.

https://www.premierleague.com/video/single/1502760

At least it wasn't 6.

Played quite well in the first half, though seemed to deflate when City went in front and second half we didn't do much except pass it around between the back 4.

Really need to improve our defence. Rudiger should be back soon hopefully, though Christensen seems to be out of favour completely now. 

Seems like in our post-match funk we’ve forgotten Kova’s assist for Kante. It was a great move and goal! Soon Kova will score and we’ll forget about his misplaced long ball to Tammy (incidentally - it was the kind of route one ball many were saying we should have tried more of today, despite this botched one having led to their second goal).

Great game, the team we leap-frogged 3 weeks ago leap-frogged us back.

 

Clean game, all the fouls were tactical and none of them were nasty.

 

We're still top 4, probably the same top 4 at the end of the season though 3 and 4 may change.

Good learning experience for all involve from us.

 

We would look much better defensively for me with Dave in his best position, imo, at left back and Reece in the side.

 

No shame in losing to City.

We pushed city and Liverpool who's had their managers for more than 3 seasons we have had ours less than 6 months perspective people perspective

Little disappointed today as I felt we could and maybe should have got something out of the game. But still on the right track. 
 

My view, we are a very good team in many areas with players constantly improving. Managed well. However, we are Chelsea and I think we lack a few world class players in certain positions. Love Tammy but need another centre forward option over Batshuayi and Giroud. Hear we’ve appealed the ban again for the January transfer window, if successful, a new back up CF is a must. 

Despite the defeat, I feel very upbeat about the direction of the team.

We put in a very encouraging performance at a ground we've struggled at over the years. One only needs to cast their minds back to the dour game under Conte in his second season and the 6-0 demolition from last season to see that we've improved.

There's going to be setbacks along the way, but I feel very comfortable with where we sit in the greater context of the season.

Now onto the must win game against Valencia.

Tactically we wouldn't change a thing if we are doing a replay tonight, individual mistakes and couple of players just aren't good enough against top quality oppositions. The lack of street smart and experience is to be expected from this team, in hindsight the right thing to do was to sit back after that goal and see out the first half. With the 11 on the field, it's a team to play safe and not conceding spaces, and we didn't do well in that regard.The disappointment was we didn't make City do anything extra to turn it around, we tried to play out way too much and play directly into their high pressing game. Considering their lack of central defenders, play direct and high to Abaham a lot more could have got us out of the trouble.

No time to stay deflated, got a big midweek game to sort out. We were a lot better than the game last season and the season before, so call that small improvement.

I think we saw City back to their best today, wasn't sure about changing our formation for this though understood why you might do that.

I thought we might get a draw yet think they were worthy winners and when Kepa miskicked thought we were fortunate.

Willian had a good chance he mish*t.

 

Very entertaining match. Team held its own up until their deflected goal then after Mahrez nutmeg experience kicked in from City. All in all no shame losing 2-1 up there.

Roll on the dreadful pikeys let’s hope they keep their manager for at least another week. 

 

 

Missed a trick not bringing on Giroud for Tammy imho, Fernandinho isn't a CB and had it too easy.

Willian was on it in the first half but drifted out of the game second half, perhaps Kante could have moved to right wing with James overlapping.

Emerson and Batshauyi sh*te.

Edited November 24, 20196 yr by the special one

6 hours ago, coco said:

53% possession at the Etihad, sounds good, but when you see the heat map you realise possession means nothing without territory.

When City visibly upped the high press after 30-40 mins, we needed to get the ball up field and f**k possession, Tammy is capable of fighting for those long balls, its not like you just give up possession,

Tammy and Zouma must have passed to each other about 500 times. That was easily about 30 minutes of the game right there. 

What annoyed me this match is how we avoided going direct, I know City are lethal on the counter attack but there should've been more balance, Tammy on Fernandinho was perfect and we didn't take advantage, the lack of long balls really annoyed me.