City- Post match thread.

[RedReet]

Your entitled to your opinion but in mine Alonso was a superb defensive midfielder with the ability to dictate the play.

Not related at all, but him and Ronaldo had a bit of a spat at the weekend. Apparently Ronaldo said that if he won a penalty he’d let Xabi get his first goal. After he did win a penalty he changed his mind saying he was more interested in the Pichichi but Xabi was having none of it and took the ball off him, and Ronaldo huffed.

[The Birdman]

Not related at all, but him and Ronaldo had a bit of a spat at the weekend. Apparently Ronaldo said that if he won a penalty he’d let Xabi get his first goal. After he did win a penalty he changed his mind saying he was more interested in the Pichichi but Xabi was having none of it and took the ball off him, and Ronaldo huffed.

So why did Kaka take the first penalty in that match?

[RedReet]

Don't know, maybe it was agreed at half time or something.

[Guest]

at this thread.

[cream]

If you want to discuss Real Madrid and their players, please could you do it the general football section.

[RedReet]

If you want to discuss Real Madrid and their players, please could you do it the general football section.

Nah.

[Mattshark]

So while we have our Alonso tinted glasses on, do you all remember how many 0-0's we had last season with him playing?

[-V-]

So while we have our Alonso tinted glasses on, do you all remember how many 0-0's we had last season with him playing?

Yeah but I also remember how alot of them were home games where we played 1 striker against teams which sat deep against us. So basically we had only 1 player in our final 3rd to pass the ball into. That was Rafa's fault not Alonso's

[RedReet]

I’m pretty sure that statistically we dropped more points playing 442. If not overall, definitely on average.

[-V-]

The point is more about approach. How do you play against teams which park the bus? Do you pack your midfield and try to pass it round them or get players into the box? We drew alot of games because we struggled to score against teams which parked the bus because we didn't have a plan B. United won the league because they often played with 3 strikers and threw balls into the box

[RedReet]

I don’t get you. How should we have approached it? We found a formation that suited our players and got the most out of them and went on an unbeaten run towards the end of 08/09. Although not playing as well, we kept getting the results when the next season started and continued to do so until about Christmas. As mentioned, we alternated a good few times last year, and the only time 442 paid off was against Newcastle and Blackburn. We were top scores in the league and probably may have won it if it wasn’t for a few teams choking against United and a few scandalous refereeing decisions.

This year, I accept we should have maybe tried to evolve a new ‘approach’ to try and lessen the negative influence of losing Gerrard and Torres and make us less reliant on them, but what should we have done last year continued with the 442 that failed the previous 3 seasons?

[-V-]

No dude, it started working for us properly around Christmas time. Before that in the early part of the season we were drawing games 0-0 against teams which sat deep and gave us no room in the final third. We dropped alot of points because we didn't force the issue by moving to 2 or 3 upfront. People go on about how we finished top scorers but thats only because towards the end of the season we started playing well and with a more gung-ho attitude.

For parts of the season we struggled to win games while United scraped about ten 1-0 wins a row by going 3 upfront late on in games and bombarding teams. We never, we would just stick to our patient build-up play with 1 striker to aim for

[Kenneth]

No dude, it started working for us properly around Christmas time. Before that in the early part of the season we were drawing games 0-0 against teams which sat deep and gave us no room in the final third. We dropped alot of points because we didn't force the issue by moving to 2 or 3 upfront. People go on about how we finished top scorers but thats only because towards the end of the season we started playing well and with a more gung-ho attitude.

For parts of the season we struggled to win games while United scraped about ten 1-0 wins a row by going 3 upfront late on in games and bombarding teams. We never, we would just stick to our patient build-up play with 1 striker to aim for

Tis true.

[RedReet]

Tis true.

Really?


I went through this crap last year, but unfortunately I can’t retrieve my old post to get the stats.

For this argument, lets look at the draws before Christmas…

Villa 0-0: 442
Stoke 0-0: 442
Fulham 0-0: 442
West Ham 0-0: 442
Hull 2-2:4231 (missed that first time, even though I knew it was around Christmas time)
Arsenal 1-1: 4231

It was after the Hull game Gray mentioned the two defensive midfielders, and suddenly everyone blamed all our draws on playing 4231. Ironically we scored two against Hull in that game.

[Exiled_red]

No dude, it started working for us properly around Christmas time. Before that in the early part of the season we were drawing games 0-0 against teams which sat deep and gave us no room in the final third. We dropped alot of points because we didn't force the issue by moving to 2 or 3 upfront. People go on about how we finished top scorers but thats only because towards the end of the season we started playing well and with a more gung-ho attitude.

For parts of the season we struggled to win games while United scraped about ten 1-0 wins a row by going 3 upfront late on in games and bombarding teams. We never, we would just stick to our patient build-up play with 1 striker to aim for