Newsletter #1799

Ok, we lost. That worries me.

However, that is the least of my concerns.

Tonight, deep breath… deep breath… there is no “And Finally”!

No quirky news, no insightful piece of intel, nothing surreally bizarre. What is an editor meant to do? Make it up? Hack your phones? Become England Captain?

Ok Ok… I’ll take a chill pill and calm down. Except for the last point. Joe Hart… no other.

MATCHVIEW: EVERTON 1-0 MANCHESTER CITY

Surprise, surprise (no, this is not a reference to an almost forgotten show hosted by a flamed-haired scouse hostess), we lost at Everton.

We enjoyed a huge amount of possession and yet we still couldn’t find a way past our bogey team who earned their victory through their doggedness and hard work. Donovan and Co. (quite rightly!) closed us down in midfield and were very compact at the back, and we were unable to break them down.

For Everton’s goal, Gibson was given far too much room by Barry to run onto the shot, and why he turned his back on a shot again is anyone’s guess. Someone needs to have a word with Gareth about that. Second Division players like Gibson should not be scoring against us.

Roberto has blamed himself for underestimating Everton and not preparing ourselves properly. At face value this is rather bewildering given our appalling record at Everton, and indeed Merseyside. I view this statement more of him taking the pressure off his players rather than failings in his preparations. He has been the master of preparing this team thus far at City.

The players gave perhaps their worst performance in the League this season. We didn’t pass the ball quickly enough and this allowed Everton’s well-drilled players to fall back into position. Furthermore, we did not pass the ball well enough and our final ball lacked the quality to hurt Everton. As a result we failed to really test Everton’s two makeshift centre halves in Hibbert and Heitinga.

What I didn’t understand was moving Clichy from left back to right back for the last few minutes of the game, giving us two left footers (Johnson had come as sub.) on the right wing. Naturally they came back inside onto their left foot, thus narrowing the attack when we needed to use the full width of the pitch to stretch the Everton defence. They hit traffic in the congested centre when we should have been raining crosses in at them to test their centre halves’ lack of height.

It was very disappointing we failed to put Everton under sustained pressure at the end.

All managers make mistakes. In Roberto we trust. We can expect to see a huge improvement on Saturday.

Ratings:
Hart: Didn’t have much to do: 6
Richards: City’s best performer whether it was at right back or centre back. Much to his credit he got up after Drenthe’s studs-up tackle, which should have been punished with a red card: 7
Kompany: Brought authority back to our defence. Unfairly booked for a push: 7
Lescott: Perhaps a little unfortunate to be taken off in a tactical switch as there were more deserving cases. 6
Clichy: Okay in defence but not enough going forward from him on this occasion: 6
Barry: A poor performance by any standards. Passing inaccurate, and should not have turned his back on Gibson’s shot: 4
Milner: Plenty of effort, but did not impose himself on this game like he can: 6
Silva: Took the lead in trying to orchestrate attacks without finding the final ball: 6
Nasri: Was the closest to scoring when his powerful long range shot hit the underside of the bar. Didn’t hide, and probed but final ball lacked a cutting edge: 6
Dzeko: Bullied out of it. Must toughen up if he is to make it here: 5
Agüero: Struggled to find space in a densely populated final third, but never stopped working: 6

Att: 29,856: Loyal supporters? Not as poor as the 13,000 crowd that booed off one of Howard Kendall’s teams just before he turned it round back in 83/84, but even allowing for it being on TV and a double dip recession, it’s hardly the sort of gate that one would expect from a big club that bangs on about “History” ad nauseam.

Subs:
Johnson (for Milner 62): Little impact. Too often he turned inside into trouble: 5
Kolarov (for Lescott 68): Sometimes he just doesn’t look like a footballer: 5
de Jong (for Barry 86): n/a

Best Oppo: Hibbert: Did a really good job for makeshift centre half, as did his partner Heitinga: 8

Refwatch: Peter Walton: Has a bizarre idea of what is and what isn’t foul. Fellaini would grace any team in the Premier League but he fouled Dzeko in the build up to the goal and yet it wasn’t given. Again, overall not a competent show from the referee: 4

MATCHVIEW II: YAWN BLUES 1 SKY BLUES 0

City have been unlucky of late with referees not being consistent; that didn’t change much tonight but we can’t go on blaming referees!

Roberto Mancini claimed the team lost because of him? He then went on to say he “should have better prepared the team by telling the team it was going to be a harder game”? Surely the team did not have to be told how hard a game is going to be? The team should just get out there and score goals that have been missing, and play hard against every team, no excuses ever.

I am sorry to have to say this about a City player but I was so frustrated to watch Edin Dzeko play; my description is he played like a fairy, he is so timid at times.

Sergio Agüero – a brilliant player who has scored some very fine goals for City, has dried up scoring, runs around doing some fine things but effort to score is not good enough: get your shooting boots on!

Part of the problem with Sergio could be the bad link up with Dzeko.

Some City players made a strong effort so I say no more about players. Enough is enough!

Sure, City have been unlucky at times, but this was a pure bad effort from the team!

Good karma to come!

Come on you Blues!

ARTICLE: BLIND OR WHAT?

We are starting to sound like Man U fans blaming the referee!

Only one man to blame and he is an Italian, goes by the name of Mancini. He has alienated his fellow managers and others with his card-waving antics and this is putting pressure on him and the players to win.

Look at the players he has fallen out with; they can’t all be wrong. We have sold a defender to Fulham and kept Savic. How can any team expect to win a game of football with Savic and Lescott in defence? Mancini wants to keep his mouth shut with all his moaning and get on with the job.

Oh yes, Balotelli stamped on Parker just like Andy Carroll tried to hurt anyone who got in his way with the flying elbow for Liverpool’s first goal against United. Thugs with an ability to play football so you can expect it.

ARTICLE: ROBERTO MANCINI

While I admire Roberto’s willingness for taking the blame for City’s defeat against Everton on Tuesday night, I also cringed as I watched his post-match interview on TV.

His lack of command of English is plain to see; so I often wonder how he communicates with the players on the touchline and during training. I saw him in earnest conversation with Sergio Agüero while the police were handling the protester.

What language do you think he was speaking in? English, Italian or Spanish? Does he communicate to the players through David Platt and Brian Kidd? What roles do these two play?

I think it is marvellous that City are sitting on the summit of the English league structure in spite of this, so if anyone has any insight or background knowledge about this I would be interested to know.

ARTICLE: TÉVEZ I

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Tévez on a work visa, as he’s not a British citizen?

Therefore part of the work permit visa whatsit is that he has to work.

So surely if he jets off to Argentina and gets fined by the club for not being available to work, then his visa and work permit become invalid.

Therefore as such he won’t be allowed to stay in the country. We must have a few legal bods out there who can shed some light on this? I was thinking about this the other day as I’ve had personal experience of the work visa situation, not as a pro-footballer sadly, but I do remember my lawyer explaining all the nightmare scenarios that can result in you getting your marching orders. Being unavailable for work was one of them.

That’s me done.

REQUEST: CAR SHARE

With the price of petrol and car parking I am looking for 1 or 2 people to share the cost, by car sharing from the Preston area to every home match. Currently I have my son, a mate and I travelling to each game, all season card holders.

If anyone is interested contact me at the address below.

RESULTS AND TABLE

1 February 2012

Aston Villa         2 - 2 Queens Park Rangers  32,063
Blackburn Rovers    0 - 2 Newcastle United     20,817
Bolton Wanderers    0 - 0 Arsenal              24,371
Fulham              1 - 1 West Bromwich Albion 25,689
Sunderland          3 - 0 Norwich City         34,476

31 January 2012

Swansea City        1 - 1 Chelsea              20,526
Tottenham Hotspur   3 - 1 Wigan Athletic       35,801
Wolverhampton Wndrs 0 - 3 Liverpool            27,447
Everton             1 - 0 Manchester City      29,856
Manchester United   2 - 0 Stoke City           74,719

League table to 01 February 2012 inclusive

                             HOME        AWAY           OVERALL
                    P  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F  A  GD Pts
 1 Manchester City 23 11  0  0 34  6  6  3  3 26 13 17  3  3 60 19  41 54
 2 Manchester Utd  23  9  1  2 35 14  8  2  1 21  7 17  3  3 56 21  35 54
 3 Tottenham H.    23  9  2  1 24 10  6  2  3 20 15 15  4  4 44 25  19 49
 4 Chelsea         23  7  1  3 24 16  5  5  2 17 10 12  6  5 41 26  15 42
 5 Newcastle Utd   23  6  3  2 16 11  5  3  4 18 19 11  6  6 34 30   4 39
 6 Liverpool       23  4  7  0 14  8  6  1  5 14 13 10  8  5 28 21   7 38
 7 Arsenal         23  7  2  2 17  8  4  2  6 22 25 11  4  8 39 33   6 37
 8 Sunderland      23  5  4  3 19 11  3  2  6 13 13  8  6  9 32 24   8 30
 9 Stoke City      23  4  4  3 15 13  4  2  6  8 22  8  6  9 23 35 -12 30
10 Everton         23  4  3  5 12 13  4  2  5 11 13  8  5 10 23 26  -3 29
11 Norwich City    23  4  4  3 17 15  3  4  5 15 24  7  8  8 32 39  -7 29
12 Aston Villa     23  3  4  5 14 16  3  6  2 14 15  6 10  7 28 31  -3 28
13 Fulham          23  5  4  3 22 18  1  5  5  7 14  6  9  8 29 32  -3 27
14 Swansea City    23  5  6  1 16  7  1  3  7  8 21  6  9  8 24 28  -4 27
15 West Brom A.    23  2  2  7  8 14  5  3  4 15 18  7  5 11 23 32  -9 26
16 QPR             23  2  4  5 12 18  3  2  7 12 21  5  6 12 24 39 -15 21
17 Bolton Wndrs    23  2  2  8 14 25  4  0  7 14 22  6  2 15 28 47 -19 20
18 Blackburn R.    23  3  0  9 16 24  1  6  4 17 23  4  6 13 33 47 -14 18
19 Wolves          23  3  2  7 16 23  1  4  6  9 20  4  6 13 25 43 -18 18
20 Wigan Athletic  23  1  4  6 10 21  2  2  8 10 27  3  6 14 20 48 -28 15

MCIVTA FAQ [v1112.01]

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[5] What supporters’ clubs are there?

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[7] What match day broadcasts are available on the web?

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[8] Where can I find out if City are live on satellite TV?

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[9] Do we have a Usenet newsgroup?

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[11] Do any squad members have their own Twitter accounts?

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Editor: