MCFC v Chelsea

[Bluemoon]

Manchester City v Chelsea



Saturday 1 February 2014

15:00

Etihad

[wxmblue]

Can't wait for this game ......

I'll be @ the Etihad earlier tonight as I want a go on that Etihad airways rugby & football competition ha!

[trautmansdropkick]

Fingers, toes and any other swinging digit are now firmly crossed.

[trautmansdropkick]

I can't wait for the FA Cup game - with a fully fit Milner, Fernandinho OR (fingers crossed)Aguero we will comfortably beat their 'new' system and put the 'arrogant one' back in his box.

[wxmblue]

Yeah I think tactically we got it wrong and Mourinho got it bang on .....

We're still in second place and we're still one point behind Arsenal!

The way I see it;

February Fixtures

Arsenal
Liverpool (away)
Man Utd (home)
Sunderland (home)

Chelsea
Newcastle (home)
West Brom (away)
Everton (home)

Man City

Norwich (away)
Sunderland (home)
Stoke City (home)

I can see us getting 9 points from 9 after getting beat by Chelsea as I think we'll step it up .......

Hopefully Arsenal & Chelsea drop points and normal service will be resumed!

[whistler]

Good to see some optimism still exists after that performance. Just goes to show that having two players for every position isn't always enough. With Fernandinho out, Garcia is the cover (not the best in my opinion but ok). Without either we had to play Demichelis in what turned out to be THE most important position in this game.
I'm a little surprised he didn't play Rodwell, who is naturally further forward but Yaya can do the defensive role. I guess once we were behind it was too late as we needed Yaya to push forward and that wouldn't have worked. Negredo was clearly not fully match fit and Dzeko is not having the greatest of spells right now but we had little extra to bring on and taking Silva or Navas off was not an option as they were our biggest threat.

I guess we just put it behind us and hope we have more options available for the cup match - couldn't stand losing to them again, I have a few scores to settle at work now!

[wxmblue]

Demichelis was absolutely outstanding yesterday and he was about the only player 'up' for it so to speak!

Watching Dzeko yesterday was so frustrating, for a big guy he isn't great at judging when to jump for a header from a Hart goal kick!

Negredo wasn't 100% as you can tell but I thought Jovetic played well and looked like he could do something whenever on the ball!

Onwards and upwards!

[trautmansdropkick]

I do believe that Demichellis is better at defensive midfield than he is at CB. He proved that against Chelsea.
Our main problem v Chelsea was that Silva played in an old 'inside left' position with no one outside him, leaving Ivanovic the freedom to come up and play almost as an orthodox winger - leading to Kolarov being slated when, in reality, he always had two men to deal with.
In addition their left back played really well against Navas, reducing our attacking options even more.
From now on every team we play will use their right back as an attacker - knowing they are safe. I'd play Lopes wide on the left in order to keep their full back honest and in his proper position.