Noisy Neighbours - the Man City thread

[flushthemout]

Well it doesn't get much better than that, I was hoping for a 10 -2 score line similar to Huddersfield game which was another milestone in being a city fan.
I have had a number of conversations over the weekend with fellow blues and I'm seriously doubting if I have done the right thing booking 3 nights in Napoli with my 15 yr old son. I personally don't think it will be a problem for myself not that I am a thug, them days of running around with Donald Francis have well gone, have watched City all over the UK and only missing three premiership grounds and travelled abroad to watch England, my lad has always accompanied me ton City away but now concerned this is a fixture that may scare him a bit.Yes keep away from where the blues are meeting up is an easy option but I'm sure that is part off the fun side of the trip. Any thoughts would be good.CTID

[Archer]

Football sex yesterday, quality of the goals was ridiculous and a joy to watch. The overall performance,  judged in the last 8 games as a block,  has risen to a level beyond anything I’ve witnessed before in my 45+ years following City. That’s not a chirp as such it is just the way I see it. Of course, it helps we have spent £20billion on players but I don’t really care about that…

My favourite performance was the Chelsea game. It was the biggest match of the 8 games and to dominate in the way we did was for me a thing of beauty. I think it is generally very easy to be dazzled by the array of City’s attacking talent but the Chelsea game was all about Pep, his game plan and the defensive side of highly complex “positional play” which effectively suffocates the opponent with possession, pressing and ball recovery. It has generally escaped the media but City’s defensive stats have got better and better in the league from about February onwards.

A very long way to go in the league but now down to about 2/5 favourites. We’ve shortened to about 8/1 to win the Champions League as well. Already looking forward to Tuesday in the CL when we host Napoli who are flying in Serie A and topping the table with straight 8 wins and 26 goals since the start of the season.  Sarri of course is another “positional” play manager and potentially this game could be a cracker..

[flushthemout]

Tense atmosphere here, lots of Napoli fans.

[tikay]

City's bench tonight is utterly ridic.

[tikay]

Magic.

[hhyftrftdr]

City's bench tonight is utterly ridic.

Yep, I'm told Pep imports them from the continent. He will only sit on the finest materials.

[hhyftrftdr]

For once, it was pleasing to hear the final whistle!

Not hanging on as such, but Napoli certainly had the quality to nick a late goal and it looked like we ran out of steam after 80 minutes, so very pleasing to wrap up another 3 points and move on to Burnley this Saturday.

Simply sublime stuff in the first 30 minutes. Napoli are crushing in Italy and we made them look like Stoke. Much more even contest in the 2nd half but I think we shaded it and thoroughly deserved the win.

Time to stick KDB, Silva, Jesus et al in bubble wrap oh and Ederson too, his distribution <3

[pleno1]

I love watching city. I chose them instead of Spurs/real today, will pep really be so stubborn with playing out from the back once you take on Barca/PSG/Real?

[hhyftrftdr]

I love watching city. I chose them instead of Spurs/real today, will pep really be so stubborn with playing out from the back once you take on Barca/PSG/Real?

Rhetorical question yeah?

I think there is close to zero chance Pep changes his process and philosophy, regardless of the opposition. He has the players he wants for the set up, and he trusts them to execute his plans. Ederson's incredible distribution is such a good baseline for building attacks, and when you have players like Silva, Fernandinho, Stones etc who are so comfortable on the ball, it would be foolish to start going for more aimless punts down field. It's all about possession and as soon as you go long, the risk of losing the ball increases, so I can't see Pep adapting to that even vs the best teams in the world.

Naturally, if for example we are beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the 88th minute, then I'd be surprised to see too much fancy play in our own half certainly no Sakho-esque backheels into our own penalty area!

Passing out from the back will send me to an early grave though. Cheers, City.

[tikay]

I love watching city. I chose them instead of Spurs/real today, will pep really be so stubborn with playing out from the back once you take on Barca/PSG/Real?

Rhetorical question yeah?

I think there is close to zero chance Pep changes his process and philosophy, regardless of the opposition. He has the players he wants for the set up, and he trusts them to execute his plans. Ederson's incredible distribution is such a good baseline for building attacks, and when you have players like Silva, Fernandinho, Stones etc who are so comfortable on the ball, it would be foolish to start going for more aimless punts down field. It's all about possession and as soon as you go long, the risk of losing the ball increases, so I can't see Pep adapting to that even vs the best teams in the world.

Naturally, if for example we are beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the 88th minute, then I'd be surprised to see too much fancy play in our own half certainly no Sakho-esque backheels into our own penalty area!

Passing out from the back will send me to an early grave though. Cheers, City.

It was lovely to see them playing out from the 'keeper last night.

It WILL cost you a few goals, no doubt about it, but the pros will far outweigh the cons.

It was a delight to watch last night, a real delight.

[hhyftrftdr]

I love watching city. I chose them instead of Spurs/real today, will pep really be so stubborn with playing out from the back once you take on Barca/PSG/Real?

Rhetorical question yeah?

I think there is close to zero chance Pep changes his process and philosophy, regardless of the opposition. He has the players he wants for the set up, and he trusts them to execute his plans. Ederson's incredible distribution is such a good baseline for building attacks, and when you have players like Silva, Fernandinho, Stones etc who are so comfortable on the ball, it would be foolish to start going for more aimless punts down field. It's all about possession and as soon as you go long, the risk of losing the ball increases, so I can't see Pep adapting to that even vs the best teams in the world.

Naturally, if for example we are beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the 88th minute, then I'd be surprised to see too much fancy play in our own half certainly no Sakho-esque backheels into our own penalty area!

Passing out from the back will send me to an early grave though. Cheers, City.

It was lovely to see them playing out from the 'keeper last night.

It WILL cost you a few goals, no doubt about it, but the pros will far outweigh the cons.

It was a delight to watch last night, a real delight.

Absolutely there is a big risk/reward element to that style of play. If your defenders give the ball away, it can easily lead to a goal. If the keeper gives the ball away it will nearly always lead to a goal.

The players involved really need to be on the same wavelength, happy to receive the ball under pressure, not panic due to said pressure and have a good passing eye to get the ball forward. plus decent movement. Thankfully our squad is now crammed with these types (when you see we have players of the calibre of Gundogan and B.Silva on the bench....)

Pep trusts these guys. He's no fool, he knows any mistake has the potential to lead to a goal, but if we concede 10 goals from errors in our defensive 3rd, whilst going on to score an extra 30 goals due to passing it out from the back, this only reinforces his process.

I think there is an element of our support that is still struggling to adjust to all this (the same type of people who would take Hart back tomorrow ) and occasionally I can hear myself thinking 'just fucking boot it', but I'm pretty sure Pep would prefer someone to pass it out and fail rather than take the easy, long option.

One moment from last night that stuck out was in the first half, we had the ball at the back and 5 of Napoli's players descended on us. A couple of intricate, accurate passes later and suddenly KDB was surging forward from the halfway line, having just taken half their team out the game.

I await the first goal we concede from a 'passing it out' error, and the inevitable chirps from turnips like Sutton or Shearer saying that that type of football doesn't work in England

[hhyftrftdr]

I love watching city. I chose them instead of Spurs/real today, will pep really be so stubborn with playing out from the back once you take on Barca/PSG/Real?

Rhetorical question yeah?

I think there is close to zero chance Pep changes his process and philosophy, regardless of the opposition. He has the players he wants for the set up, and he trusts them to execute his plans. Ederson's incredible distribution is such a good baseline for building attacks, and when you have players like Silva, Fernandinho, Stones etc who are so comfortable on the ball, it would be foolish to start going for more aimless punts down field. It's all about possession and as soon as you go long, the risk of losing the ball increases, so I can't see Pep adapting to that even vs the best teams in the world.

Naturally, if for example we are beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the 88th minute, then I'd be surprised to see too much fancy play in our own half certainly no Sakho-esque backheels into our own penalty area!

Passing out from the back will send me to an early grave though. Cheers, City.

It was lovely to see them playing out from the 'keeper last night.

It WILL cost you a few goals, no doubt about it, but the pros will far outweigh the cons.

It was a delight to watch last night, a real delight.

Ps, no bite to my bench remark. What gives?

[flushthemout]

Each way since Bravo warming the bench,  passing in defence has been super, but had a few jitters last night. Very rarely do I go the Etihad as more off an away fan, left Mary D pub car park at 10.08 landed home 1.13 am 😠

[tikay]

I love watching city. I chose them instead of Spurs/real today, will pep really be so stubborn with playing out from the back once you take on Barca/PSG/Real?

Rhetorical question yeah?

I think there is close to zero chance Pep changes his process and philosophy, regardless of the opposition. He has the players he wants for the set up, and he trusts them to execute his plans. Ederson's incredible distribution is such a good baseline for building attacks, and when you have players like Silva, Fernandinho, Stones etc who are so comfortable on the ball, it would be foolish to start going for more aimless punts down field. It's all about possession and as soon as you go long, the risk of losing the ball increases, so I can't see Pep adapting to that even vs the best teams in the world.

Naturally, if for example we are beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the 88th minute, then I'd be surprised to see too much fancy play in our own half certainly no Sakho-esque backheels into our own penalty area!

Passing out from the back will send me to an early grave though. Cheers, City.

It was lovely to see them playing out from the 'keeper last night.

It WILL cost you a few goals, no doubt about it, but the pros will far outweigh the cons.

It was a delight to watch last night, a real delight.

Ps, no bite to my bench remark. What gives?

That's because it was gash.

[tikay]

I love watching city. I chose them instead of Spurs/real today, will pep really be so stubborn with playing out from the back once you take on Barca/PSG/Real?

Rhetorical question yeah?

I think there is close to zero chance Pep changes his process and philosophy, regardless of the opposition. He has the players he wants for the set up, and he trusts them to execute his plans. Ederson's incredible distribution is such a good baseline for building attacks, and when you have players like Silva, Fernandinho, Stones etc who are so comfortable on the ball, it would be foolish to start going for more aimless punts down field. It's all about possession and as soon as you go long, the risk of losing the ball increases, so I can't see Pep adapting to that even vs the best teams in the world.

Naturally, if for example we are beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the 88th minute, then I'd be surprised to see too much fancy play in our own half certainly no Sakho-esque backheels into our own penalty area!

Passing out from the back will send me to an early grave though. Cheers, City.

It was lovely to see them playing out from the 'keeper last night.

It WILL cost you a few goals, no doubt about it, but the pros will far outweigh the cons.

It was a delight to watch last night, a real delight.

Absolutely there is a big risk/reward element to that style of play. If your defenders give the ball away, it can easily lead to a goal. If the keeper gives the ball away it will nearly always lead to a goal.

The players involved really need to be on the same wavelength, happy to receive the ball under pressure, not panic due to said pressure and have a good passing eye to get the ball forward. plus decent movement. Thankfully our squad is now crammed with these types (when you see we have players of the calibre of Gundogan and B.Silva on the bench....)

Pep trusts these guys. He's no fool, he knows any mistake has the potential to lead to a goal, but if we concede 10 goals from errors in our defensive 3rd, whilst going on to score an extra 30 goals due to passing it out from the back, this only reinforces his process.

I think there is an element of our support that is still struggling to adjust to all this (the same type of people who would take Hart back tomorrow ) and occasionally I can hear myself thinking 'just fucking boot it', but I'm pretty sure Pep would prefer someone to pass it out and fail rather than take the easy, long option.

One moment from last night that stuck out was in the first half, we had the ball at the back and 5 of Napoli's players descended on us. A couple of intricate, accurate passes later and suddenly KDB was surging forward from the halfway line, having just taken half their team out the game.

I await the first goal we concede from a 'passing it out' error, and the inevitable chirps from turnips like Sutton or Shearer saying that that type of football doesn't work in England

By doing that, they INVITE the opposition to try to pressurise the 'keeper, sort of like we "induce" in poker. It was really fun to watch, & yes, it leads to fast breaks. And it will lead to the occasional blunder, but that's fine, you gotta give action to get action & all that.

Watching Hart recently, its hard to imagine him in your team now.