man city

[the dude abides]

• I thought beforehand that we had a great chance with City missing Tevez.
• overall, a scrappy game....very difficult to watch.
  
• a zillion unforced errors....a miracle that we didn't concede from at least one of them.  You had to wonder if some of our players had ever played together before.  Some bizarre wayward passing, hospital passes in some cases......far too easily gifting possession to city.  Was the grass too green, too long, not the right variety of seed?
  
• the ref booked a fair few reds, but city's lads seemed to get off with similar offences.
  
• I thought Benny could easily have gone down for a penalty, when their defender fouled him in the box, near the end. Ref would have had to have given it.
• city now have to play chelsea.  So who knows, maybe this was a point gained for us today.
• based on what I saw today, neither of these two teams are gonna trouble the top teams in next season's CL.  Unimpressive fare today.

[barticus]

it was a really weird game because both sides were so petrified of losing that if a draw was offered to them at kick off, they would have taken it, with no ball kicked...
the only pluses i saw were the return of both torres and benayoun...it's getting very tight for the 4th but with Torres we can claim it....

[Tes]

Advantage City - with their game in hand still intact.

[the dude abides]

very tight for 4th.

of course we all are taking for granted, somewhat, that villa will fall away again.

man city may have a game in hand, but their run-in looks nightmarish.  They have some big matches between now and the end of the season.

I much prefer our run-in.

[Tes]

very tight for 4th.

of course we all are taking for granted, somewhat, that villa will fall away again.

man city may have a game in hand, but their run-in looks nightmarish.  They have some big matches between now and the end of the season.

I much prefer our run-in.

For our run-in to work in our favour the shackles need to be removed.

Note to Rafa - It always  enhances your chance of winning if you score and it enhances your chance of scoring if you create chances and it enhances your chances of creating chances if you look to have possession in the opponents third of the pitch.
Here endeth ye sermon.

Dude, I don't think Villa will fall away as such, mainly due to the fact that us, Spurs and City seem unable to take advantage when Villa fail to get three points.

It looks like being a turgid scrabble for fourth. City have the advantage with the game in hand. We missed a huge opportunity again yesterday.

[Ageing Stick Insect]

City lost Adebayour tonight (straight red) for 3 games and the 3-1 defeat won't have helped their confidence.

Chelsea away at the weekend. I'm hoping City get stuffed as it will help us and also maintain that 4 point gap over the Mancs.

[Tes]

So who's favourite to be the new City manager for the first few games of next season?

[the dude abides]

Dude, I don't think Villa will fall away as such, mainly due to the fact that us, Spurs and City seem unable to take advantage when Villa fail to get three points.

It looks like being a turgid scrabble for fourth. City have the advantage with the game in hand. We missed a huge opportunity again yesterday.

agreed, Tes.....gonna be a massive struggle for 4th.
 
like you, i think villa may hang in there this season.
 
spurs are in the mix too.
 
we have the experience of these things....which is in our favour.
 
gonna miss skitrail tho, if his foot is indeed broken.
 
not being pessimistic....but the winners of 4th spot merely get a 50-50 chance of making it to the CL groups.
 
 

[Tes]

not being pessimistic....but the winners of 4th spot merely get a 50-50 chance of making it to the CL groups.

If it proves to be us our preparations are going to be a nightmare with players coming back late to pre-season training after the World Cup meaning our pre-season matches need to be even more carefully planned. Surely even Hicks and Gillett can see the benefit of not going on a Magical Marketing Tour this Summer but keep the travelling to a minimum and give us optimum preparation for what will be two very high stakes games.