Apologies for the lack of any post-Newcastle game Blog-posting on Sunday; I don’t always
do a next-day piece but the fine performance & result certainly warranted
one.
Instead, I thought I’d do a fairly brief ‘combo’…
Twisting my melon!
Aleks Kolarov AND
Edin Dzeko both having very good games at the
same time? I thought someone had put something in my beer!
Despite the Manchester Evening News’ slightly negative comments and rather harsh 6/10
for the left back, I thought he had a really good game – and regular readers will, quite rightly, see that as very high
praise indeed!
His attacking play is rarely in question – although for me
sometimes exaggerated in it’s effectiveness – and, strangely on this occasion,
wasn’t the best part of his game against the Geordies. He got himself in
advanced, overlapping positions alright but around 50% (not an official ‘stat’) of his crosses were either wayward or were
blocked. But it was his defending that was noticeably much better; probably one
of the best I’ve seen from the Serbian.
And it both pleased and frustrated the hell out of me (those words in themselves sum up the fella)
that we saw what was, for me, a solid 8.5/10
performance from Mr E. Nigma (Edin Dzeko if
you really needed to ask).
Pleasing to see him run and run…and run for the entire time
he was on the pitch; pleasing to see him being able to control the ball,
pleasing to see him being able to link-up and KEEP up with play and that of his
teammates and pleasing to see him score a crackin’ goal! I did more than suggest that this might happen before the game but it still leaves me asking…why
the HELL does it take the threat from the incoming & sideline-watching Wilfried Bony to light the Bosnian’s fire?!
Joe pulled off a tremendous save from a
cracking shot from Papiss Cisse; Vinny had his best game since his return from injury
and even Eliaquim had a solid 7/10’er. Pablo
was ‘back’ too! What a performance from the Argentine battleship! In
fact if it wasn’t for such fine performance elsewhere on the pitch he could
quite easily have taken many people’s MotM.
Fernandinho continued his largely inconsistent form…by
producing a fine covering role and working really well with the very impressive
Yaya; and both David
& Samir were simply magical. Aguero is definitely revving right up now too! I even
recall remarking how quite-dazzling Jesus was
when he came on for a very lively 31+ minutes.
I’m certainly not
getting carried away but you can just tell that confidence and a refreshed look
is sweeping through the team at this highly crucial stage of the season. Looks
great from our angle; must look quite concerning for the forlorn-looking Mourinho and his nervous-looking team. Good to see Manyoo
pegged back last weekend too…
And so on to Barca…
Once again regular
readers won’t be surprised to see me say that this piece in the Manchester Evening News sums it up quite perfectly for me. I like the Champions League; as a club we NEED the Champions
League. I want us to progress past the Spanish giants…but I’m also very
realistic and quite grounded about it all too.
Should we do
ourselves proud and beat Messi & Co. over 2 legs then…fantastic! But that’s where our run in this
competition will probably end, won’t it? We’re good; we’re bloomin’ good…but
we’re just not quite with ‘the elite’ just
yet.
Providing a strong
challenge, as we are doing by progressing beyond the group stages, is a very good
thing but we need some domestic consistency and, for me, retaining the title
and then pushing on even FURTHER in domestic dominance is where we need to be
aiming for.
I don’t want our players pushing themselves
SO hard in these battles that the wheels then come off our pursuit of retaining
the Premier League.
Sure enough if we
are able to do the F(not-so)FP maths correctly
in the summer and bring in 3 or 4 crackin’ stars to swell our ranks then I
would fully anticipate us to push on even further in the Champions League next
season. I’ll then probably even jump on
the Champions League ‘expect wagon’ - with those already on board – but
not until the 2016/17 season.
4-2-3-1:
_______________Aguero_______________
___________________Fernandinho______
________Fernando____________________
_________________Hart_______________
Subs: Caballero, Zabaleta, Demichelis, Milner, Lampard, Dzeko, Bony.
Hart to start, Clichy
Kompany, of course,
and although I was trying (of course)
to gauge our manager’s thinking in possibly
deciding to pick the far-more-experienced Demichelis; once again pace won the
day in my guess work. Mangala to continue his partnership with ‘our skip’.
Fernando to sit right
in front of the back 4 and, hopefully, use those telescopic legs of his to full
and good effect; Fernandinho not TOO far ahead of him in more of a duel role of
‘protect & support’.
Then an out &
out attacking quartet of creativity, goals and, here’s that word again, pace.
Excellent cover one
the bench in all Departments. Most notable is the fit again (apparently) James Milner and the
absence of the suspended Yaya Toure.
Result? Huh…what a crackin’ and
somewhat frightening line-up they have! Recent market value reports suggest
that their 3 main attackers alone in Messi, Neymar
and Suarez almost double the value of our
entire squad! I thought it was we who was
ruining football?
But I’m going for a
narrow home victory tonight and although I’d certainly take a quite-possible
2-1’er; 1-0 would be better.
Get your neck &
shoulder guards on fellas – guess who coming to dinner…
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