You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for Tuchel, imagine going from MBappe, Neymar and Di Maria to the 3 we had up front today.

 

Cut an extremely frustrated figure today.

Not that hard to understand, we were all as frustrated as he was probably.

Knocking City off their perch will be a monumentous task. There is about a decade of meticulous planning behind the position they find themselves in now here in England. And well over a billion invested in players for their current manager.

It is no wonder we are so far behind currently. With that said; I think Tuchel could bring another league title to this club if we trust him to build the side he wants here. Which also means trusting him to bring in the players he would want. Because it is absolutely crystal clear we need to bring it quite a few to compete. Especially in attacking areas.

 

45 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

No, we wouldn't have won because the problem wasn't Kante or Kovacic. They did their job, the problem was that they we suffocated by City, and they were suffocated because the front players and wing backs failed to help them.

Whereas the wingbacks and forwards did a better job of this vs Pool you felt?

1 hour ago, big blue said:

I think the approach was right, but the personnel was wrong, which meant the execution of the tactics wasnt perfomed at a high enough level to beat City away. 

It was different to the home game, where city stopped us getting out completely. The aim of the game against City and Liverpool is pretty clear. You hurt them by playing through press, or using quick transitions, to take advantage of the acres of space both teams leavr in behind trying to compact the pitch when they press. 

This requires precision on the ball, which just didnt have today. 

Im hoping the board look at this, and realize that money has to be spent, especially in the wing back areas, and I also hope Tuchel Tuchel realizes he has to stick with a front 3, and one of them has to be Mount, who even when out of form, produces way more than Ziyech. 

I'm guessing that the idea was to have the pace of Pulisic and the passing of Ziyech as a support for Lukaku. But when that wasn't working Tuchel went with Werner and CHO to provide for Lukaku instead and finally a desperation move, Mount for Alonso. The outcome:

Earlier in the season we played a 3-5-2 with Lukaku and Werner up front:

It looks like we can't compete with them with Lukaku, 1 shot on target in 180 minutes played is a joke considering that we managed to beat them in the CL, PL and FA Cup last season.

You've got to feel for Tuchel ... wins the Champions League and his reward to improve the team is a third choice keeper and an expensive Belgian donkey, who might not even be the best Belgian donkey on the club's books LOL.

Having said that, he simply has to find a way to get us creating and scoring more ... and preferably at least twice in each game.

If we score 2+ goals in the PL, we are near invincible.

If we score less than 2, then it's rather grim reading.

Time to try 4 at the back.

We have no decent wide players to ping crosses in when James and Chilwell are out, so Plan C is required. I skipped Plan B, as that would be to rely on your wingers to provide the crosses instead, and sadly our three wingers don't appear to have that basic facet of wing play in their locker LOL

Find it funny TT point out Roms obvious flaws. We have all know that for years, it won't change. 

4 hours ago, turnyitb said:

you are spot on here. Alonso is limited as a defender especially against strong sides whereas Sarr looks like he has the making of a solid defender. 

Switching to a 4 with Sarr as Lb strengthens us at the back and we can have a better attacking threat as we’d have an extra attacker. 

🤣🤣🤣

 

Mcmanaman was spot on today, how come we've developed the masterful art of getting the ball going fwd then, pas it backwards, Azpi by far the worst culprit, you wonder when you watch this turgid at times football, what they do in training, we could of played without that lump of a Nine and not missed him.....

1 minute ago, Ballack & Blu said:

Mcmanaman was spot on today, how come we've developed the masterful art of getting the ball going fwd then, pas it backwards, Azpi by far the worst culprit, you wonder when you watch this turgid at times football, what they do in training, we could of played without that lump of a Nine and not missed him.....

We've mastered that for years now to be fair. In that respect nothing has changed since Sarri.

3 hours ago, loz said:

I'm the opposite. In honesty I'd let them both go in the summer but if I had to choose between one or the other I'd keep Pulisic. I think Ziyech would struggle to be a regular for any team in the Premier League let alone a top four one. Nothing about him is remotely impressive apart from a surname that would score well in scrabble

 

For me Ziyech does play well occasionally (of course no where near as much as we need) and I feel the few times a Werner/Kai/Ziyech front three it has worked well (prime example the Leti tie) and if/when we revert to a back four we may see that more often due to Mason going back into midfield. 

The difference between both in my eyes was summed up today. Ziyech atleast tried to make things happen even if he was spectacularly failing (and we all knew he was a heroball type of player who he had this level of shocker in him anyway). Pulisic on the other hand hid, it's been just over six hours since the game finished and I genuinely can't remember anything he did.

Edited January 15, 20224 yr by Argo

When he first came, he revitalised the team and for the players up for the challenge, especially in the CL. Now we have had a few injuries and absentees, he's not looking as tactically astute. He needs to change things up soon or I fear he won't last long, especially given what has been paid for players. 

1 hour ago, Argo said:

Ziyech atleast tried to make things happen even if he was spectacularly failing (and we all knew he was a heroball type of player who he had this level of shocker in him anyway). Pulisic on the other hand hid, it's been just over six hours since the game finished and I genuinely can't remember anything he did.

That's just an age thing Argo. Pretty soon you won't remember where you put your glasses or left your teeth.

Edited January 15, 20224 yr by just

2 hours ago, Argo said:

For me Ziyech does play well occasionally (of course no where near as much as we need) and I feel the few times a Werner/Kai/Ziyech front three it has worked well (prime example the Leti tie) and if/when we revert to a back four we may see that more often due to Mason going back into midfield. 

The difference between both in my eyes was summed up today. Ziyech atleast tried to make things happen even if he was spectacularly failing (and we all knew he was a heroball type of player who he had this level of shocker in him anyway). Pulisic on the other hand hid, it's been just over six hours since the game finished and I genuinely can't remember anything he did.

Yup we know Roman does not tolerate failure and does not accept excuses for it.

10 hours ago, Sindre said:

Cut an extremely frustrated figure today.

Not that hard to understand, we were all as frustrated as he was probably.

Knocking City off their perch will be a monumentous task. There is about a decade of meticulous planning behind the position they find themselves in now here in England. And well over a billion invested in players for their current manager.

It is no wonder we are so far behind currently. With that said; I think Tuchel could bring another league title to this club if we trust him to build the side he wants here. Which also means trusting him to bring in the players he would want. Because it is absolutely crystal clear we need to bring it quite a few to compete. Especially in attacking areas.

 

I am not sure about trusting a manager to bring in the players he wants, 3 managers laters and we still can’t get rid of Conte’s signings. Tuchel sanctioning a £97m move for Lukaku is a big red flag for me.

I’d rather employ a Sporting Director and let him come up with a vision. City have Txiki Bergiristain, and Klopp has Michael Edwards. 

 

13 minutes ago, ducavis said:

I am not sure about trusting a manager to bring in the players he wants, 3 managers laters and we still can’t get rid of Conte’s signings. Tuchel sanctioning a £97m move for Lukaku is a big red flag for me.

I’d rather employ a Sporting Director and let him come up with a vision. City have Txiki Bergiristain, and Klopp has Michael Edwards. 

 

Fair point that, assuming Marina does not already do that role and assuming TT picked Lukaku and not the club.

8 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Yup we know Roman does not tolerate failure and does not accept excuses for it.

You make Roman sound like SPECTRE, Axman :). If Pulisic and Ziyech don’t start scoring more soon, they’ll be summoned to his yacht for a “meeting”, the real purpose of which is to feed them to the sharks.

“We do not tolerate failure, number 10.”

8 minutes ago, Dean said:

You make Roman sound like SPECTRE, Axman :). If Pulisic and Ziyech don’t start scoring more soon, they’ll be summoned to his yacht for a “meeting”, the real purpose of which is to feed them to the sharks.

Hmmmm 🤔

15 hours ago, 2211 said:

You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for Tuchel, imagine going from MBappe, Neymar and Di Maria to the 3 we had up front today.

 

He picked them.

15 hours ago, Gol15 said:

It looks like we can't compete with them with Lukaku, 1 shot on target in 180 minutes played is a joke considering that we managed to beat them in the CL, PL and FA Cup last season.

We can't keep scapegoating Lukaku for these performances. Yesterday we kept playing ourselves into trouble particularly when trying to play out from the back. 

We were barely getting out of our own half most of the time, the players were't coping with the City press and couldn't find a way out. 

And yet we kept doing it over and over again. 

And this is a failing we have. When a plan isn't working we seem incapable of changing it up mid game. 

Yes losing to City is frustrating but not wholly unexpected, they're the best team in the country by a long shot. 

What is frustrating is dropping 9 points to Brighton, Wolves, Everton and West Ham in the month of December. 

Performances like yesterday highlight how far behind we are to City and watching us do a poor imitation of their pressing and possession based football is a wake up call that Lukaku wasn't going to be a quick fix to that. 

12 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

 

Performances like yesterday highlight how far behind we are to City and watching us do a poor imitation of their pressing and possession based football is a wake up call that Lukaku wasn't going to be a quick fix to that. 

 

We didn't do a poor imitation three times last season. We beat them at their own game and totally deserved it everytime. We in head to heads had them on the ropes psychologically but we've totally squandered that advantage.

Would we have made it 5 in a row against them if we stuck to works in this fixture? Would have been a very big ask but what I can guarantee is if we did go down it wouldn't have been done with the whimper we have done both times.

The worst thing is City weren't even that good in either game, the difference was in the pressing game which we very much could have matched yesterday but we left the appropriate front three for it on the bench.

Tuchel's done a lot of amazing stuff for us and i don't even think he's that highly responsible for our rut but the two games against City is on him.

Also if we're really that far behind City then all the more reason to roll with the forwards that make us more fluent and better to watch. If we're not going to win the league fine we don't have a define right too but let's atleast have some fun in the process (for example I wasn't even that annoyed after the Burnley game because I absolutely loved the football on display that day).

30 minutes ago, Argo said:

We didn't do a poor imitation three times last season. We beat them at their own game and totally deserved it everytime. We in head to heads had them on the ropes psychologically but we've totally squandered that advantage.

Would we have made it 5 in a row against them if we stuck to works in this fixture? Would have been a very big ask but what I can guarantee is if we did go down it wouldn't have been done with the whimper we have done both times.

Let me put it this way. If Alonso plays instead of Chilwell in Porto we lose that game.

We've had to use Alonso in both games v them this season. Not only is he ridiculously bad defensively, he's also a massive pressure trigger for Manchester City. Noticed how many times they trapped Alonso on the left flank yesterday and won the ball after that? They exploited him when they had the ball and they exploited him when we had the ball and when you have to play with such an obvious weak-spot against the very top sides you are going to get turned over every single time.

Just now, Sindre said:

Let me put it this way. If Alonso plays instead of Chilwell in Porto we lose that game.

We've had to use Alonso in both games v them this season. Not only is he ridiculously bad defensively, he's also a massive pressure trigger for Manchester City. Noticed how many times they trapped Alonso on the left flank yesterday and won the ball after that? They exploited him when they had the ball and they exploited him when we had the ball and when you have to play with such an obvious weak-spot against the very top sides you are going to get turned over every single time.

Maybe we do but we'd have atleast gone down fighting and been able to take a lot out of it admist the heartbreak. I'm confident with the Porto front three we'd have given them a lot more to think about, the goal in that City that those three orchestrated between them alone would have got that defense over thinking and more cautious.

I look at the City games this Season and apart from Edou's performance in the first game what positive is there to take out of them? This City team are amazing but it's not impossible to beat them (Solskjaer won at that stadium every time) or failing that give them a bloody good game (even Arsenal managed it).

40 minutes ago, Argo said:

Also if we're really that far behind City then all the more reason to roll with the forwards that make us more fluent and better to watch. If we're not going to win the league fine we don't have a define right too but let's atleast have some fun in the process (for example I wasn't even that annoyed after the Burnley game because I absolutely loved the football on display that day).

Our biggest failing under Tuchel is beating teams outside the top six and consistently dropping points to sides that we should be comfortably beating. 

This typically happens because we aren't clinical enough, don't score enough goals and don't have a reliable goal scorer. 

That's why we bought Lukaku and it makes perfect sense to make it work and that's got to be Tuchel's number one focus, getting us able to score goals consistently, particularly from open play. 

The way we catch City isn't to focus on beating them, it's to focus on beating everyone else. 

The likes of Havertz, Ziyech, Pulisic, Werner have shown they're not capable of doing that so lets get the proven goal scorer set up to do it. 

3 minutes ago, Argo said:

Maybe we do but we'd have atleast gone down fighting and been able to take a lot out of it admist the heartbreak. I'm confident with the Porto front three we'd have given them a lot more to think about, the goal in that City that those three orchestrated between them alone would have got that defense over thinking and more cautious.

I don't think we would have had much to say in Porto.

Especially if we were missing both Reece and Chilwell and replaced them with Azpi and Alonso in wingback positions. It basically negate everything we try to do offensively as Manchester City have absolutely nothing to worry about in the wide areas with them two on the field. So I for one am not at all surprised we looked like sh*t offensively yesterday.

It's not necessarily a lot in it. If we switched fullback pairs and we have Walker & Cancelo and they got Alonso & Azpi I think we win the game.