Just a Thought

[Vickki]

Instead of pointing the finger at players poor performance and bad defending. Why don't we take a look at the defensive coaches and change them. If City were an NFL team, the defensive coaches would have been moved on by now. So in my view, Pep needs to make a choice between his friends/defensive coaches and stopping the rot.
I say change some of his backroom staff.
Just a thought 👍

[Stephen Paul]

Probably a good point that

I often wonder why we have the biggest injury list in the Premier League   

[gavin]

It is much the same staff that won us four in a row. A run of injuries and poor form have cost us. We need to replace certain players, we could do with decent full backs and a defensive midfielder. But with a fit squad we'd be competitive. Maybe there are reasons for the injuries but sometimes shit happens for no reason.

[Vickki]

'It is much the same staff that won us four in a row'
Doesn't seem to be working as we hoped. I'm not accepting the usual excuses such as injuries to players. When things go wrong or a certain formula does not work anymore, you start again from ground zero.

[Stephen Paul]

This world club competition will fuck us up big time

[KunDB]

Instead of pointing the finger at players poor performance and bad defending. Why don't we take a look at the defensive coaches and change them. If City were an NFL team, the defensive coaches would have been moved on by now. So in my view, Pep needs to make a choice between his friends/defensive coaches and stopping the rot.
I say change some of his backroom staff.
Just a thought 👍

Slightly misses the point imho, we defend as a team from the front to the back. That's what had not been happening. Best illustrated by how often we have been serving best by a C mile to winning second balls and getting the ball back in 5 seconds seems to be a thing of the past.

We are simply not working hard enough as a team and that is exposing our defence. I'm afraid it's that 1% extra motivation that made us winners gone, resulting in a 50% drop in performances.

TEAM.

E need to work and play as a team while defending from the front. Too simple to blame defenders, even if Walker is useless this year and a few others competing with him. When winning that is covered up somewhat.

Great to be a blue, C'mon City.

[Vickki]

I think we are working hard enough as a team. It is not only the defensive play at fault: it's also the lack of scoring throughout the team. Haaland is the only City player in the top 16 premier league scorers. Since Pep we usually have more scorers in the top 16, to date, we have not and it's showing. There seems to be a disconnect throughout the team, maybe causing a suggested 50% drop in motivation, which I don't believe to be true.
Further it maybe argued that we are not having much luck as we have enjoyed in the past. For instance, last Saturday the palace keeper made a terrific save from Haaland, in the past that would have flown past the keeper. in addition Gundog hit the post where in the past it would of sneaked inside the post. The team is struggling for sure. We can debate this for ever in a day, the only people that can change it is our coaches, they need to come up with fresh ideas.
As a side note, we should have replaced Alverez: as a team, we clearly miss his style of play.

[Stephen Paul]

We may see some business done in January for defensive midfield and defender

Stones is good but spends most time on the injury list

[gavin]

I don't think that we should panic. We have top men in the key positions and if they feel we should change staff at any level then they will. Past success does not necessarily mean future success with the same staff but they have earnt a bit of patience.

[Swiss]

Pretty sure pep said a few years back they don't work on defending (much)

[gavin]

I'm sure that we do work on defending but Pep has always been clear that the main focus is not to lose the ball. The opposition cannot attack without the ball. We're are definitely losing the ball a lot more than we used to. We are also defending worse when we do.

[Stephen Paul]

Arsenal and the dippers starting to look a bit dodgy, a couple of blips coming ?

[gavin]

If only I had any faith in City to take advantage of any blips by those two this season. It would take an enormous turn around in our form and fitness.

[Hesperus]

Any blips from them won't be as bad as ours, and tbh I'm not convinced our blip is over yet!

Good results against teams we would normally have murdered but our performances have not been convincing.

[gavin]

Its a start. I'm just pleased with winning a couple for now. Hopefully confidence will build, players will come back and performances will follow. It is not likely to come out of such a bad run playing like Champions again all of a sudden.

[Swiss]

Our main priority should be finishing 4th. Anything above that is a bonus.

We've got 0 chance of winning the league, although I do agree, Liverpool are starting to look more dodgy, but they do grind out draws.