Ratings and Reactions: Villa 0-2 Man City

[ozvillafan]

Was weimann fully fit or had he been dropped for tactical reasons?

 

Not sure. I think he was out of legs.

 

I love what he does on the pitch though. Yeah - he fluffed a chance and he had a couple of other poor touches or tried poor options - but I love his workrate.

 

Watch again the times we ran forward with the ball. Watch as Wiemann sprints wide to drag the defenders out giving N'Zogbia and Richardson space through the middle and providing an option. I think he should start in place of N'Zogbia - especially if we have Benteke starting.

[Woodytom]

Woody. Hmmmm, you or Kompany, I know whose football opinion has more credibility. No disrespect intended.

That's fine, I appreciate your point but not all experts agreed though.

Pellegrini said it was the best they had played all season and again, the pundits were far from unanimous.

I know it's difficult to compare different matches due to opposition, situation of both teams at the time, conditions etc, but if you honestly believe that Manchester city were better on Saturday than the were when they beat bAyern Munich in Germany, or when they put 4,5 & 6 past other top teams in the league then that's fine too.

I mean, it's absolutely unheard of for a captain/manager to big their team up to the media isn't it??

[the_sun_never_sets]

played quite well i thought. with the exception of not converting chances.. you'd have thought if it was 1-0 to us at 80mins we could have held it.

 

nontheless - hardest run of game sout the way - would hope we could beat a struggling everton next week and then push on

[srsmithusa]

I have a slightly different spin on the tactical changes with subs. Clearly the tactics in the match shifted as we played deeper and hoofed it to Benteke more, but I don't think it was adding Benteke or Bacuna or grealish that cased it. It was pellegrini's move to pull of dzeko, and put on a midfielder. Previously, Delph, cleverly, and Westwood had numbers there. The extra midfielder took that numerical advantage away and forced Bacuna and grealish to drop a bit to help. This left Benteke even more isolated, so hoofing increased. It also decreased the short pass outlets, encouraging us to play it long. Just my opinion.

[lexicon]

I have a slightly different spin on the tactical changes with subs. Clearly the tactics in the match shifted as we played deeper and hoofed it to Benteke more, but I don't think it was adding Benteke or Bacuna or grealish that cased it. It was pellegrini's move to pull of dzeko, and put on a midfielder. Previously, Delph, cleverly, and Westwood had numbers there. The extra midfielder took that numerical advantage away and forced Bacuna and grealish to drop a bit to help. This left Benteke even more isolated, so hoofing increased. It also decreased the short pass outlets, encouraging us to play it long. Just my opinion.

 

You can't possibly be suggesting that the other team has some impact on proceedings, can you?!

[a m ole]

 

Woody. Hmmmm, you or Kompany, I know whose football opinion has more credibility. No disrespect intended.

That's fine, I appreciate your point but not all experts agreed though.

Pellegrini said it was the best they had played all season and again, the pundits were far from unanimous.

I know it's difficult to compare different matches due to opposition, situation of both teams at the time, conditions etc, but if you honestly believe that Manchester city were better on Saturday than the were when they beat bAyern Munich in Germany, or when they put 4,5 & 6 past other top teams in the league then that's fine too.

I mean, it's absolutely unheard of for a captain/manager to big their team up to the media isn't it??

 

[Woodytom]

Woody. Hmmmm, you or Kompany, I know whose football opinion has more credibility. No disrespect intended.

That's fine, I appreciate your point but not all experts agreed though.

Pellegrini said it was the best they had played all season and again, the pundits were far from unanimous.

I know it's difficult to compare different matches due to opposition, situation of both teams at the time, conditions etc, but if you honestly believe that Manchester city were better on Saturday than the were when they beat bAyern Munich in Germany, or when they put 4,5 & 6 past other top teams in the league then that's fine too.

I mean, it's absolutely unheard of for a captain/manager to big their team up to the media isn't it??

Deliberate mistake as kompany is both a pundit and (seemingly in this debate about city's performance), an expert. ! Not