VMC’s Lorna rues City’s home league defeat to Stoke and calls for greater defensive awareness…
Without a doubt we are one of the two favourites to win the Premier League this season but last weekend’s loss at home to Stoke has rattled our collective cage somewhat as a fanbase and if we don’t recover from it quickly we may struggle to get back up to rediscovering momentum.
I am not overly concerned at this moment in time as we have had a stronger start to the league campaign than some of our rivals. The win at Newcastle was a boost as many sceptics had us down to lose given our poor away form early last season and THAT win against Liverpool was an even better result so much so it exceeded my expectations. If we can successfully come through the imminent quickfire Arsenal and Chelsea games sandwiching the small matter of another challenge at Bayren then I will be one very happy bunny indeed.
The loss to Stoke was to say the least unexpected and I could point a few fingers and cuss and curse under my breath, or out loud as usual, but who would I point the finger at directly?
Statistically, the passing average was better in the Stoke game than it was in either of the Newcastle or Liverpool games. This makes qualifying the loss all the more confusing.
What I will say is that our defending was a little dire. I thought we had got a nice little pairing going on with the title winning Demichelis-Kompany axis but after Stoke I am doubting that. The first finger of blame is going to have to be directed towards Kompany. What the hell was he doing being so far away from his position for that goal? Back four means exactly what it says…stay in line and stand in front of your keeper and defend like your life depends on it. The fact Kompany left Fernandinho to provide cover on his own was a joke. Out of the four defenders only two were in a position to counter that dreaded goal, namely Kolarov and Fernandinho but that being said their challenges were not as forceful or determined as what you would expect them to be and Hart, again, failed in his duty, it was a pussy of a save and was definitely a ball that you would expect Joe to smother.
I cannot wait for Mangala to get into the arena and show his strength. Pellegrini has obviously seen something in Mangala and I want to see this myself. As good as Demichelis is he simply does not have the pace that he had towards the end of last season when especially he and Garcia paired up and were a brilliant success. We cannot keep leaving Fernando or Fernandinho and Demichelis behind whilst Kompany goes swanning off. We seemed to be thinking forward, forward, forward against Stoke and not giving a thought as to who was going to stay behind and keep the door closed. Had they got what it takes to catch that stray ball, the stray ball being the one that could decide a game?
Without going on to much, other teams have sussed how we roll and have taken note of the fact that we are not so hot on the counter attack right now. I also feel that they have spotted we have a rigid 4-4-2 formation and rarely differ from it. Maybe we should and take other teams by surprise by for instance going one up top for some fixtures?
And breath…..
I would like to think that Stoke was a blip on the radar however, it could roll into an even bigger blip and become thunderous if we allow it to happen again. We cannot EVER let our guard down like we did. All in all we have to admit we messed up and made a mistake that we could well do without regardless of the fact Stoke defended to their utmost in a plan which paid off admirably.
Last words: I personally would like to see another Navas like winger and if I had a choice I would have Navas play every game with Kolarov on the other wing. We are going to need all hands on deck if we are to compete against the new signings of the Stretford Galacticos and Chelsea.
So City it is over to you next week. No more costly mistakes.
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