The9

Stoke, League Cup.

Against their reserves, and had many moments of cackness against Stoke.

-----------Forster-------------- Clyne Fonte Yoshida Bertrand ------Wanyama Davis-------- Long ----Tadic -----Mane----- ----------Pelle----------------- Assuming none of Cork, Alderweireld or Schneiderlin (who actually told a mate of mine on Wednesday he'd be fit for Monday's match before Koeman said otherwise) are fit. "Options" on the bench... K Davis, Gardos, Targett, Reed, Mayuka, erm... McCarthy? Sims? Seager? etc. Good job we haven't got a busy Christmas schedule with another player guaranteed to be missing for the Chelsea games...

Also, two goals came from us giving the ball away cheaply (albeit more than 50 yards from the goal) - Steven Davis caught on half way by Milner for Lampard's goal, and Tadic's terrible corner for a 3 on 2 (and then 4 on 3) break for Clichy's goal. I will say Alderweireld MIGHT have picked Lampard up slightly better but he went to close down the ball instead, so maybe Schneiderlin might have stopped it.

I can't give Wanyama MotM, when did Alderweireld get caught in possession like Victor did? Especially as he gave it away in the lead up to the first goal, and got booked so early on he left himself unable to challenge for the rest of the match. FWIW, Toure's shot was hit with 6 Saints players in the 5m x 5m square immediately in front of him - Fonte was lunging to block, Alderweireld and Davis were in the direct line of the ball - unfortunately Alderweireld's part-block only served to bend the ball around Davis who also would have blocked it. Forster had no chance of seeing it, and I'm still not sure how it got through the 6 defenders.

Also, seeing as I'm watching in on MotD... Tadic has so far drawn the foul for Mangala's first booking, put in a great FK that we nearly scored a header from, and cut the loose ball against Hart from a narrow angle for what should have been a corner (wrongly given as a goal kick) after Pelle's leg-dangling miss... Plus the second shot just wide of the second half in the 48th minute, so he wasn't entirely ineffective.

On the Tadic point, I was most disappointed at our failure to exploit Clichy's ridiculous tendency to come haring up the pitch to try and intercept balls into Tadic's feet every single time - after the second time he did it we should have had the nous to have Pelle nearby, either running wide into the space Clichy had left, or standing square of Tadic for a quick give and roll by Tadic for him to get in behind Clichy, or even just popping the ball long over Clichy to turn him and have Tadic chase, just to give Clichy something to think about other than "just cut out the short ball to Tadic" but we continued to play very predictably and often left Tadic out to dry with little support for him - partially of course because City were very good at marking the options.

He made the right decision and an excellent save. Even if it had hit him on the ar5e whilst falling over backwards it would have been an excellent save. The fact he recognised the similarity of the situation to Monday, made the judgement to stay on his line, and stopped a goal instead of being held responsible for one, shows that he's a quick learner AND makes good decisions. If it had gone in, fine, he should have come out as it couldn't have been any worse. But it didn't, so he got the best possible outcome and it could not have been improved upon.

Just to clarify, I regard the bottom half as "being in a relegation scrap at Xmas", so it's perfectly possible we would just faff about in mid-table, but you wouldn't want an injury crisis on top of a stretched squad like the one we've got at the moment with an extra 10 or so matches. I guess we could reduce the impact a little by putting the kids out in the League Cup and FA Cup, but ideally we'd want to be competing on all fronts - also Europe removes the need to compete in the first two rounds of the League Cup anyway.

Yes, but he's a converted attacking midfielder.

Reminds me a bit of Henri Camara, looks lightweight but surprisingly strong when he wants to be, good balance and explosiveness, with the occasional "wtf" moment. Probably not as good a finisher though, from the few chances he's had. The kind of player that can change games, but he didn't at all like having to track back to support Bertrand defensively and City exploited that a fair bit and also used it to pin back Bertrand as an attacking threat.

Yoshida's main weakness is high balls, City weren't likely to use those, and he played when we drew 1-1 with them previously. Plus I saw Gardos have a bit of a 'mare against Stoke and I'm not sure he's got Koeman's confidence right now.

He was so good at it that his positioning and thought process were almost exactly those I'd have seen from Schneiderlin, one of the reasons I described his performance as "superb" rather than just "good". No-one had the time to pick up Lampard as he dragged it out of the sky and put it in the corner practically in one movement, and Toure didn't even take a touch and it took a deflection, so I don't really think Schneiderlin would have made much difference there. It weakened the back 4, but the midfield was no worse off than when they were outclassed in the first half.

Sounds like a self-described attacking midfielder who can win a tackle to me. No defensive midfielder lists their ability to "pick a pass" as a key attribute, that's very much a creative trait.

We lost one of our best players from midfield and we're in the midst of a midfield injury crisis, there was going to be SOME impact from it. As I've been endlessly banging on about, we don't have much depth in the squad, and much as I don't rate Yoshida, Alderweireld's performance meant we barely missed Schneiderlin. Yoshida has also played in sides which haven't lost to City previously. I think Koeman made the right change given the circumstances, we were second best and the only reason the score ramped up was because we tried to chase it and didn't settle for losing 1-0.

No, I agree, Alderweireld was the best player on the park yesterday. Two positions, looked superb in both of them and also had a couple of our best shots. I'd have picked him in all eleven positions yesterday if I could have. Also, the Tadic CAM thing was so bloody obvious some of us were saying it should have been used last Monday against Villa before the game even kicked off.

Koeman's test will be whether he can remotivate the team to beat the likes of Burnley and Palace (and Everton at home) in the midst of a difficult run, and whether he can get the team in shape to beat the sides we've already beaten in the second half of the season too.

Butland has done very little to support the hype in the past 2 seasons, we might even be able to sign him too, soon.

Yup, a World Class piece of keeping - excellent decision given what happened Monday, and good to see him learning. Other than a flaky performance against Spurs (and he wasn't to blame for any goals there) and the brain fart at Villa, I haven't seen him do much wrong. Keeps getting criticised for his kicking, for which I've seen no evidence at all, and people keep saying he looks panicked and flustered, when he regularly just ambles out and pulls crosses into his hands without any problem at all. Compared to Boruc he looks more solid, more assured, has more of a presence and is so much better at retaining concentration - Boruc was a pretty good keeper when he was concentrating, but that was his main weakness.

To be perfectly honest, if we hadn't decided to push forward and chase the game at 0-1 I think City would have shut up shop and taken that, but we left gaps chasing the game, and Lampard showed how he's scored so many goals with a superb take down and finish that was a different class.

You've JUST thought of this? If we made the Europa League or CL we'd need to sign at least 6 more starting-standard players to avoid being in a relegation scrap at Xmas. Too many matches. Swansea had it just about right when they were in Europe last season, bolstered their squad heavily and are showing the benefit of it this year, having shed the dead weight in the summer.

Yeah, because you should always judge players on the ability of their teammates to create them chances when they're massively out of their depth...

Surely he's not a mark on Paul Wotton?

I don't understand at least 2 phrases used in this OP.

All decent players playing against more difficult opponents who've now had a chance to scout their tendencies over a longer period. Plus a bit more fatigue from having to play our strongest XI (well, 13) in pretty much every game.