Manchester City v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[russon]

I agree that the poor penalty decision is a red herring. We lost 5-0 and a bad pen decision is just life, get over it.

If we use cricket as a parallel, when a top order batsman gets a shocking LBW decision, you don't find the captain blaming it for a subsequent batting order collapse. It's really pretty pathetic that a 5-0 drubbing is attributed to the ref, it didn't help but we had 89 other minutes to prevent a 5 goal humping.

[Clampy]

It's really pretty pathetic that a 5-0 drubbing is attributed to the ref, it didn't help but we had 89 other minutes to prevent a 5 goal humping.

What rubbish. You make it sound like Man City were awarded a penalty in the first minute then we had the rest of the game to get back into it,

[Mister E]

Having seen the highlights, what concerned me was the poor defending from the full backs. Last week, Lowton allowed Hernandez the space for two of his three goals. Yesterday it was Stevens who seemed to give Tevez and Aguerro all the time in the world on the far post for two of the five goals.
As Norwich showed, get the defending right and the rest looks after itself.

[russon]

It's really pretty pathetic that a 5-0 drubbing is attributed to the ref, it didn't help but we had 89 other minutes to prevent a 5 goal humping.

What rubbish. You make it sound like Man City were awarded a penalty in the first minute then we had the rest of the game to get back into it,

Sorry for the confusion. To clarify, we'd already had 53 minutes to score before the penalty and then had a further 36 after it. The penalty gave Man City one goal, take one away from five and that gives you four. In summary then, if we we were to pretend the penalty didn't happen, we still lost 4-0 and I regard that as a pretty severe pasting.

[supertom]

To be honest from watching this last night, though I went home at 4-0, I think this was less a case of our players playing badly. Everyone gave it their all but the sad fact was, we're mostly a championship side going up against the premier league champions. I thought we were just outclassed unfortunately. City probably weren't even at their very best either.

You look at our midfield and it's just not good enough. The defence has too many weak leaks and not a single standout defender. Generally in transfer terms you get what you pay for. Sometimes a cheap player proves a well scouted bargain. Sometimes there are expensive flops, but general you'd have to say that the higher the fee, the better the player. Ron Vlaar is okay. He's doing alright but he is what he is and that's a defender who's 3.7 million (or whatever the fee was). What we need is a really decent CB that will set us back at least 10 million.
Same goes for our fullback areas and midfield. If we want to even be competing in the top 10 again, barring some exceptional management and scouting (don't think we have that) we have to outlay about 30 million in the next couple of windows to A- survive this season and B- not be in this position another season.

What most annoyed me yesterday was the piss poor officiating. I mean we're crap. We caught City on a day they were up for it, not at their best, but up for it, and the last frigging thing we need is the referee and lino to be bias towards City and make their simple task even simpler.

Our lack of experience is also telling, particularly at the back. Like I say, Ron Vlaar is an okay player. He's a Carlos level player. He'll never be Mellberg or Laursen IMO. He'd be more effective if we had a really good defender alongside him. Someone who can hold a backline together. It's too much to ask from Vlaar, new to this league, to be the lynchpin in a backline made up of kids, who possibly, probably, won't make it at this level in the long run.

[Dante Lavelli]

But if you look at the way them Smethwick lot have been managed/owned over the last few years compared to us, then surely you must concede there have been some very bad decisions made at the top in recent times.

What would you/anyone say are the key differences between WBA's boards approach and ours over the last few years?
- more logical selection of managers
- Having a director of football
- excellent scouting of players from abroad

[eastie]

It's really pretty pathetic that a 5-0 drubbing is attributed to the ref, it didn't help but we had 89 other minutes to prevent a 5 goal humping.

What rubbish. You make it sound like Man City were awarded a penalty in the first minute then we had the rest of the game to get back into it,

Sorry for the confusion. To clarify, we'd already had 53 minutes to score before the penalty and then had a further 36 after it. The penalty gave Man City one goal, take one away from five and that gives you four. In summary then, if we we were to pretend the penalty didn't happen, we still lost 4-0 and I regard that as a pretty severe pasting.

No doubt the penalty was a terrible decision but we were poor yesterday and there were too many players who had off days , it was very disappointing after such a positive encouraging display against utd .

[rutski]

Having seen the highlights, what concerned me was the poor defending from the full backs. Last week, Lowton allowed Hernandez the space for two of his three goals. Yesterday it was Stevens who seemed to give Tevez and Aguerro all the time in the world on the far post for two of the five goals.
As Norwich showed, get the defending right and the rest looks after itself.

watch it a bit closer, stevens played on hernandez for the first, yes lowton may have been closer for the second but it was a deflected goal and it was stevens who never got near him for the third. stevens aint good enough, needs to be left out and stay left out!

[eastie]

But if you look at the way them Smethwick lot have been managed/owned over the last few years compared to us, then surely you must concede there have been some very bad decisions made at the top in recent times.

What would you/anyone say are the key differences between WBA's boards approach and ours over the last few years?
- more logical selection of managers
- Having a director of football
- excellent scouting of players from abroad

Better management at board level and on the pitch , Albion have spent far less than us and bought better players who have developed into a decent team whereas we have wasted millions, bought poorly and lack leadership at the helm with a chairman and CEO who have little football experience.

[Clampy]

It's really pretty pathetic that a 5-0 drubbing is attributed to the ref, it didn't help but we had 89 other minutes to prevent a 5 goal humping.

What rubbish. You make it sound like Man City were awarded a penalty in the first minute then we had the rest of the game to get back into it,

Sorry for the confusion. To clarify, we'd already had 53 minutes to score before the penalty and then had a further 36 after it. The penalty gave Man City one goal, take one away from five and that gives you four. In summary then, if we we were to pretend the penalty didn't happen, we still lost 4-0 and I regard that as a pretty severe pasting.

We were already a goal down when they got awarded their first pen. The 2nd pen was a bit harsh as well, which then put them 3-0 up with over half hour to go. No we did'nt play well and the defending at times was woeful but like I said yesterday, going to places like that is hard enough without them getting generous penalties to help them.

[Shrek]

What worries me is how bad the defending is, the whole team give the opposition time and space and don't close down.

It's worse watching Norwich easily hold on to a one nil win against Man U.

We need Dunne back ASAP, Clark is not a premier league centre half.

[Drummond]

So, do we need to find someone to blame, or suggest solutions?

Do we think the end is nigh, or is there a future?

Should we whinge and moan, or try and see the positives?

At the beginning of the season we should never have expected to be world beaters, we would have hoped to not be relegation candidates.

We're in transition, we've a young squad, we're inconsistent, not just from game to game but during them too. It's to be expected.

[eastie]

So, do we need to find someone to blame, or suggest solutions?

Do we think the end is nigh, or is there a future?

Should we whinge and moan, or try and see the positives?

At the beginning of the season we should never have expected to be world beaters, we would have hoped to not be relegation candidates.

We're in transition, we've a young squad, we're inconsistent, not just from game to game but during them too. It's to be expected.

Not sure 3 wins in 30 league games is inconsistent , maybe 10 wins , 10 defeats and. 10 draws could be classed as inconsistent but our form over the last year has been poor and results have been dreadful.

[OzVilla]

We're in transition, we've a young squad, we're inconsistent, not just from game to game but during them too. It's to be expected.

Well we've been in transition now for 3 years.  Looking at the way the squad has been shaped over those the years the only conclusion i can see is that the transition is to become a Championship football club.

[john e]

its definitely a struggle this season, but its no where near as bad as under TSM, i know if you look a t the league position it seems that way at the moment but under mcliesh there was no hope, there is plenty of supporters who do believe in Lambert and what he is trying to do.

we have just played Man Utd and Man City, no one expected to win and we played well against Utd and deserved something from the game, the previous two game we picked up points, so the 'we just cant win games' point seems to be forgetting the away win against Sunderland only a 3 games ago,

there are two very distinct groups forming on here,
 one where the club has been nosediving for the last 3 seasons and wont stop untill we hit the championship, and the other where the board have made mistakes but in Lambert we have a manager who can turn things around given time and bring some good times back.

i'm firmly in the latter, i do believe in Lambert, and i say that as one of the posters who wasnt to keen on him and certainly wasnt my first choice, but i think he has the team playing better football bringing in and playing young players that will keep us up