Man City 3 Saints 0 reaction

dammm

And back to Earth.

It was an opportunity to prove we can mix it with the best. Sadly we found out we can't. Top 6 has to be the aim now, to chat about finishing top 4 now would be embarrassing. No one really turned up, but we got thoroughly outplayed. Fairplay to City, they played like Champions today.

Hugely disappointing but:

- Played a top team who were clearly up for it

- Lost our best player and had to shuffle back 4

- Key players had a shocker (Tadic esp)

We were totally naive at the end and should have kept the score down. But other than that this was just an inevitable return to the real world. No need to blow it out of proportion - every London based journo in the country will do that for us.

Not as good as we think we are. Simple as that.

too bloody poor, some players might have well not have came out from the dugout!

Can't afford to give the ball away so easily so many times against very good teams.

Oh well onto Wednesday for the next easy game.

Oh well.

Lack of invention, Schneiderlin injury and squad depth big losses from that

Well that was a terrible performance and a reality check for those who actually think we can compete for top four.

Arsenal and United up next, it's going to take a special performance to win either of those.

They were very very good, we started slowly and had little options up top with Pellè and Tadic having off games.

Losing Schneiderlin opened it up for them, Toby wasnt aweful in there, he is good on the ball but his positioning was off which is understandable for a CB playing CM.

They pressed well, closed up the gaps and retained possession well though, all in all we played a refreshed champions. Dissapointing but not the end of the world.

Pretty frustrating overall. Still gutted I couldn't make it what with my ****ed foot, but didn't miss much!

We started the game as we meant to go on, really. City were up for it, probably more so than us, and we seemed a little overawed by the game at times.

Key performers Tadic and Pelle had stinkers, more so Tadic. When that happens, you need a team like City to have a bit of a stinker too to give us a chance - but it didn't happen, they barley gave us an inch to be honest and kept us at a distance most of the game.

I still don't think we'll get near top 4, but top 6 is possible for sure. We're better than we showed today, which is the frustrating thing, but credit to City who put a pretty perfect away performance. No answer when they play at that level, just have to applaud them.

Gutsy first half where we rode our luck and didn't take our glorious chance.

Lost Morgan at Ht was a big loss, Guessing Cork was absent because of illness/injury so he couldn't replace him.The guy i feel sorry for is Reed, Cork out and Morgan out and the manager still doesn't give him a chance. Moving our most on form centre back into midfield wasn't wise imo and i'd have like to have seen where a natural midfielder would have been for the 1st. Disappointing how we collapsed against 10 men too. Big job for Koeman to get the team's head up for another big game midweek.

The champions came to SMS at full strength and played well, we didn't take the chances we created in the first half.

As Nige would say, "bue line, move on".

A point at the Arse and beat MoanUre as we learn the lessons of this and put our 2 game 'poor run of form' behind us. :-)

Poor, occasion got to us, missed cork and should have started long. We won't finish above city who played the occasion and not the hype. Bad timetto get thumped with upcoming fixtures. Be ready for 2 defeats and a draw at best from city arse and United... Ah well, we march on.

Sometimes you just come up against someone better. Shouldn't be too surprised really, but I did think we'd give them a scare.

Tadić and Pellè haven't been what they were pre-international break, and we need them to rediscover that form ASAP.

The worst of this is that the likes of Mark Lawrenson can now say they were right - and they probably are.

To maintain a challenge for top 4 we needed to show we can compete with teams like City. Sadly we have shown that we are still short and with suspensions and injuries looming things look a little bit bleak.

Back to reality.

On the other hand - 3RD IN THE TABLE!

And the slide begins just like last season. Why do our best players always seem to pick up injuries in or around the big games? Lack of depth on the bench will always kill us every time.

Not good enough to beat the big sides still as long as we beat the lower and mid table sides we can stay in the top half which is the most a club like ours can hope for really.

All three goals were so unlike the way we had been defending this season.

No DM shielding the back four for the first, allowing Yaya time to shoot. Davis giving the ball away for the 2nd and then jogging back, you can see him spot Lampard way too late and start to run toward him. For the 3rd no-one picked up the runner.

City hounded us well, particularly Tadic, but we had ridden the storm before the errors cost us.

Just hope Cork is ok for Wednesday. 3 out of six midfield injured is stretching us.

Poor performance, no shame in losing to the champions but the nature of the defeat was not good.

To have had a chance we needed to get into their faces but we backed off, gave them too much respect and they steamed us.

No pace going forward, no real creativity, ponderous midfield, FF doesn't fill me with total confidence - City had a far more comfortable afternoon than they ever should have.

Was Cork on the bench? Why was Morgan subbed for Yoshi, Cork was the obvious replacement?

Long looked OK when he came on, more of a threat than Mane.

Not the end of the world of course but the poor performances of Tadic, Pelle and Mané once again are a distinct concern.

Gutsy first half where we rode our luck and didn't take our glorious chance.

Lost Morgan at Ht was a big loss, Guessing Cork was absent because of illness/injury so he couldn't replace him.The guy i feel sorry for is Reed, Cork out and Morgan out and the manager still doesn't give him a chance. Moving our most on form centre back into midfield wasn't wise imo and i'd have like to have seen where a natural midfielder would have been for the 1st. Disappointing how we collapsed against 10 men too. Big job for Koeman to get the team's head up for another big game midweek.

Exactly what I said in the match thread. We could have left our defence as it was, and brought on Reed to replace Schneiderlin a like for like midfield replacement. If Koeman isn't going to pick Reed, then its pointless putting him on the bench. We were undone today because our passing was terrible. I lost count of the times we gifted City the ball due to poor choices, and poor movement. We showed them far too much respect, and from the kick off it was clear we never had the belief that we were going to win. Very disappointing.

Best team we've played against this season I reckon. They seemed really up for it today. Shame we didn't create more in the final 3rd. Unfortunately it was City who scored first, with a deflected shot. If one of our shots had gone in it would have given the players a lift. Roll on Arsenal.

Oh well. Disappointing really as I think we had the opportunities to put them under more pressure, we just kept ****ing them up. It's difficult, for example, to challenge from set pieces when 99% of the deliveries are appalling. Was a shame when Morgan went off although Alderweireld did a pretty solid job in midfield. Hope it's nothing serious.

The difference between the two teams could be seen on the benches. Bringing on Mayuka to chase a game shows our lack of depth that the big teams have.

Today was Tadic's worst performance in a Saints shirt. I really like him but he was dreadful today.

Stil, we have a game coming up quickly to make amends, no suspensions and we'll probably still be in the top four at the end of the week. Arsenal and United are there for the taking. City were just too good today.

Poor performance, no shame in losing to the champions but the nature of the defeat was not good.

 

To have had a chance we needed to get into their faces but we backed off, gave them too much respect and they steamed us.

 

No pace going forward, no real creativity, ponderous midfield, FF doesn't fill me with total confidence - City had a far more comfortable afternoon than they ever should have.

 

Was Cork on the bench? Why was Morgan subbed for Yoshi, Cork was the obvious replacement?

 

Long looked OK when he came on, more of a threat than Mane.

Cork was Ill, Morgan was injured.

Bringing on a CB and moving Toby to CM was really the only choice, even though not an ideal one. Other option would have been to throw an 18 year old in there, and that wouldn't have been an ideal situation. You need experience in games like these and it was still 0-0 at the time of the changes.

2nd to every loose ball and lots of poor passes and touches. You can't do that against teams like City unfortunately. Oh well, on to Arsenal

A disappointingly poor performance and a pretty scrappy game all in all. After similar at Aston Villa hopefully we can get back on form sooner rather than later.

We were reasonably competitive but losing Morgan meant that we didn't have his unique brand of cover for the two mistakes we made on the right side. We also lost Alderwieireld's reading of danger situations at the back.

I think we're a better side with Long in (over Mané) and with Tadic playing on the left. Mané, for me, disrupts our style rather than contributes to it.

I hoped for a draw today but I was (and remain) more optimistic about the next two.

People need to park the "we got found out" crap and recognize that we lost to a top two team. The next three places are still very much up for grabs.

Disappointing. Why no Cork? After Mane's stinker at Villa I would have started with Long. Putting Toby into midfield weakened us at the back. Not sure why he didn't give Reed a chance?

Move on.........

All three goals were so unlike the way we had been defending this season.

 

No DM shielding the back four for the first, allowing Yaya time to shoot. Davis giving the ball away for the 2nd and then jogging back, you can see him spot Lampard way too late and start to run toward him. For the 3rd no-one picked up the runner.

 

City hounded us well, particularly Tadic, but we had ridden the storm before the errors cost us.

 

Just hope Cork is ok for Wednesday. 3 out of six midfield injured is stretching us.

In fact the first goal was a combination of errors by the two DMs, Toby lost the ball and then when Victor did get a foot on it towards the edge of our box he firked it up as well and let Touré have a free shot which took a deflection and left Forster diving into the wrong place. Davis lost the ball for the second I think, Morgan is so key to our game that any prolonged absence might well be a disaster waiting to happen.

Karma is catching up with our ridiculing Liverpool, Lallana and Lovren.

That was a f**king embarrassment.

i don't care who we are playing:.. 3 goals in 1 half, 2 against 10 men and a complete nothing performance.

Probably more of the same on Wednesday.

We looked very slow. Required too much time on ball. City passed us to death. Pelle seems to have lost an edge. Should have put away a couple of half-chances. Tadic had another poor game.

That was a f**king embarrassment.

 

i don't care who we are playing:.. 3 goals in 1 half, 2 against 10 men and a complete nothing performance.

 

Probably more of the same on Wednesday.

YET WE'RE STILL THIRD. Grow up.

Really not getting the ''embarrassment'' posts.

We didn't play well, they did, they hit us on the break whilst we were pressing.

Game over and not worth sweating over. Wednesday is too close to mull over this.

Cork was Ill, Morgan was injured.

 

Bringing on a CB and moving Toby to CM was really the only choice, even though not an ideal one. Other option would have been to throw an 18 year old in there, and that wouldn't have been an ideal situation. You need experience in games like these and it was still 0-0 at the time of the changes.

Sorry disagree, if your not willing to give a talented 18 year old a chance in a prem game when you've lost 2 of your first choice centre mids when is he going to get these theoretical prem game experiences. We played JWP first game back in prem against city and he didn't let himself down. Wrong decision imo.

Sorry disagree, if your not willing to give a talented 18 year old a chance in a prem game when you've lost 2 of your first choice centre mids when is he going to get these theoretical prem game experiences. We played JWP first game back in prem against city and he didn't let himself down. Wrong decision imo.

Not sure just how academy minded Koeman actually is. He certainly has a reputation for using young players but doesn't seem to think most of ours can do the job he requires.

Can everybody wanting to query his absense please note:

Cork is ill.

The problem with Pelle is he needs 2 or 3 chances before he converts and against the big sides you get fewer chances, so need to take them.

Surely no one genuinely believed we were the second best side in the country? Man for man, City are better than us in almost all areas of the field - to beat them, they'd have had to have an off-day, regardless of how well we played. They didn't, and they won.

Can I just say, Forster, great save? Stopping Aguero in that 1v1

Attack was poor today- they are all human. We lost to the better team. End of story.

At the end of the day, we're still third.

Only concern is injuries- hopefully Cork and Schneiderlin can come back, and also to our morale. It hopefully won't affect us on Wednesday

Well. I predicted a draw against Villa and a defeat against City.

We have a good cushion of points but we must carry on beating teams in the bottom half of the league.

Can everybody wanting to query his absense please note:

 

Cork is ill.

But where was he?

Victor poor today IMO getting a yellow card early on didn't help but he gives the ball away cheaply and he steamed into to many tackles when on a yellow. Not that we could replace him with Cork out with a virus and JWP injured we only had Reed....though it doesn't say much for Reed if we Koeman would rather play a CB than him in the DM position.

If you wanted to put a positive spin...

We appear to have inspired City to play almost their best football of the season. Most teams park the bus against them. We didn't. They had a chance to show what they can do... and they were fantastic.

The last two goals, though painful, should not be allowed to hurt too much. When you're up against 10 men and a goal down you have to throw everything at it. That's going to leave you open at the back.

On the player side, great to see again just how much of a threat Long can pose even top-team defenses. He was on fire. And good to see Forster getting the better of Aguero at the end.

Tadic is a worry. We badly need back the player we had a few weeks ago. I would think that's RoKo's top managerial challenge. How to rediscover that player.

Thought Mane showed great promise today. Bertrand and Wanyama fantastic. Fingers crossed Morgan will be OK for Arsenal. He's our secret sauce.

Pulling the camera back, it's clear City were the better team. But top 4 not out of the question yet. Chelsea, Man City and one other will be ahead of us... But will two of Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Spurs, Everton overtake? Probably... but let's see what the rest of the week brings. If we beat Man U Saturday, top 4 will still feel possible, I think.

Can everybody wanting to query his absense please note:

 

Cork is ill.

What sick of not getting a game or a new contract?

Surely no one genuinely believed we were the second best side in the country? Man for man, City are better than us in almost all areas of the field - to beat them, they'd have had to have an off-day, regardless of how well we played. They didn't, and they won.

No not really but you dare to dream...................it's the hope that kills you:(

Disappointing - Yes, but it looks like we may have to may have to accept that we are not a top 4 side after all. At least if you accept that, there's no point wrist-slitting. Lets just hope for the best that we can do, and who knows, maybe we won't lose these next two games...........

Well beaten by a better team.

Too many off their game.

Wanyama the only Saints player who played to his potential.

You can see from our bench that we are not genuine top 4 candidates. No shame in that!

Our attempts on goal were better after half time when Schneiderlin went off. Maybe he's not so good afterall? We have to believe or the next 6 weeks are going to be hell on earth.

Well the lack of depth of squad will be telling.

i have now seen us twice in a week and both games we have been very poor. Iwas going to go last minute today but thankfully I have my£40 still in my pocket.

Nervous for the first 25minutes, fortunate not to have a penalty against us.

Tadic very poor and our delivery of the ball frustrating.

every team has a poor spell, let's hope ours is now over.

Long did look lively and shock us up a bit