It's still on

[Steveo]

Thiago was far and away our best midfielder. Without him we get a hiding.

Picking holes in his game from today simply highlights an agenda.

[Nineteenx]

Thiago was far and away our best midfielder. Without him we get a hiding.

Picking holes in his game from today simply highlights an agenda.

Here we go again, player in LCM controller position gets badly caught out in the defensive side of the role 3 or 4 times on key attacks and we're not allowed to talk about it because it's Thiago and he looked lively and put himself about and played a couple of really sexy looking passes that never amounted to anything, AGAIN

Tell me Steveo, what is it he does? Everyone talks about his passing? What did he create? What has he created over the course of this season? How regular has/does he create anything or release others to do so?

This is my bug bear, there are people on this forum who are ready to slate at any and every opportunity players who have been absolutely incredible for this club and integral to it's successes and that there are tangible evidence based examples of the incredible contributions they have made and continue to make

People have this idea of what Thiago does, it's some kind of bizarre pipe dream, I wanted and want him to be an incredible success, but he's not helping me, he's not giving me anything to work with

You know when a defender has to go to ground sliding in Steveo? That's because they haven't read the game well, aren't in a good position and need to go to ground to try and recover from their poor positioning and reading of the game, well it's the same for midfielders in the pressing and counter pressing game, if you're having to dive around going to ground, it means you're not playing well, not the opposite, whether your name's Thiago, Hendo, Jones, Fabinho etc etc

[miller0863]

I’m not a fan but he was still the best of the 3 today. It just underlined again, how short we are in midfield compared to the rest of the team.

[Nineteenx]

I’m not a fan but he was still the best of the 3 today. It just underlined again, how short we are in midfield compared to the rest of the team.

I don't view it as any different to the second half v Brighton and the disaster class from Jones and Oxlade in their positioning in the press and counter press, when one is off it, you'll have potential problems, when 2 are well off it, as Thiago and Fabinho were today, you're guaranteed to have problems

Look at Alisson's brilliant early save, De Bruyne, DE BRUYNE who is by no means the quickest, bursts with the ball, through our LCM area, straight past Thiago and then Fabinho to then release Jesus who fed Sterling, and this was by no means an isolated incident, it happened with him and other players throughout the game

And Steveo trying to pull someone else up for putting forward a critique of a player? Oh look, here's a little nugget from the your team versus thread having a dig at Hendo, a player who there is overwhelming evidence of having made actual considerable massive contributions to our success, before a ball is even kicked

Hendo will need far better than 50% pass completion in the first half today.

I don't know which game he was talking about, I do know that in our last 3 games, including today's, Hendo has created 2 massive chances for our forwards they should have buried in all 3 games, I'm not interested in Thiago or Fabinho having a 90% plus pass completion rate for mostly passing it safe like lucky or sideways or backwards and not creating anything, or releasing anyone else to while STILL causing us actual threat to our own goal in the areas they give it away stupidly in when they inevitably do

[Nineteenx]

When Thiago has a game in which he is consistently in good positions and the right positions in the press and counter press AND plays some actual contributory passes to our creating chances as he did in 3 or 4 of the games at the end of last season when he started to use his famous passing ability more directly playing the trademark Hendo switches and medium to long balls, releasing and looking to release our forwards or full backs, I'll be the first to praise him

He irritates the fuck out of me with his non contributions and people fawning over them because of his reputation as a great passer, while those same people, Steveo being the chief culprit by far and above all others consistently look for any and every excuse to knock our club captain who actually produced more creative passing and creates more chances even in games he's otherwise had a mare with the ball and without giving the opposition a glorious chance through any misplaced passes he's made being in a fucking ridiculous area

Steveo actually started bashing Hendo and running him down slagging him off talking up Thiago before he'd even kicked a ball for us, we were all going to see some real passing master class and Thiago was going to show us all how it was really done, taking out 3, 4 or 5 opposition players with one ball to put a chance on a plate, erm, Steveo lad, we're still waiting for it, when's he going to start earning his 200k plus a week, I hate to break it to you, but we've not seen nay of that yet

Point in case today, Thiago's absolutely fucking ridiculous attempted switch to Trent square right across the width of the pitch 10 yards outside our area when we were under the kosh and Trent had a player right on him and City were all in great pressing and counter pressing positions, what the FUCK was that?

[Bredred]

I love reading most of the posts here,but sometimes I have to giggle.
I realise and appreciate the passion people have for our club, yet I have to say there is no coach (successful) in the country that would try to organise a team/stratagy to play as described on here.
I love the 4232 3232 442 3421 numbers mentioned (as totally not the way anybody plays.)
Yes give a formation to start or to fall back to but that is it.
All 10 back or 7 forward can occur regular in any game.
The coaching/manager role is to blend a team to play well, which two players gell together, which players create, defend, keep the ball, move away from defenders, close down on attackers, this kind of thing.
Today City had a better midfield group..... end of!
We were outplayed in midfield not because any were crap but they were against better players. I know some on here see,like Klopp does,how to play to overcome better individuals in teams, but sometimes we will get outplayed.
I think we are criticising our players a little harshly, just look at the run we are on, with a squad full of good players (not great players). If we spent the kind of money City ,PSG, Man U, Madrid and Barca can then maybe we would be more critical.

[CCTV]

I love reading most of the posts here,but sometimes I have to giggle.
I realise and appreciate the passion people have for our club, yet I have to say there is no coach (successful) in the country that would try to organise a team/stratagy to play as described on here.
I love the 4232 3232 442 3421 numbers mentioned (as totally not the way anybody plays.)
Yes give a formation to start or to fall back to but that is it.
All 10 back or 7 forward can occur regular in any game.
The coaching/manager role is to blend a team to play well, which two players gell together, which players create, defend, keep the ball, move away from defenders, close down on attackers, this kind of thing.
Today City had a better midfield group..... end of!
We were outplayed in midfield not because any were crap but they were against better players. I know some on here see,like Klopp does,how to play to overcome better individuals in teams, but sometimes we will get outplayed.
I think we are criticising our players a little harshly, just look at the run we are on, with a squad full of good players (not great players). If we spent the kind of money City ,PSG, Man U, Madrid and Barca can then maybe we would be more critical.

Spending 7mill on Robbo, Trent for free, the squad turnover for the net spend. That's all great business.

We have the squad we have, it's stacked with great players.

Our setup, performance and results v city & chelsea have been poor.

Today on average position they played 4231, we played similar to a degree but 4222.
Kdb was their 10, ours was Hendo. These things matter.

[justme]

just win our remaining 7 league games and see where we are at

[Steveo]

For the record 19, the 2:2 draw at Anfield was the game I used as a marker.

In your ott attempts to defend Hendo you miss the fact that people are not in fact bashing him. Stating an important fact is not bashing at all.

Henderson barely had a 50% pass completion in the first half of that game in October. It proved to be a well founded fear too. A similar occurrence yesterday with Henderson not up to it all first half, in fact he only escapes harsher words because Fabinho was so poor on so many occasions. That’s not me bashing Fabinho either. Just the honest truth. We could and should have been dead and buried after the first 45 at the Etihad.

Credit to the team for fighting back for the equaliser…twice and improving significantly second half.

Nobody is bashing Hendo. He has been a great servant but he is a worry at times and against the best sides especially IMO.

[justme]

I think we should play 3/5/2 in the Fa-cup game... stop them going wide and fiding space inbetween.. May mean we play a little deeper. but we have the pace in forward areas to cause them problems. Man-city have the ability not many teams have and thats to move the ball quick and move at angles quick..they hardly make mistakes playing it.
You can't allow Rodri and Silva to dictate the play.
so id play something like this

________________Alisson__________
_____Gomez____VVD______Matip
Taa____Fabinho___Henderson__Thiago __Robbo
____________Mane_______Diaz

Shame we don't have a really quick midfielder.. who can break through a bit like Bacon face.

We'll go in with the usual 4/3/3 though. If we are poor in possession again we will find it difficult again..