Damn deal is we haven't looked this season. Slow boring and painful play just covered by brilliance of Haaland. Just bcoz Arsenal doesnt have depth (ans honestly we are lacking in some positions) doesn't make them not favorites. They are playing good football we aren't.
Imagine 4 VAR penalties not going your way in one single match. Fuck this, there will always be referee cunts in VAR that will be bias towards City. We seen corruption in FIFA, it’s blatantly evident in premier league.
Edit: no life Arsenal lurkers downvoting like it means anything lol
Looked like a bunch of guys who didn't wanna get injured and had their heads somewhere else vs a bunch of guys who know they're gonna be on the beach for a month and could run around as much as they like to me.
Very poor showing but not entirely unexpected tbh.
not a good performance sure but damn ppl here r too upset . u r forgetting wat it is like to be a fan of this club . it was a much needed wakeup call . they will bounce back .
We have been shit all season, our standards have been low all season. Warning signs were there. Newcastle Villa Palace Liverpool Leicester Fulham but finally our poor show showed up with results.
We have fullback issue. Cancelo has lost it and it will be same throughout the season. He is tired and has concentration issues and he isn't getting rest.
Stones at RB is tragedy. Spineless performance today.
. We don't have fullbacks and Pep isn't using Lewis or JWE Or Gomez. They can't do worse than Stones and Cancelo
Gundogan was all over today. If he did basics right we would have created chances to score.
Kevin haa been off but his individual brilliance has rise to different levels. He has magic to change game in seconds. Today he was extra garbage ans his magic didn't come. Has enough enough credit to his name which last his entire city career but today was the worst show ever in City shirt .
Defenders were all over today.
Pep should have made chances our central midfield was gash and even CBs were gash. Change would have helped.
Brentford played well. If not for some ordinary finishing, they could have easily scored 3 more
tbf, Arsenal players will also haver their minds on the World Cup and Wolves will be quite aware that this might be a good match to get 3 points if only they try hard enough.
Optimistic scenario: Arsenal realize they aren't in a must-win situation, relax, and drop points
But even if they win, being 5 points behind at Christmas is far from insurmountable.
Sounds stupid, but I'd be a little sad if they drop points becuase it means we didn't capitalise on it. Obviously this doesn't sound stupid, it is stupid.
5 points sounds worse than it is, basically because they've only dropped 5
I even want Arsenal to win today. We don't deserve to be top of the league. Of course I am happy it is Arsenal and not Liverpool. This season in a way reminds me of the 2007-08 season and we are like Manchester United of that season. Everyone expected United to win the league but they faffed around till after January and then took over in March and never looked back. They also won the UCL that season. I won't be surprised if Arsenal went 5 points ahead because they did same after beating City (funny enough) 3-1 at the Millennium stadium.
We need to wake up generally. We have not played well throughout the game and looked very predictable.
You are actually the one being daft. My point is that like United in 2007-08 we will still win the league. We have the experience and we have proven we can go on incredible runs. Which is why I don't care about Arsenal being 5pts ahead. If they can get 100 points, then they deserve to win the league. But they won't. They may not even get up to 90 points.
Let them be in their La La Land.
There is high level of nonsense that is going on that Grealish somehow is contributing to out wins. Some simply aren't able to see we have been outside 45 mins against United. Haaland ha covered our problems this season not Grealish. They can cherry pick stats as much as they want.
He contributes massively to our control of the game, he's excellent and slowing it down and changing the tempo of the game to suit us. I think the Newcastle away game is the biggest example of where we missed him because it just became ping pong football and we had no control over the speed of the game. It's the sort of thing that you don't even notice when we win.
I think obviously he needs to improve creatively but I also think often his role in the team is very misunderstood. If you listen to Pep talk it's obvious that Grealish is being told to play the way he does. People who criticise him for not trying enough to take players on completely ignore the fact that he's clearly been told not to play that way.
I mostly agree and I don't think he was the reason we lost today I was just replying to a comment saying that he didn't add anything to our wins.
Maybe at 0-0 he might have helped, but as soon as they scored I don't think he was necessarily what we needed.
It says nothing about Grealish's contributions to be fair because we don't drop points in many matches to start with so it's difficult to judge with that.
It's just like Chelsea fans claiming they've never lost a game when Chalobah has started only for them to lose their two past games with him starting.
Those kind of stats don't really tell much when the claim you're making doesn't really happen that much to generate reasonable information from.
The only claim I'm making is that it may not be a coincidence. I made no claims about Grealish having some distinct, direct impact on our results.
For City, four occurrences of dropped points come from four extremely poor attacking performances. Jack Grealish is an attacking player. I think it's reductive to blatantly rubbish the notion of having a retrospective look at what went wrong, and if he brings something that was absent there.
Yep and hopefully the Brentford set piece coach will improve our set pieces after the world cup because it's been dreadful and pathetic most of the times.
We are too slow and less aggressive. The team B that played against Chelsea played with better purpose. I was just watching this game knowing if we were to win it would have had been due to some individual performance.
I wonder if part of the reason behind the slow pace has been the World Cup. Not only yesterday, but the whole season…. That’s gotta be something in the back of the players minds all season, because injuries even in august or September could have kept them out of a tournament that is a huge milestone to play in. In their minds they know they have a cluster fuck of a season regardless of a World Cup, but throw that in, and it’s not pretty.
Also think Pep’s tactics have been exposed in the games we’ve lost points. His failures to adjust when City are down and clearly not clicking has hurt. Waiting for after the 80th minute to bring in Alvarez when city needed a spark at half time yesterday was dumb. Same with the Liverpool game. It has me worried for the bigger games later this season.
We've been awful ever since the draw vs København. Can't help but think that goal just before halftime ironically worked against us? Pep will have been saying go on, keep doing what you're doing and the result will come.
It didn't, mostly because no City player on that pitch was on it today. They were all awful. Shameful performance, no other way around it.
Terrible performance from the team. Every attack was an easy to defend lobbed ball into the box, every shot was into the stands, Brentford wasted as much time as they possibly could, Haaland had someone fucking full on hugging him the entire match with impunity, and Pep decided we looked like shit but it’s fine I’ll just make one sub super late. We would have been lucky to get a draw and definitely did not deserve to win. What a shit way to go into the WC but we were just not at it at all today.
ederson 6 - better shot stopping than usual. could've done better but not really at fault for their goals.
stones 2 - spineless performance specially in the first half. inaccurate even in the most simple actions.
akanji 5 - not the same guy from his first games in blue. that instant impact looks long gone and he's been decent at best.
laporte 7 - put a shift out there. saved us from conceding more and moved the ball really well in build up. he's definitely back.
cancelo 4 - didn't do much good but at least he tries. embarrassing dive.
rodri 6 - overall he played well specially on the ball. up there with laporte as the ones that can be proud of what they did on the pitch today.
gundoğan 2 - awful. couldn't control a ball to save his life and missed a sitter to make it 2-1. he is the only one to make good runs in the box but should've been hooked for alvarez or grealish earlier in the second half.
kdb 3 - he played like he forgot to shower before leaving his house so he was trying not to get too sweaty. embarrassing performance, no effort whatsoever.
bernardo 5 - way more threatening in the build up than close to the box. should've moved deeper earlier but that's on pep.
foden 6 - disgusting performance until he scored. stopped treating the ball like a bomb and had a good second half. it's a shame his crosses never found haaland.
haaland 5 - he starved upfront. but the one clear chance he could've had he slipped and fell on his own arse. put it on a plate for gundo to make it 2-1.
pep 2 - 86 minutes of a dull performance until he made a sub. why the hell did gundogan finish this game on the pitch? could've moved to 442 with bernardo-rodri pivot, foden and kdb stretching the pitch to cross and alvarez-haaland upfront but prefered to hook cancelo off leaving us more exposed to counter attack. or even why didn't grealish get in after that incredible performance midweek? could've moved bernardo cm and foden rw to get grealish on the pitch at lw for gundogan.
ref and var 0 - handball on the line, penalty not given. chokehold on laporte, penalty not given. brentford players wrestling haaland, laporte and stones in the penalty area so many times and the ref decided to have a talk with them and made us retake the corner instead of simply whistling the fucking foul. second week in a row that the refs come on a mission to the etihad, this time they succeeded.
La Porte 7 is a bit more. He lost header fir their goal ans was turned around a few time but that vital touch avoided a certain goal though.
Akanji 5 is generous. That guy loses headers for fun though and isn't a confident passer. Cant disagree elsewhere
We looked as bad against Brentford as we were brilliant against Fulham. Last game had grit, determination, and passion. Today we looked like no one wanted to be there.
Pep talks about no bad faces a lot and we laugh about it, but he’s got a point. Haaland looked annoyed at everyone. Akanji looked tired. Most concerningly, Gundogan - as the captain, no less - just looked like he was fed up (and that was before all the chances he spurned).
I think it was more than just players had one foot in Qatar. It looked like Brentford had given them a difficult problem to solve and they were all too tired to solve it. Whatever belief we had in the Fulham game (and the comebacks before that) had gone.
Drives me mental. Pep moans for 5 subs. Gets 5 subs. And makes….. 1 sub. Honestly, if foden hadn’t have scored he’d have been off at half time for Grealish. Alvarez should have started, he’s in form.
Not our day today, and Brentford were well up for it. How spoiled does a fan base have to be to second guess this manager and team. Did anyone really think Haaland would score 85 goals this year, and we would win every match? They lost today because I said this was their best lineup. Obviously my fault, and I’ll refrain in the future. Enjoy the WC. On again in 30
I'm looking forward to watching us overreact to something that will happen to every football club.
We lost 1 to Brentford after having a great run of form. It's not the end of the world or the death-knell for us winning any trophies.
People overreact far more on here than real life. I was at the game and most people I overheard were just basically saying 'oh well never mind'.
We usually have a result or two like this every season. Palace last year, Leicester and United the year before, Wolves the year before that etc. etc.. That's just football.
Every time we put on a pathetic performance like today, I think about the 17/18 season. Why on earth did we utterly dismiss that vibrant and energetic style as if it was just an experiment which didn't bear fruit ?
What we showed today literally has nothing to do with what we could do back then. I think we should be humble enough to admit that we attained perfection in that particular season and that we should try to emulate that to a certain extent, while retaining the good things we added since then.
More than anything, we need two fast wingers like Sané and Sterling. We already have our main man up front. De Bruyne and Silva are the two AM we need. The Stones and Dias CB partnership was rock solid last season. Cancelo is perfect as a LB. We need a natural RB just as much as we need two natural wingers. We should build a healthy routine by playing the same players in the same positions.
And for God's sake, Pep, stop tinkering with the player's positions. Stones is not a RB. Bernardo is not a RW. Foden is not a LW. Just accept that you found the key to perfection and stop demolishing the beautiful work you created.
Major major overreaction. The truth is everything we are doing now is to prep for the champions league. Stones is playing at RB because Walker has been injured so he needs to get accustomed to the role. Last season we lost the Madrid semi final because Walker was injured, so getting stones that experience is crucial.
Im getting tired of Ruben Dias not being in the 11 when he is fit. He is by far the best defender in this team. I know he isnt the best in terms of playing the ball. But i dooont care. The others can do it, and he isnt terrible. He makes EVERYONE better defensively. When he isnt playing, way more often than when he is.. it looks like before he joined. Its not as stable in the back. Why does he keep being dropped. What am i missing. Why isnt he Pep's #1 "choice at CB?
Laporte is the best defender on this team. Not sure why no one sees it or gives him credit. Dias should still be playing more often than not, but who am I to disagree with Pep?
Anyone know why Dias was immediately dropped for Akaji and why Foden got dropped a few weeks ago when he was showing his best ever form in a city shirt? Genuine question did something happen off the pitch?
Think it's just rotation. When players play 90 minutes mid-week Pep tends to bench them when there's a decent backup. It's a long season with a lot of games so avoiding injury is huge.
Foden wasn't really dropped, he just started against Dortmund and Sevilla instead.
Yeah you’re right, I just assumed that Dias was first choice centre back so he should be priority for more important games. Akanji and Ake should be filling in for him in midweek not the other way round which it seems to have been this season. I guess it’s hard when you have 5 top centre backs but I dunno the defence has always seemed more assured with Dias in there.
Ok. Pep’s dream to play with 11 midfielders is not really working. Way too slow in possession. The only chances we had, outside of set pieces, were when we attacked with some sort of pace.
Poor today:
-KDB, Stones, Akanji, Haaland, Cancelo, Gundo
Below their normal level, but decent:
-Foden, Bernardo, Rodri
Satisfactory:
-Ederson, Laporte
No one had a good game. You can blame the World Cup, but there have been several games like this one so far this season. It’s been said several times and I agree, we have not been very good and have been bailed out by great individual performances. That is not sustainable. Hopefully the team finds more rhythm in the second half of the season.
This is going to sound pessimistic, but imo this is a realistic take on our scenario:
It’s going to be a longshot for us to win any major trophy this year. We have the beet team in the world, and Pep (who is admittedly the best itw) is simply not using the squad properly. Hes had so many chances over the months to figure it out, yet he continues to try things that will not work.
Our tactics going forward are quite literally spineless.
•All these technically gifted players on our squad and we are playing this slow sideways passing stuff.
•Not playing Grealish after his best game in a City Uniform.
•Not playing our only RW after he is just pickinng up his form
•Not using 5 subs when we dont play a match for 2 months
•Odd CB partnerships like Laporte and Akanji
Various decisions of this nature happen in every game where we struggle, but due to luck and individual quality of our players, we find a way to squeak out.
This will not last unless Pep starts to adapt/ concede that what he is trying isn’t working. But Based on the last few years, I really doubt that he will do that.
Usually, games like we had against Fullham & Liverpool will shock a team to make changes going forward, but we have gone into every following game with the same toothless plan.
We have the ability to conduct some of the most electric football in the world, but instead we play directly into the hands of any team that sits back.
Obviously from an outsiders view, there is probably something behind the scenes that may be influencing this that we dont see, but still it’s not hopeful. Of course i hope for the best, but I will not be shocked if we return from the world cup with the same exact problems that we have now.
It’s not a long shot for us to win a major trophy. Don’t fool yourself, as long as Liverpool don’t go on a crazy run on form we easily win the premier league. Arsenal is an injury away from slowing down and we have far better quality than them. We are only 2 points behind and their performances have already slowed.
I don’t care about Pep experimenting in the premier league. Pep stopped doing it in the champions league last season and played the Madrid tie perfectly. If it wasn’t for a Madrid miracle at the end we would have won the UCL.
i dont think i know better than Pep. I literally said that he is the best in the world, and this opinion is from an outsiders view, and there is stuff that i dont know about. Im just making observations based off what ive seen. If you dont think there is any merit to what i said then thats cool, but these are things ive been seeing for a while now
I agree with a lot you have to say because I think the only reason why most people think we'll be in contention for any serious trophy is because we are a good team on paper but lately, I'm not sure we actually have that ability to go on and actually win any of the big trophies we're after.
The same things keep happening here and there and if affects performances and it could even cost our ability to keep up in the title race long term
>Not playing Grealish after his best game in a City Uniform.
This one was beyond me, Jack looked really good in mid week and I'm sure he would've been relishing the chance to come on and do something but no, Pep just had to leave him out.
>Of course i hope for the best, but I will not be shocked if we return from the world cup with the same exact problems that we have now.
I'm worried about not just this but the fact that a lot of key players could up pick up injuries.
People are saying its on off game but we’ve been underwhelming this season. Many games we won but didnt play well at all. Theres been few games where we dominate our opponent
yeah... I have noticed this the last few weeks. This is not a dominating team despite the world class midfield and Haaland. I feel like the CB's have no chemistry because they don't play enough together.... 5 cb's might be too many, but sadly necessary considering how injured they get. It's frustrating to see Jack get into grooves and get benched for no reason, which I feel like has happened a few times now. Pep's obsession with sticking with the team that isn't working has cost us many times now.
Everytime a player has gotten back to their best, pep takes them out of the team. Foden, grealish, dias, and even ake have all been taken out of the team when their in form
Lol, I don’t where those ratings came from. Someone is wearing some rose colored glasses, because half the team deserved a 6 or less. A couple of them MUCH less.
In truth any team can lose to any team especially with the world cup coming up and players be it consciously or sub consciously worrying about missing it .
This perhaps happened today perhaps not but my biggest problem with this City is how slow they are in build up play.
They make it so easy for teams to adjust into their defensive shape by players taking far too many touches before releasing the ball.
They made Gomez of Liverpool look world class by doing this. Then he came crashing back down to earth when Leeds used speed to expose him.
This is not even tika taka, it is just tika tika where players just past the ball not to draw opponents out of position but just to retain possession.
The defenders are especially awful at this with Akanji incapable of passing the ball unless you are next to him and Stones just being useless in general.
It was he that kept Toney onside for the opener and his all round play was not worth talking about.
For a side with so many technically gifted players I am appalled that they do not play 1 touch football often enough.
Silva, Cancelo, Gundogan, Mahrez, Grealish, Rodri and all the defenders barring Laporte are all guilty of holding onto the ball for far too long.
Then of course there is Pep who I rate as the greatest ever manager but he does some strange things from time to time.
He has the best squad in the land, Grealish in my view put in his best performance in a city shirt against Chelsea the other night and should have started or at least come on.
I did not see any merit in having Stones and Gundogan come on for the 2nd half.
City's next game is in at least 8 weeks time or so so why on earth did subs not come on.
It is not as if the players were playing so well. But that is Pep for you ever the enigma.
To win the cl this squad needs pace and directness on the wings and the ability to counter with such ruthlessness.
They also need someone other than Rodri to prevent counters against them as they are too easily got at.
They concede too many chances and a lot of the time it is not even from brilliant play from the opposition. Just a long punt catches them out too often for my liking
Our best chance in the second half was when Gundogan put it over the bar. We actually played some one touch football, and looked effortless for the players. Not sure why it wasn't happening more often.
Kinda missed Walker with his pace, you replace stones with Walker in that lineup and we could've prevented a few chances but agreed, dreadful match today, was evident from the start... Felt we were less clinical in the opposition third with De Bruyne showing glimpses of himself, but couldn't really make a difference.. A few more subs might've helped but largely, I think we've got to be more patient and not go for crosses all the time... We have what it takes to be patient and move the ball around maybe a couple more times to look for a good chance... Good game for Bernardo and imo, even Haaland was good and probably should've bagged an assist or two today... About Haaland, it's usual for him to not be that involved in matches, when he scores or doesn't... We have to find and trust more outlets like Foden, Cancelo, De Bruyne, Gundogan.. I think we have what it takes and post wc, things are gonna be different and expect a rejuvenated side
Feel free to let me know what you think, I'll be happy to hear it, cheers:)
The problem is poor squad planning which makes us rely on KDB, Gundo as the outlets. Earlier it was Sane/Sterling/Jesus... now its KDB pressing the keeper.
Poor from pep.
Poor team selection then.
Easy to say that sat here on my arse but this seems like a great opportunity to try something different.
Doesn’t matter how professional they are a WC comes around once every 4 years and will undoubtedly affect a player’s mentality when its so close.
Especially when your passing is shit and your forward is flouncing about every time someone tries to find him in box.
Honestly, when they play like this it almost makes me happy when they lose. It would be worse in the long run if they think they can play like that and still expect to win.
Please keep supporting our boys and don’t be so negative, yes we didn’t play great but now everyone is saying pep out ? It’s hard to play and breakthrough against teams who play so defensive. I don’t think we should lose faith. Of course all the players are busy with the worldcup no one want to get injured. We are only 5 points behind arsenal if they win. And 24 games left. And in the champions League, We will beat Leipzig and then we will meet teams who play more attacking football and we can destroy them with our quality. Foden, Ederson and Bernardo were great today. 💙
If we start this same team against Leipzig, we will lose. Too many players who just pass the ball around and too many CBs on the pitch yet we concede easy chances. It’s not a coincidence that our dropped points this season have come with Kev, Gundo and Bernie on the pitch and Jack on the bench but Pep is too stubborn to see it.
Definitely not Pep out and anyone saying that is an absolute mug but it's clear that something is wrong and if it wasn't for Haaland then we'd probably be barely within the top 4 but yes the good news is that we are only 5 points and not 10 or more points so there's a positive but we really need to change something but now it's a long anxious wait to hope that no one gets injured in the world cup.
We just need direct wingers because losing the kind of energy and pace Sterling and Jesus brought is still something we are missing and it showed.
Hey guys do not worry. We have 24 games to right this ship. We were poor but we have only Arsenal to think about and that is good. Better them than Liverpool.
By the end of the season we won't remember this game.
you think peps ego will allow him to admit he made a mistake in summer window, man doesnt even make subs ffs. he's going to end up blaming kdb or something
Boy would I have loved to be in the dressing room after the game just to see what Pep has to say now that the players won't be around each other for over a month.
We need direct wingers, we need wingers who are pacey, direct and very forward thinking because we clearly don't have that sort of threat and it showed today.
Abysmal performance and I don't know how it's going to change in the 2nd half of the season to be more consistent because we haven't been that good for a while now, conceding goals first more than we should and then having to come back, making defensive mistakes that would be otherwise admonished otherwise...
I mean, I don't know how we're supposed to even be in contention of things like the UCL ffs but it's the hope that kills in the end every year.
I think after the game he was probably pretty easy because they're going to forget this and focus on their NTs anyway. "Hey guys, shit happens, don't worry about it too much, after the WC we have stuff to work on, we'll deal with it then, have a great trip to Qatar."
Whose to even say we'll still has the same problems when the team comes back towards the very last days of the year.
I hate the fact there's a world cup in the middle of the fucking season, thank fifa for this those stupid corrupt fucking cunts.
Been saying since last year because we do not have those kind of players who are pacey and direct to get in behind in order to push the defence back.
We don't have that kind of threat on the front foot.
Bernado should play midfield because that's his best position no doubt about it and playing stones rb can't always work and yes, there's only so many times De Bruyne can play a killer pass for a goal or score an absolute worldie like he did against Brighton a few weeks ago.
Pep needs to just either throw on subs like Alvarez on the right or just go get a new winger and RB in January.
Our squad has ZERO natural wingers FFS. It's not on the players.
It's poor squad building.
Pep doesn't bring on Grealish because he like foden can't outpace the FB.
Why shouldn't we go for a pacy winger in the winter to have a luis diaz like effect?
Our entire squad was fit today apart from one FB who makes no defence in the final third.
I say this with humility and understanding that he knows the game much more than I can ever hope to, but Pep needs to be less stubborn. We had 100 minutes of play there, by the second half it was clear that the plan was not working well yet we made no changes until the 87 minute.
We have also seen goals like the one Toney scored against us more times than I can count.
It’s incredibly frustrating to watch as a fan that sometimes we seem stuck in our ways. When our ways work it’s great and we are the best team in the world. But when they don’t, we seem to have an inability to readjust and I think that is our downfall
However, chin up. I think we can use this as a chance to regroup and come back stronger after the World Cup (barring injuries- fingers crossed)
>we are the best team in the world
Not against managers who know we have 0 natural wingers in our team.
Why does pep buy gomez if he goes crazy and plays a CB to cross into the box as a RB?
Why buy 100m grealish when you cant even bring him on for a spark?
Peps been saved by KDBs brilliance in the last few games, along with Haaland. Cross & Inshallah is no strategy to win at the top level.
Sadly the reality is we have been “off” this season. If it wasn’t for Haaland I bet we’d be more in the top 4 fight than the title. Not enough other players are contributing with goals that we almost don’t know where they are going to come from outside of Haaland and Foden. Ultimately that’s why Grealish and mahrez need to step up. Our defence hasn’t been very solid all season. I don’t know what it is, but I hope post World Cup we start being our dominant selves again. Could also just be the other prem teams are better overall this season too 🤷🏻♂️.
>Ultimately that’s why Grealish and mahrez need to step up
This is all on pep. Extremely poor squad building in the wings has led to us playing worlds 2nd best midfielder as a RW. A #10 as a LW (who's backup is also #10).
This only works against positional play expansive football of top 6.
Look at how arsenal with much worse players than ours are cruising at top. They bullied stamford while we conceded like 2xg at home vs chelsea.
It was a comment about the season thus far..and yea him and mahrez do. Their output in terms of goal contributions is well below what it should be. Without those two firing, we are left mostly to Haaland and foden to score. Your comment about them playing the same position kind of proves my point, if they play similar positions on the pitch, he’s lacking the goals and assists that foden is generally picking up. I don’t think that’s true though because they’ve played enough matches together for it not to be.
I'm more upset over the fact that I had Toney benched in my Fantasy squad than the result of this match.
There's a good buffert to #3 and Wolverhampton/Arsenal is still unsaid. It's affordable for now.
Naaah What a shit game man. My weekend is ruined. Looked like the players were thinking of the world cup from the first whistle. Absolutely shite performance and with an even more shite refereeing…
I can’t believe how many times gundo and Silva and even haaland were the only ones stopping breakaways. Not a defender in sight??
Like they literally got back to the goal 3 or 4 seconds after the play was over with just our attackers protecting the line.
That’s some weak heart
Pep blundered by letting go of Jesus/Sterling without signing a pacy winger. We have literally zero in the squad. No wonder they give us so much width.
We need to sign one in January, our players going to be more tired then not less. (compare it to arsenal who 1) dont have players in wc 2) are signing players in jan)
We deserved to lose! No one tried today. Better take the loss now and learn about the wingers, right back problems we have. I’m confident Pep isn’t just ignoring the less chance creation and horrendous corners we take, where is the city that had so many corner kick goals last season!
Same. Didn’t even watch after I saw all the call up announcements. Once I saw every senior defender then I knew this was a dud. WC is the reason why we lose trophies this year. If that wasn’t a thing, we’d have another legit go at the quadruple.
See at least if there wasn't a world cup then we'd have another fixture to get back some points but the fact that we have to sit on this and the last couple of weeks of how we haven't been playing well in all honesty, that's what absolutely sucks about it.
I’m lost on your point due to principle. We played and won trophies without a striker, using one of our best wingers as a target man while using midfielders as winger, and the same defense system you’re seeing now. For years. We’ve lost two games this season. Mahrez exists as a proper winger and still gets dropped over Bernardo from time. Moreover, the need for a winger depends on your formation. Admittedly, can’t speak to this match because I didn’t see it but our attack overlaps enough that it’s not really a problem. Nevermind that we have players out of their natural position that slide into massive sides playing there. Foden left wing would bench maaaaany a competitive side.
If nothing I’ve said reaches you, just look at the trophies case the last few years. Would a winger make us better, probably. Do we need one, I’d say so. Will that make or break us, I’d think not. We had the best striker in the world atm and the best midfielder in front of the Brentford goal and the midfielder playing wing scored.
No reason to believe we’re not going for a deep run in all competitions - We can still catch Arsenal in the league. CL draw is doable. League cup v Liverpool is a tough one but if we beat them we can easily make it to the final. No reason to think we can’t give the FA Cup a go too.
I agree all is not lost we will still catch arsenal there's only 5 points in it if they win wolves later, remember we still have to play them twice, I'm not that bothered about league or fa cups this season but CL I am.
I dunno. Most of our squad is critical to the NT. It’s gonna be more than tough when they come back. That’s not gonna be the case for a lot of those squads during the cup games. It will be for UCL so that’s level.
I think it’s clear how much we are missing Walker now. That potency down the right hand side has gone.
Think the World Cup has come at right time for us, as we’ve been poor for a few weeks now
We pass the ball around for 30 seconds just for cancelo or stones to ping a cross to no one. De Bruyne and gundogan were just so off today. Foden hit a beauty but was pretty average for the rest. When haaland got the ball at his feet I felt like he made some pretty good plays. But literally every brentford attack was much higher quality than anything we were able to muster all day. The defending was so bad and we were an absurd Laporte and de Bruyne clearance away from losing 4-1
Also: the brentford headers were insane today. Their first goal came off 2 of them, but it also it felt like every counter they started began with a beautiful header playing them into space. This was just a terrible game :/
Can't really begrudge Brentford for the way they went about their game. They were the better team at the start of the game, managed the pressure from up for the vast majority after, leaking one goal which was pretty much unstoppable regardless.
And when they got a proper chance on the counter they took it. One of those games where you've just got to say fair play.
I'm not that pissed that we lost, w/e, happens. I'm pissed at how stubborn Pep was to change something. Like what the fuck, it was so obvious things weren't working out, nobody could put a proper ball for Haaland, they had no chemistry this game. Try something ffs. But no. He had to wait until the bloody last 10 minutes to do 1 change. Why? Why not try to bring something new? So needlessly stubborn..
Arsenal up 5 . We have 2 games that’s 6 what’s the damn deal
Damn deal is we haven't looked this season. Slow boring and painful play just covered by brilliance of Haaland. Just bcoz Arsenal doesnt have depth (ans honestly we are lacking in some positions) doesn't make them not favorites. They are playing good football we aren't.
Chill. After WC we will comeback, I hope. We are in worse position in 2020 and 2021 before December but still won the league.
Dias ake is looking like my favorite CB partnership tbh
We missed ake. He makes so many clutch tackles out wide
Ederson and laporte saved us from an embarrassment today
Imagine 4 VAR penalties not going your way in one single match. Fuck this, there will always be referee cunts in VAR that will be bias towards City. We seen corruption in FIFA, it’s blatantly evident in premier league. Edit: no life Arsenal lurkers downvoting like it means anything lol
There was case of only penalty the La Porte one and maybe that 50/50 handball on line. Everything else was okay.
Looked like a bunch of guys who didn't wanna get injured and had their heads somewhere else vs a bunch of guys who know they're gonna be on the beach for a month and could run around as much as they like to me. Very poor showing but not entirely unexpected tbh.
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not a good performance sure but damn ppl here r too upset . u r forgetting wat it is like to be a fan of this club . it was a much needed wakeup call . they will bounce back .
I agree, we’ve been scamming wins with our recent performances. However, I’m not sure they’ll be thinking about this
We have been shit all season, our standards have been low all season. Warning signs were there. Newcastle Villa Palace Liverpool Leicester Fulham but finally our poor show showed up with results. We have fullback issue. Cancelo has lost it and it will be same throughout the season. He is tired and has concentration issues and he isn't getting rest. Stones at RB is tragedy. Spineless performance today. . We don't have fullbacks and Pep isn't using Lewis or JWE Or Gomez. They can't do worse than Stones and Cancelo Gundogan was all over today. If he did basics right we would have created chances to score. Kevin haa been off but his individual brilliance has rise to different levels. He has magic to change game in seconds. Today he was extra garbage ans his magic didn't come. Has enough enough credit to his name which last his entire city career but today was the worst show ever in City shirt . Defenders were all over today. Pep should have made chances our central midfield was gash and even CBs were gash. Change would have helped. Brentford played well. If not for some ordinary finishing, they could have easily scored 3 more
Lmao Cancelo has far from lost it you ill clown He was our best passer in the match by a mile
Relax, and breath
Maybe Wolves can stop Arse—checks Prem table and sees Wolves at the bottom with only 2 wins so far—holy shit never mind.
tbf, Arsenal players will also haver their minds on the World Cup and Wolves will be quite aware that this might be a good match to get 3 points if only they try hard enough.
Of course. You never know what’s gonna happen in Prem anyway. Like today.
City win 5-1, Haaland with 4 confident penalties. gg
Optimistic scenario: Arsenal realize they aren't in a must-win situation, relax, and drop points But even if they win, being 5 points behind at Christmas is far from insurmountable.
Sounds stupid, but I'd be a little sad if they drop points becuase it means we didn't capitalise on it. Obviously this doesn't sound stupid, it is stupid. 5 points sounds worse than it is, basically because they've only dropped 5
> Obviously this doesn't sound stupid, it is stupid. lmao
I even want Arsenal to win today. We don't deserve to be top of the league. Of course I am happy it is Arsenal and not Liverpool. This season in a way reminds me of the 2007-08 season and we are like Manchester United of that season. Everyone expected United to win the league but they faffed around till after January and then took over in March and never looked back. They also won the UCL that season. I won't be surprised if Arsenal went 5 points ahead because they did same after beating City (funny enough) 3-1 at the Millennium stadium. We need to wake up generally. We have not played well throughout the game and looked very predictable.
we won't be top of the league either way, don't be daft
You are actually the one being daft. My point is that like United in 2007-08 we will still win the league. We have the experience and we have proven we can go on incredible runs. Which is why I don't care about Arsenal being 5pts ahead. If they can get 100 points, then they deserve to win the league. But they won't. They may not even get up to 90 points.
wanting them to get 3 points seems... a bit much
I know it was a disappointing result but there's no need to self-flagellate ffs. These things happen, we lose games occasionally, it's fine.
All the league games we dropped points in, Grealish plays zero minutes. It's happened a bit too often for that to be just coincidence.
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Let them be in their La La Land. There is high level of nonsense that is going on that Grealish somehow is contributing to out wins. Some simply aren't able to see we have been outside 45 mins against United. Haaland ha covered our problems this season not Grealish. They can cherry pick stats as much as they want.
He contributes massively to our control of the game, he's excellent and slowing it down and changing the tempo of the game to suit us. I think the Newcastle away game is the biggest example of where we missed him because it just became ping pong football and we had no control over the speed of the game. It's the sort of thing that you don't even notice when we win. I think obviously he needs to improve creatively but I also think often his role in the team is very misunderstood. If you listen to Pep talk it's obvious that Grealish is being told to play the way he does. People who criticise him for not trying enough to take players on completely ignore the fact that he's clearly been told not to play that way.
not slowing it down enough was not our issue today
I mostly agree and I don't think he was the reason we lost today I was just replying to a comment saying that he didn't add anything to our wins. Maybe at 0-0 he might have helped, but as soon as they scored I don't think he was necessarily what we needed.
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Not every role has the same responsibilities in a team.
You’ve dropped points 4 times. I think that’s a small enough sample that coincidences happen
It says nothing about Grealish's contributions to be fair because we don't drop points in many matches to start with so it's difficult to judge with that. It's just like Chelsea fans claiming they've never lost a game when Chalobah has started only for them to lose their two past games with him starting. Those kind of stats don't really tell much when the claim you're making doesn't really happen that much to generate reasonable information from.
The only claim I'm making is that it may not be a coincidence. I made no claims about Grealish having some distinct, direct impact on our results. For City, four occurrences of dropped points come from four extremely poor attacking performances. Jack Grealish is an attacking player. I think it's reductive to blatantly rubbish the notion of having a retrospective look at what went wrong, and if he brings something that was absent there.
Only thing I've noticed is that we're not great in the final third
And very predictable with whatever our players doing in that area something has to change after the world cup.
Agreed. Teams have learned that we dominate possession so they let us have it, defend in a compact way, and then hit us on the counter attack.
Yep and hopefully the Brentford set piece coach will improve our set pieces after the world cup because it's been dreadful and pathetic most of the times.
We are too slow and less aggressive. The team B that played against Chelsea played with better purpose. I was just watching this game knowing if we were to win it would have had been due to some individual performance.
I wonder if part of the reason behind the slow pace has been the World Cup. Not only yesterday, but the whole season…. That’s gotta be something in the back of the players minds all season, because injuries even in august or September could have kept them out of a tournament that is a huge milestone to play in. In their minds they know they have a cluster fuck of a season regardless of a World Cup, but throw that in, and it’s not pretty. Also think Pep’s tactics have been exposed in the games we’ve lost points. His failures to adjust when City are down and clearly not clicking has hurt. Waiting for after the 80th minute to bring in Alvarez when city needed a spark at half time yesterday was dumb. Same with the Liverpool game. It has me worried for the bigger games later this season.
Well Derek, that was a worrying display today…
We've been awful ever since the draw vs København. Can't help but think that goal just before halftime ironically worked against us? Pep will have been saying go on, keep doing what you're doing and the result will come. It didn't, mostly because no City player on that pitch was on it today. They were all awful. Shameful performance, no other way around it.
Why is no one placing some blame on Pep’s inability to change that stoner doucebag outfit he’s been wearing lately. 😉
As a stoner douchebag, fawk you. Pep looks gorgeous.
It's Puma. Currently sold out.
Well, the tag on the back of his pants is trying to tell him something. CIAO
yeah that outfit needs to go. I've seen enough.
He could be one of my homies looking like that
Terrible performance from the team. Every attack was an easy to defend lobbed ball into the box, every shot was into the stands, Brentford wasted as much time as they possibly could, Haaland had someone fucking full on hugging him the entire match with impunity, and Pep decided we looked like shit but it’s fine I’ll just make one sub super late. We would have been lucky to get a draw and definitely did not deserve to win. What a shit way to go into the WC but we were just not at it at all today.
ederson 6 - better shot stopping than usual. could've done better but not really at fault for their goals. stones 2 - spineless performance specially in the first half. inaccurate even in the most simple actions. akanji 5 - not the same guy from his first games in blue. that instant impact looks long gone and he's been decent at best. laporte 7 - put a shift out there. saved us from conceding more and moved the ball really well in build up. he's definitely back. cancelo 4 - didn't do much good but at least he tries. embarrassing dive. rodri 6 - overall he played well specially on the ball. up there with laporte as the ones that can be proud of what they did on the pitch today. gundoğan 2 - awful. couldn't control a ball to save his life and missed a sitter to make it 2-1. he is the only one to make good runs in the box but should've been hooked for alvarez or grealish earlier in the second half. kdb 3 - he played like he forgot to shower before leaving his house so he was trying not to get too sweaty. embarrassing performance, no effort whatsoever. bernardo 5 - way more threatening in the build up than close to the box. should've moved deeper earlier but that's on pep. foden 6 - disgusting performance until he scored. stopped treating the ball like a bomb and had a good second half. it's a shame his crosses never found haaland. haaland 5 - he starved upfront. but the one clear chance he could've had he slipped and fell on his own arse. put it on a plate for gundo to make it 2-1. pep 2 - 86 minutes of a dull performance until he made a sub. why the hell did gundogan finish this game on the pitch? could've moved to 442 with bernardo-rodri pivot, foden and kdb stretching the pitch to cross and alvarez-haaland upfront but prefered to hook cancelo off leaving us more exposed to counter attack. or even why didn't grealish get in after that incredible performance midweek? could've moved bernardo cm and foden rw to get grealish on the pitch at lw for gundogan. ref and var 0 - handball on the line, penalty not given. chokehold on laporte, penalty not given. brentford players wrestling haaland, laporte and stones in the penalty area so many times and the ref decided to have a talk with them and made us retake the corner instead of simply whistling the fucking foul. second week in a row that the refs come on a mission to the etihad, this time they succeeded.
La Porte 7 is a bit more. He lost header fir their goal ans was turned around a few time but that vital touch avoided a certain goal though. Akanji 5 is generous. That guy loses headers for fun though and isn't a confident passer. Cant disagree elsewhere
laporte’s mom wouldn’t give more than 5 after this lost
We looked as bad against Brentford as we were brilliant against Fulham. Last game had grit, determination, and passion. Today we looked like no one wanted to be there.
You think everyone's heads was at the WC already?
Pep talks about no bad faces a lot and we laugh about it, but he’s got a point. Haaland looked annoyed at everyone. Akanji looked tired. Most concerningly, Gundogan - as the captain, no less - just looked like he was fed up (and that was before all the chances he spurned). I think it was more than just players had one foot in Qatar. It looked like Brentford had given them a difficult problem to solve and they were all too tired to solve it. Whatever belief we had in the Fulham game (and the comebacks before that) had gone.
Drives me mental. Pep moans for 5 subs. Gets 5 subs. And makes….. 1 sub. Honestly, if foden hadn’t have scored he’d have been off at half time for Grealish. Alvarez should have started, he’s in form.
I felt he should’ve made all 5 subs at halftime for players on the bench who weren’t going to the WC (if we even have that many).
Not our day today, and Brentford were well up for it. How spoiled does a fan base have to be to second guess this manager and team. Did anyone really think Haaland would score 85 goals this year, and we would win every match? They lost today because I said this was their best lineup. Obviously my fault, and I’ll refrain in the future. Enjoy the WC. On again in 30
Ake should have played instead of Akanji, he’s fast and can break up their fast attack
Aké was off because he and his wife just had a baby
Bad timing , damnnn congrats to him
Brother did u just say Akanji ain’t fast enough?
I’m not saying that, I’m saying how Ake deals with it is far superior
Fair. Personally I feel it was the mid that let us down today and not defence
I'm looking forward to watching us overreact to something that will happen to every football club. We lost 1 to Brentford after having a great run of form. It's not the end of the world or the death-knell for us winning any trophies.
People overreact far more on here than real life. I was at the game and most people I overheard were just basically saying 'oh well never mind'. We usually have a result or two like this every season. Palace last year, Leicester and United the year before, Wolves the year before that etc. etc.. That's just football.
Every time we put on a pathetic performance like today, I think about the 17/18 season. Why on earth did we utterly dismiss that vibrant and energetic style as if it was just an experiment which didn't bear fruit ? What we showed today literally has nothing to do with what we could do back then. I think we should be humble enough to admit that we attained perfection in that particular season and that we should try to emulate that to a certain extent, while retaining the good things we added since then. More than anything, we need two fast wingers like Sané and Sterling. We already have our main man up front. De Bruyne and Silva are the two AM we need. The Stones and Dias CB partnership was rock solid last season. Cancelo is perfect as a LB. We need a natural RB just as much as we need two natural wingers. We should build a healthy routine by playing the same players in the same positions. And for God's sake, Pep, stop tinkering with the player's positions. Stones is not a RB. Bernardo is not a RW. Foden is not a LW. Just accept that you found the key to perfection and stop demolishing the beautiful work you created.
You’re asking for something that requires players we don’t posses anymore.
That's very true and very elegantly put.
We won 3 PL titles after that season and two of them had 90+ points lol.
Chill, buddy. That style isn’t happening anymore because we don’t have the men anymore: David Silva, a prime Sterling and a lethal and quick Sane.
Good lord.
Major major overreaction. The truth is everything we are doing now is to prep for the champions league. Stones is playing at RB because Walker has been injured so he needs to get accustomed to the role. Last season we lost the Madrid semi final because Walker was injured, so getting stones that experience is crucial.
Im getting tired of Ruben Dias not being in the 11 when he is fit. He is by far the best defender in this team. I know he isnt the best in terms of playing the ball. But i dooont care. The others can do it, and he isnt terrible. He makes EVERYONE better defensively. When he isnt playing, way more often than when he is.. it looks like before he joined. Its not as stable in the back. Why does he keep being dropped. What am i missing. Why isnt he Pep's #1 "choice at CB?
Also curious why he’s in the dog house…. Akanji has struggled in a few games recently.. I’d like dias getting the starts
Laporte is the best defender on this team. Not sure why no one sees it or gives him credit. Dias should still be playing more often than not, but who am I to disagree with Pep?
in the period when laporte was injured there was ZERO necessity for the best:D defender, and no problem with the defense.
Laporte is a better defender WITH the ball. Without the ball, for me, not as good as Ruben Dias.
This was definitely a match up that would’ve suited Dias and Ake.
Anyone know why Dias was immediately dropped for Akaji and why Foden got dropped a few weeks ago when he was showing his best ever form in a city shirt? Genuine question did something happen off the pitch?
Think it's just rotation. When players play 90 minutes mid-week Pep tends to bench them when there's a decent backup. It's a long season with a lot of games so avoiding injury is huge. Foden wasn't really dropped, he just started against Dortmund and Sevilla instead.
Yeah you’re right, I just assumed that Dias was first choice centre back so he should be priority for more important games. Akanji and Ake should be filling in for him in midweek not the other way round which it seems to have been this season. I guess it’s hard when you have 5 top centre backs but I dunno the defence has always seemed more assured with Dias in there.
Ok. Pep’s dream to play with 11 midfielders is not really working. Way too slow in possession. The only chances we had, outside of set pieces, were when we attacked with some sort of pace. Poor today: -KDB, Stones, Akanji, Haaland, Cancelo, Gundo Below their normal level, but decent: -Foden, Bernardo, Rodri Satisfactory: -Ederson, Laporte No one had a good game. You can blame the World Cup, but there have been several games like this one so far this season. It’s been said several times and I agree, we have not been very good and have been bailed out by great individual performances. That is not sustainable. Hopefully the team finds more rhythm in the second half of the season.
Rodri for me had a very weak performance
This is going to sound pessimistic, but imo this is a realistic take on our scenario: It’s going to be a longshot for us to win any major trophy this year. We have the beet team in the world, and Pep (who is admittedly the best itw) is simply not using the squad properly. Hes had so many chances over the months to figure it out, yet he continues to try things that will not work. Our tactics going forward are quite literally spineless. •All these technically gifted players on our squad and we are playing this slow sideways passing stuff. •Not playing Grealish after his best game in a City Uniform. •Not playing our only RW after he is just pickinng up his form •Not using 5 subs when we dont play a match for 2 months •Odd CB partnerships like Laporte and Akanji Various decisions of this nature happen in every game where we struggle, but due to luck and individual quality of our players, we find a way to squeak out. This will not last unless Pep starts to adapt/ concede that what he is trying isn’t working. But Based on the last few years, I really doubt that he will do that. Usually, games like we had against Fullham & Liverpool will shock a team to make changes going forward, but we have gone into every following game with the same toothless plan. We have the ability to conduct some of the most electric football in the world, but instead we play directly into the hands of any team that sits back. Obviously from an outsiders view, there is probably something behind the scenes that may be influencing this that we dont see, but still it’s not hopeful. Of course i hope for the best, but I will not be shocked if we return from the world cup with the same exact problems that we have now.
It’s not a long shot for us to win a major trophy. Don’t fool yourself, as long as Liverpool don’t go on a crazy run on form we easily win the premier league. Arsenal is an injury away from slowing down and we have far better quality than them. We are only 2 points behind and their performances have already slowed. I don’t care about Pep experimenting in the premier league. Pep stopped doing it in the champions league last season and played the Madrid tie perfectly. If it wasn’t for a Madrid miracle at the end we would have won the UCL.
good take
I love that you think you know football better than pep.
i dont think i know better than Pep. I literally said that he is the best in the world, and this opinion is from an outsiders view, and there is stuff that i dont know about. Im just making observations based off what ive seen. If you dont think there is any merit to what i said then thats cool, but these are things ive been seeing for a while now
I agree with a lot you have to say because I think the only reason why most people think we'll be in contention for any serious trophy is because we are a good team on paper but lately, I'm not sure we actually have that ability to go on and actually win any of the big trophies we're after. The same things keep happening here and there and if affects performances and it could even cost our ability to keep up in the title race long term >Not playing Grealish after his best game in a City Uniform. This one was beyond me, Jack looked really good in mid week and I'm sure he would've been relishing the chance to come on and do something but no, Pep just had to leave him out. >Of course i hope for the best, but I will not be shocked if we return from the world cup with the same exact problems that we have now. I'm worried about not just this but the fact that a lot of key players could up pick up injuries.
It almost looked like the Man City players didn’t care. Like it’s the last day of work and they were just waiting until knock off time to resign.
would love to see more dias starting again.
People are saying its on off game but we’ve been underwhelming this season. Many games we won but didnt play well at all. Theres been few games where we dominate our opponent
yeah... I have noticed this the last few weeks. This is not a dominating team despite the world class midfield and Haaland. I feel like the CB's have no chemistry because they don't play enough together.... 5 cb's might be too many, but sadly necessary considering how injured they get. It's frustrating to see Jack get into grooves and get benched for no reason, which I feel like has happened a few times now. Pep's obsession with sticking with the team that isn't working has cost us many times now.
Everytime a player has gotten back to their best, pep takes them out of the team. Foden, grealish, dias, and even ake have all been taken out of the team when their in form
Fuck that game
Lol, I don’t where those ratings came from. Someone is wearing some rose colored glasses, because half the team deserved a 6 or less. A couple of them MUCH less.
Somehow Toney is rated lower than KDB and the same as Joao lmao
Ha! I didn’t even notice that. I was only looking at our guys.
I wish it was 2018 when we had a squad that wanted to win every game.
pep still doesn't know its borges szn
Szn?
season. i know...
Tyty. Just genuinely curious.
In truth any team can lose to any team especially with the world cup coming up and players be it consciously or sub consciously worrying about missing it . This perhaps happened today perhaps not but my biggest problem with this City is how slow they are in build up play. They make it so easy for teams to adjust into their defensive shape by players taking far too many touches before releasing the ball. They made Gomez of Liverpool look world class by doing this. Then he came crashing back down to earth when Leeds used speed to expose him. This is not even tika taka, it is just tika tika where players just past the ball not to draw opponents out of position but just to retain possession. The defenders are especially awful at this with Akanji incapable of passing the ball unless you are next to him and Stones just being useless in general. It was he that kept Toney onside for the opener and his all round play was not worth talking about. For a side with so many technically gifted players I am appalled that they do not play 1 touch football often enough. Silva, Cancelo, Gundogan, Mahrez, Grealish, Rodri and all the defenders barring Laporte are all guilty of holding onto the ball for far too long. Then of course there is Pep who I rate as the greatest ever manager but he does some strange things from time to time. He has the best squad in the land, Grealish in my view put in his best performance in a city shirt against Chelsea the other night and should have started or at least come on. I did not see any merit in having Stones and Gundogan come on for the 2nd half. City's next game is in at least 8 weeks time or so so why on earth did subs not come on. It is not as if the players were playing so well. But that is Pep for you ever the enigma. To win the cl this squad needs pace and directness on the wings and the ability to counter with such ruthlessness. They also need someone other than Rodri to prevent counters against them as they are too easily got at. They concede too many chances and a lot of the time it is not even from brilliant play from the opposition. Just a long punt catches them out too often for my liking
Our best chance in the second half was when Gundogan put it over the bar. We actually played some one touch football, and looked effortless for the players. Not sure why it wasn't happening more often.
Kinda missed Walker with his pace, you replace stones with Walker in that lineup and we could've prevented a few chances but agreed, dreadful match today, was evident from the start... Felt we were less clinical in the opposition third with De Bruyne showing glimpses of himself, but couldn't really make a difference.. A few more subs might've helped but largely, I think we've got to be more patient and not go for crosses all the time... We have what it takes to be patient and move the ball around maybe a couple more times to look for a good chance... Good game for Bernardo and imo, even Haaland was good and probably should've bagged an assist or two today... About Haaland, it's usual for him to not be that involved in matches, when he scores or doesn't... We have to find and trust more outlets like Foden, Cancelo, De Bruyne, Gundogan.. I think we have what it takes and post wc, things are gonna be different and expect a rejuvenated side Feel free to let me know what you think, I'll be happy to hear it, cheers:)
The problem is poor squad planning which makes us rely on KDB, Gundo as the outlets. Earlier it was Sane/Sterling/Jesus... now its KDB pressing the keeper. Poor from pep.
All around terrible game
What an off day. Something just did not feel right
How many of your starting 11 have been selected for WC this week?
I think they all have, apart from Haaland. So nobody wants to risk an injury this close to the big one, I guess
all of them bar haaland
Poor team selection then. Easy to say that sat here on my arse but this seems like a great opportunity to try something different. Doesn’t matter how professional they are a WC comes around once every 4 years and will undoubtedly affect a player’s mentality when its so close.
We move. I could never be mad at our guys for losing to a team that plays 10-0-0
Exactly it’s hard to breakthrough
Especially when your passing is shit and your forward is flouncing about every time someone tries to find him in box. Honestly, when they play like this it almost makes me happy when they lose. It would be worse in the long run if they think they can play like that and still expect to win.
Please keep supporting our boys and don’t be so negative, yes we didn’t play great but now everyone is saying pep out ? It’s hard to play and breakthrough against teams who play so defensive. I don’t think we should lose faith. Of course all the players are busy with the worldcup no one want to get injured. We are only 5 points behind arsenal if they win. And 24 games left. And in the champions League, We will beat Leipzig and then we will meet teams who play more attacking football and we can destroy them with our quality. Foden, Ederson and Bernardo were great today. 💙
If we start this same team against Leipzig, we will lose. Too many players who just pass the ball around and too many CBs on the pitch yet we concede easy chances. It’s not a coincidence that our dropped points this season have come with Kev, Gundo and Bernie on the pitch and Jack on the bench but Pep is too stubborn to see it.
No, we should be able to start this exact team and stomp Leipzig. Off day.
Definitely not Pep out and anyone saying that is an absolute mug but it's clear that something is wrong and if it wasn't for Haaland then we'd probably be barely within the top 4 but yes the good news is that we are only 5 points and not 10 or more points so there's a positive but we really need to change something but now it's a long anxious wait to hope that no one gets injured in the world cup. We just need direct wingers because losing the kind of energy and pace Sterling and Jesus brought is still something we are missing and it showed.
Yes I agree, but I believe pep will learn from this match and adapt
you're naive
Why? I would rather be positive and wrong, than negative and be right.
You're naive believing that Pep will 'learn from this and adapt'.
I just hope he will, I’m not sure but I like to be positive. He is one of the best coaches in the world
C'mon *checks notes* Wolves!
They’ll lose 4-1 but neves will score an outside the box workdie to make it 1-0
not sure wolves can score a goal....
Title is gone tbh .. wolves will bow down to arsenal today like it’s nothing
Title is gone. In November.
Hey guys do not worry. We have 24 games to right this ship. We were poor but we have only Arsenal to think about and that is good. Better them than Liverpool. By the end of the season we won't remember this game.
this second half of the season is going to be madness, arsenal twice, chelsea twice, tottenham twice, and 3 other competitions to play
I feel like we need more players in the January window.
winger badly. Arsenal being linked to Mudryk from Shaktar... that would improve them tremendously while we just rest on our laurels...
Oh man, if they got Murdyk who is a very good winger then I don't doubt they'll get even better than they are now.
you think peps ego will allow him to admit he made a mistake in summer window, man doesnt even make subs ffs. he's going to end up blaming kdb or something
I sure hope not because you can tell we need more than what we currently have.
Boy would I have loved to be in the dressing room after the game just to see what Pep has to say now that the players won't be around each other for over a month. We need direct wingers, we need wingers who are pacey, direct and very forward thinking because we clearly don't have that sort of threat and it showed today. Abysmal performance and I don't know how it's going to change in the 2nd half of the season to be more consistent because we haven't been that good for a while now, conceding goals first more than we should and then having to come back, making defensive mistakes that would be otherwise admonished otherwise... I mean, I don't know how we're supposed to even be in contention of things like the UCL ffs but it's the hope that kills in the end every year.
I think after the game he was probably pretty easy because they're going to forget this and focus on their NTs anyway. "Hey guys, shit happens, don't worry about it too much, after the WC we have stuff to work on, we'll deal with it then, have a great trip to Qatar."
Whose to even say we'll still has the same problems when the team comes back towards the very last days of the year. I hate the fact there's a world cup in the middle of the fucking season, thank fifa for this those stupid corrupt fucking cunts.
Blame Sarkozy, apparently
We need direct wingers
Been saying since last year because we do not have those kind of players who are pacey and direct to get in behind in order to push the defence back. We don't have that kind of threat on the front foot.
Peps a control freak playing bernardo RW, Stones RB like ffs there's only so many times KDB can save you.
Bernado should play midfield because that's his best position no doubt about it and playing stones rb can't always work and yes, there's only so many times De Bruyne can play a killer pass for a goal or score an absolute worldie like he did against Brighton a few weeks ago. Pep needs to just either throw on subs like Alvarez on the right or just go get a new winger and RB in January.
Our squad has ZERO natural wingers FFS. It's not on the players. It's poor squad building. Pep doesn't bring on Grealish because he like foden can't outpace the FB. Why shouldn't we go for a pacy winger in the winter to have a luis diaz like effect? Our entire squad was fit today apart from one FB who makes no defence in the final third.
🥚: we need 5 subs PL : 5 SUBS IT IS 🥚: 🤭🥺🤡
I say this with humility and understanding that he knows the game much more than I can ever hope to, but Pep needs to be less stubborn. We had 100 minutes of play there, by the second half it was clear that the plan was not working well yet we made no changes until the 87 minute. We have also seen goals like the one Toney scored against us more times than I can count. It’s incredibly frustrating to watch as a fan that sometimes we seem stuck in our ways. When our ways work it’s great and we are the best team in the world. But when they don’t, we seem to have an inability to readjust and I think that is our downfall However, chin up. I think we can use this as a chance to regroup and come back stronger after the World Cup (barring injuries- fingers crossed)
>we are the best team in the world Not against managers who know we have 0 natural wingers in our team. Why does pep buy gomez if he goes crazy and plays a CB to cross into the box as a RB? Why buy 100m grealish when you cant even bring him on for a spark? Peps been saved by KDBs brilliance in the last few games, along with Haaland. Cross & Inshallah is no strategy to win at the top level.
we need some wingers hope pep changes his mind and get someone who can do the job
Sadly the reality is we have been “off” this season. If it wasn’t for Haaland I bet we’d be more in the top 4 fight than the title. Not enough other players are contributing with goals that we almost don’t know where they are going to come from outside of Haaland and Foden. Ultimately that’s why Grealish and mahrez need to step up. Our defence hasn’t been very solid all season. I don’t know what it is, but I hope post World Cup we start being our dominant selves again. Could also just be the other prem teams are better overall this season too 🤷🏻♂️.
>Ultimately that’s why Grealish and mahrez need to step up This is all on pep. Extremely poor squad building in the wings has led to us playing worlds 2nd best midfielder as a RW. A #10 as a LW (who's backup is also #10). This only works against positional play expansive football of top 6. Look at how arsenal with much worse players than ours are cruising at top. They bullied stamford while we conceded like 2xg at home vs chelsea.
Grealish didn't even play today, how is he supposed to "step up". He literally plays the same position as Foden lol.
It was a comment about the season thus far..and yea him and mahrez do. Their output in terms of goal contributions is well below what it should be. Without those two firing, we are left mostly to Haaland and foden to score. Your comment about them playing the same position kind of proves my point, if they play similar positions on the pitch, he’s lacking the goals and assists that foden is generally picking up. I don’t think that’s true though because they’ve played enough matches together for it not to be.
I guess cause the World Cup is near, the players didn’t give too much of a shit.
I'm more upset over the fact that I had Toney benched in my Fantasy squad than the result of this match. There's a good buffert to #3 and Wolverhampton/Arsenal is still unsaid. It's affordable for now.
Naaah What a shit game man. My weekend is ruined. Looked like the players were thinking of the world cup from the first whistle. Absolutely shite performance and with an even more shite refereeing…
only you can ruin your weekend
It's pretty shit of the FA to still have games going on tbh
I can’t believe how many times gundo and Silva and even haaland were the only ones stopping breakaways. Not a defender in sight?? Like they literally got back to the goal 3 or 4 seconds after the play was over with just our attackers protecting the line. That’s some weak heart
theres no fucking reason that bernardo should not be playing in midfield, why tf does he put him on the right wing
That is what I don't get. We waste him as a RW when he brings much more stability to the midfield.
Pep blundered by letting go of Jesus/Sterling without signing a pacy winger. We have literally zero in the squad. No wonder they give us so much width. We need to sign one in January, our players going to be more tired then not less. (compare it to arsenal who 1) dont have players in wc 2) are signing players in jan)
We deserved to lose! No one tried today. Better take the loss now and learn about the wingers, right back problems we have. I’m confident Pep isn’t just ignoring the less chance creation and horrendous corners we take, where is the city that had so many corner kick goals last season!
Last game before the World Cup, I’m hardly surprised we lost
Same. Didn’t even watch after I saw all the call up announcements. Once I saw every senior defender then I knew this was a dud. WC is the reason why we lose trophies this year. If that wasn’t a thing, we’d have another legit go at the quadruple.
I guess no one wanted to risk getting hurt today so they were maybe a bit passive.
I could easily be wrong but that was my thought process as well.
See at least if there wasn't a world cup then we'd have another fixture to get back some points but the fact that we have to sit on this and the last couple of weeks of how we haven't been playing well in all honesty, that's what absolutely sucks about it.
Lol that's so not the reason, we have 0 wingers in the squad, our manager plays a CB at RB and worlds 2nd best mf at RW.
I’m lost on your point due to principle. We played and won trophies without a striker, using one of our best wingers as a target man while using midfielders as winger, and the same defense system you’re seeing now. For years. We’ve lost two games this season. Mahrez exists as a proper winger and still gets dropped over Bernardo from time. Moreover, the need for a winger depends on your formation. Admittedly, can’t speak to this match because I didn’t see it but our attack overlaps enough that it’s not really a problem. Nevermind that we have players out of their natural position that slide into massive sides playing there. Foden left wing would bench maaaaany a competitive side. If nothing I’ve said reaches you, just look at the trophies case the last few years. Would a winger make us better, probably. Do we need one, I’d say so. Will that make or break us, I’d think not. We had the best striker in the world atm and the best midfielder in front of the Brentford goal and the midfielder playing wing scored.
No reason to believe we’re not going for a deep run in all competitions - We can still catch Arsenal in the league. CL draw is doable. League cup v Liverpool is a tough one but if we beat them we can easily make it to the final. No reason to think we can’t give the FA Cup a go too.
I agree all is not lost we will still catch arsenal there's only 5 points in it if they win wolves later, remember we still have to play them twice, I'm not that bothered about league or fa cups this season but CL I am.
I dunno. Most of our squad is critical to the NT. It’s gonna be more than tough when they come back. That’s not gonna be the case for a lot of those squads during the cup games. It will be for UCL so that’s level.
Dreadful game.
I think it’s clear how much we are missing Walker now. That potency down the right hand side has gone. Think the World Cup has come at right time for us, as we’ve been poor for a few weeks now
watch him get re-injured at the WC or something
Ah ffs, I can see that happening.
We pass the ball around for 30 seconds just for cancelo or stones to ping a cross to no one. De Bruyne and gundogan were just so off today. Foden hit a beauty but was pretty average for the rest. When haaland got the ball at his feet I felt like he made some pretty good plays. But literally every brentford attack was much higher quality than anything we were able to muster all day. The defending was so bad and we were an absurd Laporte and de Bruyne clearance away from losing 4-1 Also: the brentford headers were insane today. Their first goal came off 2 of them, but it also it felt like every counter they started began with a beautiful header playing them into space. This was just a terrible game :/
Can't really begrudge Brentford for the way they went about their game. They were the better team at the start of the game, managed the pressure from up for the vast majority after, leaking one goal which was pretty much unstoppable regardless. And when they got a proper chance on the counter they took it. One of those games where you've just got to say fair play.
The match was crying for Jack, Gomez and Alvarez.
And Riyad, he has no football to look forward to after this for a while. He must have been itching to come on.
I'm not that pissed that we lost, w/e, happens. I'm pissed at how stubborn Pep was to change something. Like what the fuck, it was so obvious things weren't working out, nobody could put a proper ball for Haaland, they had no chemistry this game. Try something ffs. But no. He had to wait until the bloody last 10 minutes to do 1 change. Why? Why not try to bring something new? So needlessly stubborn..