City Monaco Thread

[KunDB]

Starting eleven

Caballero, Sagna, Stones, Otamendi, Fernandinho, Toure, Silva, De Bruyne, Sane, Sterling, Aguero


Bench boys

Bravo, Zabaleta, Fernando, Nolito, Delph, Navas, Iheanacho

Fernandinho, our flexible friend.



Come on put on a show and show how good we are.

[Neil Mcnab]

If Monaco are any good, we will struggle in midfield, Toure has improved physically, but he cant cut it.

[KunDB]

The minute we scored we handed them the initiative and the Caballero handed them a gift. 

[Hesperus]

I may as just cut and paste. Shit defence.

Oh and bent refs.

[Swiss]

In other news, Savic just scored an own goal

[goat]

bit shit innit

[goat]

fuckin hell

[goat]

mental

[KunDB]

Fantastic but our weaknesses masked by our unbelievable attacking.

[Ludo]

Any more of that and my heart won't take it..".

[Rowley Birkin QC]

Well that was fun. 

[Hesperus]

Amazing game! So much fun watching that in a pub in the north east.

[Swiss]

We do like a bit of drama

[Rowley Birkin QC]

Bloody hell though - our defending...

[gavin]

That was bedlam. Awful reffing and defending but great to watch. Definitely got money's worth tonight and in the end a good win too.

[zacc]

being City supporter must be most stressful ever!!

[Rowley Birkin QC]

One of those occasions I wish I still lived in the UK and could have been there. However, one advantage of the TV was being able to watch in high-def slow-mo Aguero's sublime one-two touch to set up Sane for the fifth. Just watch it again to see what I mean! Fantastic!

Well, what on earth do we make of that? I've watched the whole game twice now just trying to take it all in! Our defensive problems seem unsolvable this season, especially against these side's with pacey counter attacks. Whenever we lose possession around the middle or deep in our half we look sluggish and slow to react - ball watching and not picking up our opponents. Sometimes we are a bit unlucky as well. For their first our defenders were all spread out in order to play the ball out from the back - so when Caballero then gave the ball away all of our defenders were caught stranded in no-man's land. Fernandinho didn't look too comfortable at the back, so I'm not sure these 'make-do and mend' defensive arrangements help very much. I suppose we have to resign ourselves to none of this being solved until the summer now.

Yaya is having a good swan-song season. Yes, he's still too slow in defence and opponents ghost past him too easily at times, but when he has the ball at his feet and going forward he is still a tremendous asset. His vision and passing around Monaco's box were always dangerous, finding team-mates with space to work with. Kept us playing. As did David Silva - who was just superb!

I agree with Pep - we will have to score at least one goal in Monaco to go through. This Monaco side are very dangerous.

This game was a microcosm of our entire season. The rest of the season is clearly going to be a wild, roller coaster ride!

[Swiss]

http://www.punditarena.com/football/sraftery/watch-goals-manchester-citys-crazy-5-3-win-monaco/

Highlights

[lee]

top game..glad when zab came on and fern subbed..not that he is shit but he is no left back...would like to see fern in the middle at their place and inject some much needed cover in midfield

[Paul lakes knee]

Amazing.
A couple of things I took away from it.

1. We missed Kolarov (no, really, we did!)
2. Camel Face Rio on BT saying "once they get their defence sorted everyone else has a big problem"

I like the sound of that as I am sure we will sort it in the summer.

Great times ahead, great times.

[Ludo]

My heart rates finally started to settle down after that.

An absolutely fantastic match, for the neutral especially, but if we play like that away we could easily come unstuck. We're going to have to drop one of either sterling, silva, de Bruyne or Sane to fit Fernandinho in midfield and I don't envy Pep that choice

[shandon]

Monaco should have conceded a penalty and had their goalkeeper red carded in the first half. Then it would have been 7-3 

[bluebrendan]

My heart rates finally started to settle down after that.

An absolutely fantastic match, for the neutral especially, but if we play like that away we could easily come unstuck. We're going to have to drop one of either sterling, silva, de Bruyne or Sane to fit Fernandinho in midfield and I don't envy Pep that choice

On current form Silva is undroppable, I'd bench KdB so that we still have the pace out wide to hurt them on the break,although I suspect Pep may just stick with the 5-pronged attack.