#RELIEVED.
Manuel Pellegrini has talked this past week of fatigue gripping a City squad engulfed by 37 different injuries thus far.
Reflecting upon his team’s stuttering performance in this season’s 25th fixture, he may have a point. Factor in filthy weather and more overly fussy, scattergun officiating from Robert Madley and these three points resemble gold dust.
That’s not to take anything away from Alan Curtis and his Swansea side who came to Manchester well drilled, seemingly with a point to prove having very publicly fallen apart in recent weeks. The Swans made the task throughout all the more difficult for a City side lacking drive and an edge. Having scrapped their way to still being in with a shout until the last 15 minutes, a triple attacking introduction of power and pace almost did for The Blues once the bravery and brilliance of Joe Hart had finally been bypassed.
Ultimately, it was fitting that another one of the handful of City players showing determination and a will to win today, captain Yaya Touré, should help seal points that City have played themselves into desperately needing. Time and again in years gone by we saw the Stretfords pull something out of the fire in the last minute and look where all those scrape throughs took them.
However, we travel to Arsenal next.
Patently today, as a collective, regardless of the aforementioned troubles, The Blues were again nowhere near the performance level that they should be maintaining. Too many stray passes across the park, but our main problems lie at the back.
In defence we remain shambolic.
A case in point was our left side. Clichy and Mangala seemingly swapping roles or sharing roles, neither looking comfortable. Looking further across that back line, the lads are not making life easy for themselves with indecision on two counts. Failure to clear lines and rubbishy distribution. The high line is being played better but offsides and Hart’s agility are at risk of being over relied upon, especially with the standard of liner-ing we have seen in this campaign.
Anyroad, The Engineer’s squad have 8 days to get themselves into the right frame of mind for that massive fixture at Arsenal. The need to get a number of key players fit and firing this week needs no introduction. Still, all those injuries, top of the league-ish, Champions League group toppers and League Cup Semi-Finalists. Not bad, not bad all told.
Johnny Baguette
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