Manchester City Thread

matherto said:
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And you're whining about the referee...
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Please tell me when I can legitimately whine about the referee. Lets have an arbitrary player-cost ratio. Thanks.

It does not matter how we've performed in the previous 3 games nor does last years CL campaign matter. It does not matter that we defended 2 corners poorly tonight. It does not matter how much the players cost .

Non of this matters when the people officiating the game are, at best, inept as fuck. City won that game last night but we are still somehow on 2 points. The standard of riefereeing of this sport just seems to be getting worse and worse.
 
I just dont see the point in the offical behind the goal in CL. What is the point in them??

I do think Man City fans are using referee to disguise their terrible CL campaign though.
 
I don't agree.
It's easy t ocriticize referees after having seen 17 slow motions replays. Referee have to take a decision in a split second.
The only thing i really don't appreciate about referees is that some of them kill matches with their decisions. Referees should also think about football as entertainment that is watched by millions of people. It should not be their prime consideration, but it should be a factor in their decision making. And let's be honest, if i criticize them for that reason ( example: Clattenburg Chelsea-Man Utd) it 's only a minor point of criticism.
Generally criticising a referee is self delusion of fans, players, managers or clubs.
Let's take Clattenburg and that match at Stamford Bridge. DI Matteo and Chelsea forgot that they conceded two extremely soft goals...if they hadn't they would have won the match no matter what decisions Clattenburg would have taken. In that example saying that Chelsea lost that particular match is self delusion.

A club like Manchester City should not complain about a referee if they can't win against Ajax. City clearly underachieved in the CL, just like last year.

If Mancini blames refs (if), then he is doing damage control...Usually mentioning refs as a reason for loosing points is all about internal damage control or about manipulation of referees (Ferguson is the best example). No manager right in his mind will really think that a reason for the loss of points can ever be a referee...
 
gerd said:
Unlike most in here i rather like Man City, but Ajax geting 4/6 against Man City is a triumph for football.
Matherto's graph says it al.

But let's not delude ourselves. Now that Ajax has played Man City the enormous and unfair gap between Ajax and their English opponents is obvious for everybody. Last season Ajax played Man Utd and maybe next season they will play Arsenal or Spurs. In all those instances the gap is as unfair as with Man City, but in that case nobody will complain about it.

IMO Ajax is one of the biggest clubs in the world with a legacy that IMO not a single English club has (there is not a single English club that produced as much talented players as Ajax, not even Man United and Liverpool, let alone all the other English clubs), yet we all know that under current rules Ajax will never again win the CL and financial fair-play will not change that.
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I agree wholeheartedly.

I think it's unlikely now with Dortmund playing so well that Ajax will go through but I wish they would. Unfortunately with the way things are they'll continue to be placed in groups like this and their coefficient will remain low. A vicious circle.

Just once I'd love to see them get through to the knockouts, they've proved they can match the bigger, more expensive teams on a few occasions, were absolutely brilliant against City (and against us last year actually). Historic clubs should always have the chance to succeed.
 
Who'd of guessed that little-known, bargain-basement Bosnian forward would prove to be such a great goalscorer. I tell you, the value that those Man City scouts wring out...impressive.

Why was Balotelli not in the squad?
 
beachryan said:
Who'd of guessed that little-known, bargain-basement Bosnian forward would prove to be such a great goalscorer. I tell you, the value that those Man City scouts wring out...impressive.

Why was Balotelli not in the squad?
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Chicarito scores a few goals and suddenly it's all about value, scouting and bargains :PIG:
 
Godotelli said:
Chicarito scores a few goals and suddenly it's all about value, scouting and bargains :PIG:
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it's about balancing the books, you can't spend 20+mill on every player in your squad, if they continue way city are, it will catch up to them eventually, especially as there not doing great in champions league in past 2 seasons and the owners won't be around forever. only player who city really scouted in past few seasons of surprise was guidetti and he's pretty much a forgotten man at this stage and is wasting his talent by staying at city rather than going back out on loan.

one of best prospects for last few seasons and he doesn't really get a chance, mancini just doesn't give youth the chances.
 
I don't see why all the fuzz is necessary about that win.
Spurs were abysmal, that must have been one of the worst performances i've ever seen by a Spurs team.
The lead was a coïncidence, a present by 'world class' GK Joe Hart.
I was much, much more impressed by Wigan last week...that was good football.

Man City were not much better than Spurs and Spurs were absolutely awfull.
Arsenal will win the North London derby.
 
You are totally wrong there my friend, i see lots of better GK's than him in the EPL: Cech, De Gea, Mignolet, Howard, Julio Cesar, Al Habsi.
GK's like Vorm, Krul, Schwarzer, Foster, Friedel are certainly as good as Hart.

I don't think the EPL has real world class goalies at the moment however...

There are no GK's like Buffon, Casillas and Neuer in the EPL.
 
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gerd said:
You are totally wrong there my friend, i see lots of better GK's than him in the EPL: Cech, De Gea, Mignolet, Howard, Julio Cesar, Al Habsi.
GK's like Vorm, Krul, Schwarzer, Foster, Friedel are certainly as good as Hart.

I don't think the EPL has real world class goalies at the moment however...

There are no GK's like Buffon, Casillas and Neuer in the EPL.
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Julio Cesar WAS one of the best, Cech the same. Howard is a good goal keeper but nowhere near Hart quality.

Krul is a good call forgot about him

Friedel in the form of his life, amazing keeper so I agree

De Gea has all the makings of a great keeper but he's not there yet
 
Godotelli said:
So Hart is barely in the top 10 GK's in the PL now? Laughable/Idiotic/Ignorant/Anti-English (you choose)

Stop posting complete shit.
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Do you realize how arrogant you are?
Who cares what i think about Joe Hart? It's only one person's opinion. It wouldn't be the first time that i'm completely wrong and it will certainly not be the last time.
But there are certain rules of behaviour that civilized people try to follow. One is to show the bare minimum ofrespect for people who have a different opinion. So everybody who thinks Joe hart is not the best GK is laughable, idiotic and/or Anti-English? Surely you can't mean that? Try to think a litle bit rationally about what you just wrote.
It seems that it is exceptionally important to you that people perceive you as somebody very intelligent. Try to read what i quoted as an unbiased neutral.

Give it a try.

Ok.

Do you think that sounds awfully intelligent and mature? Seriously...


And now for the rest of the evo-web members.

First of all i'm sorry for all i wrote above this. Sometimes things need to be said.

And now on-topic, about Joe Hart.

Yesterday i was listening to Football Weekly and they talked about Hart's latest howler against Spurs. Those journalists were amazed by the fact that this isn't Hart's first big mistake (apparently he had one with the national team too), but that he comes away with that in the English press. Then they started talking about what they call 'the narrative' about persons. The narrative about Hart is that he is a nice forthcoming bloke who treats the press always very good. And so the press don't mention his errors. They talked about a similar exaple in football: Harry Redknapp.

For what's it worth: what i like about Joe Hart is the obvious pleasure he has to play football. You don't see that often with football players who play for big club (when do you ever see players like Rooney or Terry giving the impression having fun playing a football match? Never).
As a matter of fact, Hart genuinely looks like a nice civilized bloke (his biggest advocate on Evo-web might learn a thing or two from Hart) and seems an exception among the usually daft football players. I don't really rate him that high as a GK. He is obvious a good GK, but not as good as most people here think. IMO he is overhyped.
I don't really mind his howlers, every GK now and then has a howler, that is the nature of a GK. IMO (and for what's it worth) a GK must have a personality, a certain presence (one could call it an X-factor). Something GK's like Schmeichel (the best ever), Kahn (and i hated him as a person, but he was a fantastic GK), Southall (my personal favourite), Neuer and Casillas all have. IMO Hart doesn't have it and i seriously think that he isn't among the best GK's in the EPL, however idiotic that might seem. But it's only my opinion and in all honesty not that important to become rude...
 
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I didn't say nor infer that anyone who does not think that Hart is the best GK is laughable etc. If you're going to label me arrogant etc at least try not to show contempt by throwing out a strawman.

I think anyone who really believes that the likes of De Gea, Mignolet, Howard, Al Habsi are superior to Hart are simply not being serious (to be kind)
If you don't like my opinion, that's fine.
 
aitken said:
it's about balancing the books, you can't spend 20+mill on every player in your squad, if they continue way city are, it will catch up to them eventually, especially as there not doing great in champions league in past 2 seasons and the owners won't be around forever. only player who city really scouted in past few seasons of surprise was guidetti and he's pretty much a forgotten man at this stage and is wasting his talent by staying at city rather than going back out on loan.

one of best prospects for last few seasons and he doesn't really get a chance, mancini just doesn't give youth the chances.
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He's injured
 
Yea, you're right, I don't get it. I don't get how anyone could strawman someone else and then in the very next sentence tell them to think rationally. :BORED:
 
Goalkeepers are strange creatures.

I thought Neuer was going to be the best in the world, but he makes a monstrous blunder at least 1 in 10 games. De Gea's ratio is far better than that, but everytime he steps onto a football pitch the narrative is that he's a dodgy keeper and the punditry will bash him.

Hart gets a free ride cause he's England's great hope, and because he gives good interviews. And is 'matey' with a lot of the pundits.

He's very good though. Definitely top 3 in the league for me. (Krul, Cech, Hart in that order).
 
I think De Gea does still make many more errors than Neuer, and is still substantially inferior to him. If you look at the Bundesliga, Neuer has only conceeded 4 goals in 11 matches. De Gea has shipped something like 10 goals in the 7 league games he's played. He's only kept one clean sheet in the league, v Newcastle, for Man Utd's other clean sheet in the League (Wigan) Lidergaart was in goal. Actually Lindergaart is more similar to De Gea in terms of conceeding ratio (1.5 goals a game for Lindegaart, 1.43 for De Gea) than Neuer (0.36 , or just over a goal every three games).


De Gea is an ok keeper who is good at some aspects, such as shot stopping. But he still has major areas of weakness though, for instance he still seems bemused at corners and crossing and he seems to still be way behind Van Der Saar in terms of commanding his area. Even Atletico, whom some tipped to struggle without De Gea, have looked more comfortable with Courtouis in goal (he's been there since De Gea left) than when the Spaniard was there - although some of this is more likely to be down to Simeone's organisation of the defence being much better than Flores, but nonetheless predictions that De Gea would be irreplacable for them were wide of the mark.

In the CL De Gea has shipped 4 in 4, not that bad but then again it's a group that is perhaps the easiest in any European Competition this season (CL or Europa League). Neuer's conceeded 5 in 4 CL games but Bayerns group is significantly harder than Man Utds. I just dont see him as being able to drag the team over the line during the very marginal games in the way the likes of Van Der Saar and Schemicel did.
 
IMO Courtois has everything to become better than all the GK's that are mentioned here.
Courtois is from the same mold as Casillas and Buffon.
From the younger GK's i only see Neuer as being in the same league. De Gea is close but a litle bit less.
 
cfdh_edmundo said:
I think De Gea does still make many more errors than Neuer, and is still substantially inferior to him. If you look at the Bundesliga, Neuer has only conceeded 4 goals in 11 matches. De Gea has shipped something like 10 goals in the 7 league games he's played. He's only kept one clean sheet in the league, v Newcastle, for Man Utd's other clean sheet in the League (Wigan) Lidergaart was in goal. Actually Lindergaart is more similar to De Gea in terms of conceeding ratio (1.5 goals a game for Lindegaart, 1.43 for De Gea) than Neuer (0.36 , or just over a goal every three games).


De Gea is an ok keeper who is good at some aspects, such as shot stopping. But he still has major areas of weakness though, for instance he still seems bemused at corners and crossing and he seems to still be way behind Van Der Saar in terms of commanding his area. Even Atletico, whom some tipped to struggle without De Gea, have looked more comfortable with Courtouis in goal (he's been there since De Gea left) than when the Spaniard was there - although some of this is more likely to be down to Simeone's organisation of the defence being much better than Flores, but nonetheless predictions that De Gea would be irreplacable for them were wide of the mark.

In the CL De Gea has shipped 4 in 4, not that bad but then again it's a group that is perhaps the easiest in any European Competition this season (CL or Europa League). Neuer's conceeded 5 in 4 CL games but Bayerns group is significantly harder than Man Utds. I just dont see him as being able to drag the team over the line during the very marginal games in the way the likes of Van Der Saar and Schemicel did.
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It's not really fair to compare the way United are currently setup to the way Bayern are - not to mention the relative competition.

De Gea had (not sure this was 1 or 2 weeks ago) made more saves than any other keeper in the league. United's midfield and defense is essentially a bit arrow saying "go ahead and have a shot" this season.

The only mistake De Gea has made all season was when he was fouled in Fulham's second goal.

I guess Neuer is better this season, but when he first went to Bayern he had a series of howlers which I remember seeing. I followed him because I was desperate for him to come to United.
 
I suspect De Gea will forever be painted as a dodgy keeper. No matter how many amazing saves he makes, the die is cast now.

Courtois is absolutely guaranteed to be one of the best though, agreed with Gerd, he's got everything he needs including the air of solidity that DDG is lacking.
 
Bayern dont have that many world class defenders though, if you look at the squad there is some talent, like Alaba, Badstuber and Lahm, other players like Boateng Van Buyten and Contento are not really World Class. It's not like Bayern's defence is rammed with world class players like Milan of the 1980s and 1990s, it's fairly good but it's no better than much of the other top teams in Europe. Prior to Neuer they had Hans Jorg Butt and Tommy Kraft in goal (2010-11 season) much of the defenders were the same, but in that season they finished 3rd and conceeded 40 goals in 34 matches, the season Neuer joined 2011-12 they only conceeded 22 goals (actually the least in the whole league even less than Dortmund who won the league) so Neuer definatly improved them.

I'm not sure what you are getting at with "relative competition". In my opinion the Bundesliga is at least of the same standard as the Premier League. There are teams like Dortmund, Bayern and Schalke who are at the moment on a par with Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd. You've then got the slightly trailing group of Stuttgart, Bremen, HSV etc who are generally strong with good players but only really in contention for honours once every 3-4 years but tend to fade a bit (a bit like Arsenal, Spurs or the current Liverpool / Everton).
 
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