Man City vs Spurs: Match Thread

[mugpunt]

Ofc sissoko is still a member of the squad, but including him and potential new signings like Barkley is a stretch when it's most likely one or other.

Question for the group: do the people slating dier as a centre mid player want another player in that position? Not a criticism, just a question, as ive only seen 1-2 suggesting a deep midfielder.

Fair enough on Sissoko/Barkley replacing him ....But the wider point stands that between injury recovering players finding match sharpness, players in corect positions, natural improvement of our younger team and say 8 new players compared to today's 17 used ( mainly first teamers) available for our Match 18 selection when we play them in the thick of the December fixture congestion this fixture will provide no mark of relevance then.

I think that a fully fit Winks, Dembelle, Wanyama, Onoma and Barkley is ample to cover our engine room....not that I'd turn down Kovacovic if he was available

 

[Bulletspur]

So i'm guessing that dier will be picked as the player to hate this season? Really saddens me that some of our fans have to do this every year.

I am usually in your corner Lilbaz but not on this occasion. Its not looking for a player to hate, they are just being real with their assessment ie he was woeful! I personally am not surprised with his performance as I have observed his limitations for some time, but it was papered over because of our overall performance and good results last season.

 

[Jospur]

Game was bit of a disaster really - especially Pochettino selected our best possible team. I wonder how the players will take it confidence-wise.

Positives:

More quality players needed. Coaches and Levy must now realize that money needs to be spent on incomings or 2017-20018 could be a real disappointment for all.

Walker-Peters did well.

Jansen did well.

N'Koudou did well - although I think he'd be better on the right flank.

That's about it for me.

 

[InOffMeLeftShin]

Third game of the week with a lot of training and travel. It's pre-season and not going to worry about it at all. Was at the psg game where at half time our players were made to do full length pitch sprints after playing. They all looked absolutely spent but this is clearly about the long game and I doubt the coaches or players are going to read too much into this other than it was a good hard week and we need to push on.

 

[Shadydan]

Good thing one over reacts on here.

 

[LexingtonSpurs]

Third game of the week with a lot of training and travel. It's pre-season and not going to worry about it at all. Was at the psg game where at half time our players were made to do full length pitch sprints after playing. They all looked absolutely spent but this is clearly about the long game and I doubt the coaches or players are going to read too much into this other than it was a good hard week and we need to push on.

This.

I just got home, but was at the training session on Friday too - they spent at least 40 minutes working on setting and beating pressure. It was set up as a controlled scrimmage on a 3/4 length pitch, and the intensity and energy the entire squad spent was significantly more than anything in the match tonight. The lads are just exhausted, and it was obvious from the opening kickoff.

I'll try to add more tomorrow - great trip/experience despite the poor showing.

 

[glacierSpurs]

A preseason loss and some of the comments here are almost discounting our 3rd and 2nd league positions last two seasons as nothing worth remembering.. What a shame.. Seriously...

And Dier comments, ffs, just remember when we have Zokora, Hudds and Bentaleb etc.. I will never sell Dier at any cost this season or the next at least.

 

[SugarRay]

Clearly no point playing the league this season after that. Request an 8th place finish, scrap all league fixtures and concentrate on the league cup...

Right, now the embarrassing overreaction is done!

We are clearly a week or two away from where we need to be fitness wise. When you see us losing the physical battle you know it's down to fitness. There isn't a team in the league that can get the better of us physically.

All this has done for me is made me look forward to playing them properly! They haven't beat us for a while either. We've completely outplayed them in 3 of the last 4 fixtures too. Poch has Pep's number I reckon.

 

[yankspurs]

We have 2 weeks until the season starts vs Newcastle. We'll be fine.

 

[ardiles]

Beat Juve and this game would be forgotten.

Our defenders are not known for their pace.

Playing a high line at a bigger pitch like Wembley , we need another pacy and experienced defender (Pereira?) before the window closes.

 

[WalkerboyUK]

Didn't see the game but I never read too much into pre-season results.
This is the time where we work on fitness and tactics, and the manager gets to try a few fringe players.

It's why I didn't get carried away when we beat PSG last weekend. It was meaningless.

I'm sure the media will have field day over it though, blaming it on lack of spending etc.

 

[ebzrascal]

Thought Walker looked excellent and I am sort of wondering why did we sell him if we don't intend to spend the money to improve the team?

 

[guiltyparty]

Third game of the week with a lot of training and travel. It's pre-season and not going to worry about it at all. Was at the psg game where at half time our players were made to do full length pitch sprints after playing. They all looked absolutely spent but this is clearly about the long game and I doubt the coaches or players are going to read too much into this other than it was a good hard week and we need to push on.

City have had all the same parameters - third game in a week, training and travel. Just saying. City looked like a team who wanted to prove a point. Spurs looked like a team who wanted to have a nap. I can't bear lack of effort and there was plenty of that.

Selling Walker to them already looks an enormous mistake too. Regardless of the situation with us, we've fixed a huge problem area for them. Amateur bank managers may say we got a great deal but 50m is peanuts to them and, sorry Daniel, but easily sustainable for them too

 

[poc]

Thought Walker looked excellent and I am sort of wondering why did we sell him if we don't intend to spend the money to improve the team?

Probably because he wanted to go, the real question for me is why give one of our chief rivals exactly what they needed. Really gutted he's gone and for me it just showed the gulf between him and tripped. The way we need to play pushed right up, trips and Davies for that matter are not athletic enough.

I do not care too much about losing this friendly other than it does make me fear for our chances against the top 4-5 teams. We won still win the majority of our games against opposition outside those teams.

We definitely need a quick athletic RB for the sort of games and opposition trips will struggle in and a dynamic AM to slot in for eriksen or ali. I guess Pereira and Barkley are seen as those two players?

 

[neogenisis]

That was sobering, but not massively worried =)

 

[arunspurs]

Trippier was criticised extensively & Walker praised in yesterdays game - but had Dele taken the chance in 1st minute of the game, Trippier gets an assist & Walker probably slated for his bad positioning. Trippier once again sets up Kane, with a first time ball, only for line ref to wrongly rule him offside. Then City score from a deflected defensive header & game changes.

But then, should we really have to do a post-mortem for this game.I learnt my lessons in 2008 on preseason games, when we won all preseason games but fcuked up the first 8 PL games. Preseason results or even performances means nothing.

What I saw was Toby, Dier, Kane, Davies, Eriksen getting full 90 minutes fitness. Only concern for me has been Dele - who has showed zero agility in the 3 games.

I remember Poch getting slated for picking Dier to play CM 2 years back. That preseason wasnt great either. But when PL kicked off, we could all see the difference made by Dier.

Yes, we need signings - but that IMO makes little or no difference in a game like yesterday.

 

[teok]

Luckily it seems I didn't even realise we had a game until 2 mins ago.

 

[guiltyparty]

Thought Walker looked excellent and I am sort of wondering why did we sell him if we don't intend to spend the money to improve the team?

Because we do. This is just the usual last minute boogie and Levy's comments were business tactics. Poch is now banging the drum in public just in case Levy started to believe his own hype

Only one player has 'made it' from the academy, worth remembering that before we suck ourselves off too much. I love it, I like what we're doing, I know we need to operate like that, but I hate people getting ahead of themselves.

Dier, Dele, Rose, all very clever signings, not youth products. It's Kane, that's it. Hopefully Winks can make the full step up but after his injury it isn't guaranteed and everyone else is just prospects.

Onomah is well liked but I've seen little in the league yet to suggest he's ready. Carter Vickers looks very raw and would you really be ok selling Wimmer without signing another center back? (personally think we very much need to keep Wimmer as we need to spend in other areas).

Edwards seems miles away going on Poch time so far. Walker-Peters will hopefully step up eventually. We've failed to bring on a striker who can even challenge Janssen for a place on the bench or a winger who can get in over N'koudou or even Sissoko. We lack pace hugely. That's quite a lot of holes if you're talking a top tier finish.

Giving these guys a chance is great, and I'm all for it but it requires realistic expectations - our squad is weaker than many teams below us now. Expecting to get in champions league again with them, let alone another title challenge, when playing at Wembley, with no investment? Well I don't believe it will happen. It won't happen if we don't invest so I believe we will. Invest doesn't mean spend 200m but it does mean not spending £0.

The line "we don't need to spend money, we make our own" is not sustained by any actual persistent evidence in this current starting 11 and just makes us look smug and silly. 10 out of our picks-itself-a-bit-too-easily-starting-team we bought.

 

[SugarRay]

As Arun mentioned, the most important thing is seeing our first choice players get real minutes this pre-season.

In recent years it seems like such tours were made up of a ragtag side, a few first team players with reserves and youth. This time everyone is getting good minutes on the pitch.

Who gives a fuck if City played with a point to prove? What point are they trying to make exactly? 'We take friendlies very seriously'?
'That'll teach Spurs for finishing above us last season, normal service resumed'? Whatever floats their boat! We'll worry when it actually means something.

I remember last time they rolled in to the right side North London with confidence high. They were top of the league and heavy favourites for the title, boasting a 100% record and the best manager football had ever seen...they got bitch slapped for 90 minutes and sent back oop north well beaten.

 

[mark87]

As long as we don't see a similar performance against juve next week then we'll be fine.