v rags in community shield

[gavin]

CITY XI: Ederson, Lewis, Akanji, Dias (C), Gvardiol, Kovacic, O'Reilly, McAtee, Bobb, Doku, Haaland

SUBS: Ortega Moreno, Carson, Phillips, Ake, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Savinho, Nunes, Kabore

As hoped the youngsters get a go up front but mostly experience at the back with Lewis a first teamer now anyway. No Jack which is a surprise, must be injured.

[gavin]

Decent start to the half but we went right off. The ref might as well not exist as far as City are concerned. Some awful tackles from the rags have gone unpunished again and obviously no fouls on Erling are given.

[jingoe]

O Reilly needs to release the ball more quickly. Doku and Bobb looking good though!

[Hesperus]

Very ordinary this from City. Not much quality from us.

Utd just took the lead and deserved it.

No idea why we've been so quiet in the transfer market.

[gavin]

Not good but still nice to beat them even on penalties.

[Rowley Birkin QC]

For the brief time he was on, B Silva seemed to be playing angry! Looked like he was in a foul mood 😁

Which might explain the contemptuous (and very poor) penalty!

[Rowley Birkin QC]

Anyway... The new fella at least knows how to take a penalty.

[gavin]

Somebody had to come on and show some desire and Bernard did it. He deserved his booking but unsurprisingly the rag wasn't booked for kicking the ball away. Honestly, I despair of the officials these days. There was a foul on Ake towards the end and it was right in front of the linesman. The officials ended up giving a free kick for United for handball after Ake handled it after being booted over by the rag. It was an embarrassingly bad decision that even the ITV commentators had a job skirting around it.

Anyway, it was a pretty poor performance from our lads as well. The academy lads all showed promise but seemed to miscontrol every time they looked like they might break through. Pep was blaming the Mitre ball again in an interview that I saw. But it did just look like the final touches were missing. Hopefully it will come with a better ball or maybe just time and experience.

Bernard hit another shit penalty for us but the others were good. Nice to see Erling wasn't phased at all by the goalkeeper being a dick. Great for Akanji to score the winner.