- Jul 7, 2012
- 38,247
- 104,143
What he meant was this
City have stones and one of the best defenders I've ever seen in Ruben Dias at the back....just to be a pedant.Our fanbase has been hoodwinked by Kane and Sons goals into thinking that we are as good or have the potential to be as good a the halcyon days of Poch.
The problem is that Dembele and Wanyama are now Sissoko and Winks .
Ideally it would be Ndombele ( AWOL for a year) and GLC (for me jury is still out) but for the most part it has been Sissoko and Winks or at least one of them.
Kane and son have masked the fact that we have a completely dysfunctional engine room.
Barcelona dominated Europe with average defenders because they didn't give the ball back to you , Man City have been getting away with it too for the most part.
We however can't keep possession AND have crap defenders. So the other team has loads of the ball and our defenders are called into action and caught with pants down more often than not.
Mourinho is not covering himself in glory at all, but whoever comes in still needs the spine of a team. A CB you can hang your hat on and one or two competent midfielders who can take the ball on the half turn and put a bit of shape on a pass and score a few goals. Honestly id take Charlie Adam of a few years ago over Sissoko and Winks.
Nice post . It's an absolute mess at the moment and it's not a case of just blaming the manager or the players. They're all responsible for the way we play. We've got players who for whatever reason can't follow the managers instructions. What does he do about that? Does he keep playing them and hope that it clicks, or does he drop them and potentially have more disgruntled players on his hands? And we're awful to watch at the moment so can he change the formation so that we're playing to our strengths rather than playing to protect our weaknesses, or does this style get the most out of our two best players when it clicks? Son and Kane were both on fire earlier in the season, but it's a lot of responsibility falling on their shoulders.
Not the point I'm making is it. I'm not comparing a like for like, which of course I'm sure you know all too well. LOLImagine comparing this ragtag bunch of players to the ones at Klopps and Peps disposal. LOL
Look of course the players have some of the blame, and the vast majority of people can see this. However, there is bigger issue here which you can see, visually see that's not working and it's not hard things to fix. Either the manager is so bad at getting players to follow his instructions that we play an entirely different way than the manager wants, or the managers system isn't working.You cannot say that Mourinho has failed as a leader whilst still giving Poch credit for being better at it when the exact same players gave up and got Poch sacked. Where were his leadership qualities then? Or how did they benefit us?
It's contradictory and just goes to show you simply cannot keep making excuses for these players anymore.
We have 6-7 players excluding youth who deserve their spot and give their all in this team but we have 15 or upwards that simply aren't good enough and those of you that think this will change with a 3rd manager will be in for a rude awakening. You cannot start games with 11 players but only 2-3 show up to play.
I am not saying they have been playing to the best of their ability and just can't cut it, they really seem to not give a shit anymore and haven't for a good 3 years now.
When are we going to stop making excuses for the players?
It's pretty incredible how quickly things have turned around from that initial period up to the Arsenal game. I knew we had frailties but even the things we were doing well have just disappeared over the course of the last 8 weeks.
Dont normally like to promote talkSPORT but this is correct. Does Levy know how unhappy the fans are? He must do surely. Not that he’s ever cared about us before.
LOL where have you got 10 from, the fact is despite signing 10 players Jose has spent around 75m which is fuck all nowadays10 of the squad weren’t. Play your signings.
But that point is not a necessary part of the broader argument.
I’m not talking about this year with city . Dias is a rolls Royce of a player.City have stones and one of the best defenders I've ever seen in Ruben Dias at the back....just to be a pedant.
Look of course the players have some of the blame, and the vast majority of people can see this. However, there is bigger issue here which you can see, visually see that's not working and it's not hard things to fix. Either the manager is so bad at getting players to follow his instructions that we play an entirely different way than the manager wants, or the managers system isn't working.
Now the players do have to have a portion of the blame. With Poch as well, the players didn't give up, they didn't not consciously, maybe psychologically, it's just something was broken. Maybe Mourinho can fix the problem, but he has a lot of responsibility for our current form.
It's not either-or, it's also worth pointing out that the problems with Poch and the Jose are entirely different. And where does this 3 years crap come from, it's the second time I heard it. It's been two years, and we actually did very well at the start of this season and the end of last.
Honestly, it's like people are speaking through each other, nobody is saying the player's arent at fault as well, but this is the Mourinho thread, and my opinion the way we set up is asking for trouble and is the major cause of our problems. I was listening to five live for the game, we are more fun to listen to than to watch these days, and Clinton Morrison made these points so well, the fact that we are set up to invite pressure on ourselves. We do it every game. It doesn't take much to set up a team not to do that.
Now Mourinho might be able to turn it around, but a lot of these comments actually seem to be people annoyed that Mourinho is getting flack so then focus on the players being who should be blamed, and then claiming that people are not willing to accept are players are responsible and simply blame the manager. It's the creation of a fictitious argument and misrepresentation that very few if any people in this thread actually believe.
And as I've explained twice before they didn't do the same with Poch. I don't know what to say, I explained what I felt happened with Poch and I explained what happened with Jose, they are not the same thing, but also it's interrelated with faith in what's happening. Feeling something not working. But I think the players did give everything on the pitch to make Poch's vision work, it's just the vision wasn't working. Maybe we were a bit slow and ponderous but I don't think that was intentional.And again, we then return to the the same question: why then did they do the same to Poch?
We can keep going round this idea, but as yet, no one who seems to want to lay the blame at Mourinho's door has been able to come up with an adequate answer as to why it's happened to two very different managers in the space of three years.
It doesn't seem to happen elsewhere.
Chelsea change managers all the time. How come their players still seem to put in a shift?
West Ham - they may have been shit under Moyes, then Pellegrini, then Moyes again (until recently), but they didn't piss about on the pitch looking like their mothers had just been shot. They put in a shift.
Southampton got tonked 9-0 last season. What did they do? They pulled their socks up and worked and strove and put in the effort and dragged themselves back to their feet. Having been again tonked 9-0, I would, given the choice between which I thought more likely, Spurs to show gumption and get themselves back on their feet or Southampton, still put every penny I had on Southampton.
My God, Newcastle! They're managed by a man that huge swathes of people deride (not saying it's fair, just that they do) - do you see them refusing to put a shift in?
The key difference? The teams above, at the very least, have balls. Our poor little fragile egos don't 'believe' in the project? My heart bleeds! I can give them tens of thousands of reasons, every week, why their excuses should fall on the deafest of ears.
They need to pull their own socks up, not expect Poch or Mourinho or the next poor bastard who takes this poison chalice of a job to wipe their arses for them. They each need to grow a pair.
Reguilon, Bergwijn. Not to mention Lo Celso & Ndombele hardly played under Poch.LOL where have you got 10 from, the fact is despite signing 10 players Jose has spent around 75m which is fuck all nowadays
3 on the pitch
7 off it???
Hart(back up GK), Bale(loan signing, who has struggled for fitness for 2 years) and Rodon (back up CB brought for the future), Doherty (RB signed who has been bad as of yet)
Also the majority of his signings have been backups or for the future. Only Doherty and Hojberg were brought in to improve the first 11
First of all, respect is important. I don’t play passive aggressive games and I’m willing to justify any rating I give. I don’t know what post you’re referring to. Either my disagree was about another part of his post or it was an accident. Happy to retract or explain if you tell me what post.You say it's not about individuals and yet your entire post is focused on a single individual and that person's perceived failings.
So it's about individuals when one can lay the blame at Mourinho's door, but if any other individual or individuals bear responsibility, then it's suddenly 'not about individuals'? That's not a robust argument, dude.
P.S. plus Disliking someone complimenting me is just pettiness. I've said how much I like debating with you, but if you're going to make it personal and dish out ratings to score points, if that's more important to you, then I'll just put you on ignore because it's not worth the candle.
Thank you for the compliment @-Afri-Coy- that was very kind of you to say.
You’ve made some fair points, and in my haste I did make it seem like the players are all to blame but I have said on numerous occasions that Mourinho is not without his faults.
Let’s say it’s time and Mourinho gets the sack. Let’s remember this team played possession, pressing football under Poch and for the last 12-18 months of his tenure they seemed to give up on that type of gameplan too.
We’d have 80 minutes of sideways passing and almost always got ourselves out of trouble with a moment of brilliance rather than actual team play. I can’t remember the last time we saw a nice pass and move goal from this team, it was probably at Poch’s peak which was 3-4 years ago. That’s where the 3 years come from.
It’s not like they can’t do it, it really seems like they can’t be arsed. That’s the problem. When your core players just aren’t up to scratch quality or effort wise, the rest of the team tends to follow suit. It’s human nature.
This is the football everyone including myself wants to see, and whilst I respect Mourinho’s approach it’s clearly had a short shelf life with these players and once again they need a New voice with new tactics and a new approach.
My biggest fear is that they revert to type after an initial uptick in form. This is where my frustration towards the players stems from.
Bergwijn started and was brought as a back up to Son/for the future and Reguilon didn't play and has been brilliant so farReguilon, Bergwijn. Not to mention Lo Celso & Ndombele hardly played under Poch.
I think a lot of people are shouting through each other right.You’ve made some fair points, and in my haste I did make it seem like the players are all to blame but I have said on numerous occasions that Mourinho is not without his faults.
Let’s say it’s time and Mourinho gets the sack. Let’s remember this team played possession, pressing football under Poch and for the last 12-18 months of his tenure they seemed to give up on that type of gameplan too.
We’d have 80 minutes of sideways passing and almost always got ourselves out of trouble with a moment of brilliance rather than actual team play. I can’t remember the last time we saw a nice pass and move goal from this team, it was probably at Poch’s peak which was 3-4 years ago. That’s where the 3 years come from.
It’s not like they can’t do it, it really seems like they can’t be arsed. That’s the problem. When your core players just aren’t up to scratch quality or effort wise, the rest of the team tends to follow suit. It’s human nature.
This is the football everyone including myself wants to see, and whilst I respect Mourinho’s approach it’s clearly had a short shelf life with these players and once again they need a New voice with new tactics and a new approach.
My biggest fear is that they revert to type after an initial uptick in form. This is where my frustration towards the players stems from.