Yeah man I was saying the same thing, tackle was awful.
We look okay but have no inspiration and look really timid up front. Hopefully it doesn't continue into the season.
Also, hope we don't play 3-5-2 this year :/
What are the main reasons you hope we don't play 3-5-2 ? I was sceptical whenever we reverted to this system last season and also when we lined up with that today, but I thought today it worked pretty well, albeit against 10 men for plenty of the game.
Kompany marshalled the two men alongside him as well as is expected, though still cannot imagine Savic will be anywhere near a permanent fixture just yet. So with Richards (when fit) and Lescott alongside Kompany it looks impressive. In the middle of park, hopefully with the new addition in Jack Rodwell, we have four decent options - De Jong, Yaya, Barry and Rodwell, if, as it appears, Milner is to play at right wing-back, a position that I hope will suit his style of play. Kolarov will also benefit from having more focus on getting balls into the box rather than defending being his main focus, though Clichy will also be effective as a wing-back.
I guess in this system it does look as though we can play either Nasri or Silva rather than both, which may not be ideal, be I'm sure Mancini will look to be flexible when he wants to incorporate both players. The Aguero and Tevez partnership looks exceptionally promising.
In full, I think it's a system we can make work, it looked fluent at times today, it can be an attacking formation and has the potential to get the most out of our players. It means that Nasri or Silva or whoever don't have to be stuck out on either side where they don't look massively comfortable and can influence things more from the middle.
