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*Official* English Football Season 2011-12

T

Tom Halsey

International Coach
sledger said:
Think that might be a little harsh on Napoli, but you'd expect a team with a squad like City's to see them off. Villareal are lamentable though, no doubt about that.
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I really don't think it is, Napoli have won five of thirteen league games this season, in what is a very poor league judging by recent European results (Mourinho's Inter excepted, which is irrelevant now anyway, the success of that side might have been recent but in terms of actual performance they're now miles away).
 
dontcloseyoureyes

dontcloseyoureyes

BARNES OUT
That Napoli side is tailor-made to play a certain way. They play deep and soak up immense amounts of pressure before hitting teams with their amazing speed going forward. In reality, they're a nightmare matchup for us because we play attacking, possession football and if we ever gave the ball away Hamsik, Lavezzi and Cavani were away.

In Italy, there's only one team that play remotely like we do, and that's Milan. Juventus have been attacking this season as well, but not overly. Hence, their style is ill-suited to the league. Say what you want about the intelligence of that move, but that's not the matter at hand here.

Napoli are a very good side if they're playing the right opponent. If they're forced to make the game, they will falter.
 
T

Tom Halsey

International Coach
dontcloseyoureyes said:
That Napoli side is tailor-made to play a certain way. They play deep and soak up immense amounts of pressure before hitting teams with their amazing speed going forward. In reality, they're a nightmare matchup for us because we play attacking, possession football and if we ever gave the ball away Hamsik, Lavezzi and Cavani were away.

In Italy, there's only one team that play remotely like we do, and that's Milan. Juventus have been attacking this season as well, but not overly. Hence, their style is ill-suited to the league. Say what you want about the intelligence of that move, but that's not the matter at hand here.

Napoli are a very good side if they're playing the right opponent. If they're forced to make the game, they will falter.
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Do you not think that a side with players of the quality that City possess in large numbers, who can perform a vairety of roles, and a tactically astute manager (especially one for whom the one major criticism in past seasons has been that he is too negative) should have adapted to this, and that their failure to do so represents a pretty major underachievement?

A side with a goal difference of +35 in 14 games should be beating a team with a goal difference of +8 in 13 games in a worse league pretty comfortably, no matter how well one team might match up against the other. Simply being well suited to playing a certain opponent doesn't make that much difference, even if we assume that City cannot adapt (they should be able to).
 
dontcloseyoureyes

dontcloseyoureyes

BARNES OUT
I didn't say that we didn't disappoint, I was pointing out that using their League form as a guide for how good a side they are is out of context, and I am right.

Fact of the matter is Mancini has never adapted well tactically to Europe, as his history as a manager shows. I also don't think our goal tally in the league has anything to do with Europe. Inferior teams come to Eastlands and sit back and defend, let us come at them and control the game. Nobody was going to do this in Europe and Mancini did not account for this as much as he should've, IMO. I think we should've went through comfortably, and if Mario takes his chances in Naples (open header for an almost open goal, for instance) we would have.

Like I've said numerous times before, I don't care that we didn't go through. Well, I care, but I'm not gutted that we didn't. We had one of the hardest groups in the draw and I got to see City play in the Champions League for the first time in my 12 years as a fan. That will do me quite nicely thank you.
 
The Sean

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
Neil Pickup said:
Intriguing that Kyiv had a man sent off, and then Lyon scored six in the second half to complete the extortionate goal-difference swing that was required to send Ajax out.

Wonder what the betting patterns were like?
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Zagreb had a man sent off too, which I'd consider more relevant. :p

Reports doing the rounds on t'interweb that investigations are in the offing.
 
Nate

Nate

You'll Never Walk Alone
Liverpool vs QPR. Favourite vs second fave. If we go the 4-4-2 with Carroll, and if QPR start with Taarabt, then I'll take a loss, haha.

Devo to miss Arsenal vs Everton though.
 
TT Boy

TT Boy

Hall of Fame Member
Pothas said:
Wish I had not had work today but anyway bloody marvelous isn't it?
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Pretty hard to top that. Knew Citeh were toast beforehand but I didn’t even bother to stay up to watch the Manure game on the box, as like most people thought it was a foregone conclusion. Watched the replay this morning and loved the bitterness from the ITV boys, questioning the audacity of Basel to score 2 and to then soak it up.
 
TT Boy

TT Boy

Hall of Fame Member
Tom Halsey said:
I really don't think it is, Napoli have won five of thirteen league games this season, in what is a very poor league judging by recent European results (Mourinho's Inter excepted, which is irrelevant now anyway, the success of that side might have been recent but in terms of actual performance they're now miles away).
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Last night would make the Premiership look rather two bob wouldn’t it?
 
Woodster

Woodster

International Captain
A disappoint City not qualifying last night, wasn't a surprise as we'd backed ourselves into a corner before the game kicked off. Nice to beat Bayern, albeit a very under-strength Bayern. The games against Napoli are where we let ourselves down, in a way it was a shame we played them at home first up, while we were still trying to work out what this tournament was all about. Tough going to their place and winning, but I would have backed us to do so.

It was a tough group and we came out of it with 10 points, which would generally be enough to get you through to the knock-out phase, but not this time. Now for the Europa League. Our recent history has not been strong enough for us to get snobby about this lesser European tournament, no matter how much of a comedown it is from the Champs Lge. Going to be even harder for our city rivals to cope. How Utd failed to qualify from their group is an indication of their lack of quality within the squad, especially in the middle of the park.
 
sledger

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Really hope they don't buy a replacement for him (any new players whatsoever in fact) before January 22nd. That really would be good. Turning out to be a good season is this.
 
sledger

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Seems plausible. Apparently Arsenal will renew their interest in him as well, and are considering Alex and Jan Vertonghen as well. Seeing as the squad has 4 match fit centre backs at the moment (and all of them are serviceable or better imo - granted Mertesacker is pretty dodgy) I'm not sure if this is the best policy.
 
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