Southampton 3 – 1 MAN CITY – PLAYER RATINGS
10 Feb
Hart - A woeful error gifted Southampton their second goal. Whether it was down to a lack of concentration or another factor, it was appalling. Unfortunate for the first goal when he made a top stop, but despite Southampton’s dominance, they were wasteful and Hart barely had a save to make - 4
Zabaleta – Normally so reliable, he had a largely uncomfortable afternoon. Lambert’s ability to drift off the centre-backs and position himself against the smaller Zabaleta and Clichy was excellent, and it meant Zabaleta struggled throughout - 5
Garcia - This display should emphasise how a painfully slow midfielder should not drop into defence against a mobile attacking side. He was all at sea for the opening hour, bullied by Lambert’s physicality, given the run around by Southampton’s movement and his positional sense was laughable - 4
Lescott – Usually a consistent performer, he seemed unsure of how to deal with the home side’s sweeping attacks. Beaten for pace and strength at times and sacrificed as Mancini changed formations - 5
Clichy – Turned far too easily by Lambert in the build-up to Southampton’s goal and looked unusually ruffled at the back. Tried to provide a spark late in the game by sprinting after the opposition but it was too little, too late - 5
Barry – A day to forget. He has been excellent throughout this season but just had one of those days where everything went wrong. Culpable for the first goal when he attempted to dribble clear of danger and then scored a comical own-goal. His passing was off, his tackling was late and he’ll want to write this off completely - 3
Y. Touré - Completely anonymous. Handed the captain’s armband which I don’t believe he should have been, and produced anything but a leader’s display. Bypassed by Southampton’s pace and movement and his own passing was off-key - 4
Nasri - He did absolutely nothing. Again. It’s becoming all too frequent, these absent performances from the Frenchman. Most of the team yesterday were nowhere near the races and it’s therefore hard to single anyone out, but Nasri was a total passenger - 4
Silva – Even our most creative player looked bereft of ideas. Produced one glorious chip to Zabaleta which lead to Dzeko’s goal but he was otherwise on the fringes, unable to assert himself as he so often does - 5
Aguero - Tried his hardest to inject some pace into our play by running at Southampton’s backline but he didn’t have too much of an impact and saw his only shot parried away by Boruc. Lacked any support around him - 5
Džeko - As has been the case with Dzeko on numerous occasions recently, he scored but contributed very little. Finished scrappily after a great counter-attack but his hold-up play was poor, he was on a different wavelength to Aguero and didn’t offer a focal point for our attacks - 5
Subs
Milner – The only player who tried to harry the opposition, getting tight to them, making interceptions and attempting to add some dynamism to our lethargy - 6
Kolarov – A couple of dangerous crosses but lacks the pace to play as a wing-back. Will hopefully be sold in the summer - 5
Maicon – Little chance to make an impact, as Southampton doubled up on him whenever he had the ball - 5
All sounds about right. How about marks for the manager who continues to play creative midfielders as wide men, failed to strenghten in summer and in January, and still insists that Yaya plays every single minute. Im afraid we can’t keep referring to how wonderful Yaya is – that was last season, he’s been rubbish all of this and needs a rocket somewhere
Yaya was awful yesterday, it was laughable that some people thought he would turn us around when he came back. What was this based on? He’s been awful for 5 months! On top of this he was given captaincy, Zab all day long, Yaya wouldnt be in my starting line up at the moment. We need people that will fight and battle like Milner while we are out of form, Yaya is only interested in defending when its him thats lost it.
Nasri is invisible this season, im very disappointed with him and would understand his sale at the end of the year.
Garcia is just not quick enough for this league, I know there are players like Barry for example who have done well without pace, but they make up for it with a quick mind and great reading of the game. Im afraid Garcia has not one of these abilities.
In response to Goatman I dont blame Mancini for the signings. He wanted RVP, De Rossi, Martinez and Hazard and got worse than a poor mans version of each of these.
The commentators consistantly refer to Silva not being as good as last year, firstly i cant understand why he was taken off yesterday. Secondly there are a million others to point to before the Spaniard.
I agree the one positive is that maybe we may play with some freedom now, but i wont hold my breath. Perhaps the other positive is that we will always have won the league, and i still even now remember Aguero 3-2 with a smile.
Lets just make sure we finish second.
We WILL be back next year.
Silva is the creative brain that reminds me of genius geek in school. He needs protection otherwise he would be bullied left and right and that is what happening. He needs to be surrounded by players who do the dirty work of demolition job and engage the opponents so that he can find space and do what he does best. The commentators were simply dumb and short-sighted for failing to see this. Unfortunately, our midfield has been anything but combative and that has left Silva exposed.
Yeah I totally agree blue bullet. Fight for every point this season. But we should stop focussing on catching united and focus on us and getting as many points as we can.
One thing I’m suprised I actually thought Garcia wasn’t that bad as a cb. I thought his protection from midfield was abysmal which made him and lescott look worse than they were. Aguero I thought was his usual tenacious self but had little or no support throughout..
Also can’t understand Mancini taking silva off.. Maybe injury? Does anyone know about tevez’s “personal reasons” for not playing?
Take a mark off Lescott and Clichy and add one to Zaba and I’d be agreeing with the scores. It was far from Zaba’s finest performance but it takes 11 to make a performance on a football pitch and he gave it more than Nasri and Yaya put together!
True Garcia struggled, as did Lescott to a marginally lesser degree, and yes Garcia is slow, but anyone playing out of their usual position in an unacustomed role of CH would struggle with a midfield performing like ours did. It not only provided no cover at all, but seemed to spend a fair bit of the evening playing for the opposition!!!
I am coming to the view that with the exceptiuon of the excellent Matija Nastasic, the summer signings have been costly errors. Javi Garcia is a decent footballer with a fine record in less punishing leagues. He could be a squad player for City, providing decent cover for a quality DMF (which Gareth Barry has been), but with Barry on the wane, is Rodwell going to develop to this level? He has shown promise in his brief periods of fitness, but he has been a promising youngster for more than 100 PL games so far and runs the risk of going OTT without doing the bit in the middle!
As it stands, if Yaya leaves and Barry declines further, in the words of my long departed Merchant Mariner Father in Law, we will be ‘up a shark’s arse’!!
Alph
Whatever happens from now until the end of the season, Pablo Zabaletta player of our season
I am a very happy man for one reason only. I made a promise in my comment last week on this site that I wouldn’t watch if Dzeko started. True to my word, read the teamsheet and went and organized my golf clubs.
Wont be watching until he is off the starting 11. True, after watching a reply, the rest of the performance was pretty gutless all round. Samir Nasri baffles me as to how he can be so unbelievably terrible.
Regardless, my rule of thumb is now in place. Dzeko starts, I turn off.
Your not a city fan then Homegrowne, one reason being because you wont watch because of one player and second saying you are a very happy man.
Strange comment, as he is our top scorer at this moment! Your comment of feeling happy is absolutely appalling for a City fan. I know for sure I felt horrible after the game.
How quick we put the boot in. Give away silly goals in the prem and watch out. The only sensible comment is to focus on us, not stretford rangers and see what transpires. We can still take the title.
The defence couldn’t cope without any cover from midfield. Garcia might be slow but he still covers unlike Yaya. Why isn’t ZABA employed in the distructive midfield role at least he does cover. And what about playing without Milner. TOTAL SUICIDE. He’s our best performer lately. And with all due respect when is Har going to start getting off the the line and use his height and use of hands. Panti only played once against the high ball playing Stoke and came out with flying colours. Give the guy a chance. And last but not least, going out without a striker on the bench? Why is Guidetti not been called if need be??
Mike
Sell Nasri and make a bid for Bale. He is what we needed this season,pace out wide, a player who can defend and attack with bundles of pace, strength and wonderful delivery.
We never cross the ball, our build up play is far too slow and we have no width.
Mancini has been found out with his boring keep ball Italian tactics. The system is flawed adn easy for organised teams to defend against. Too many draws this season where we kept the ball virtually all game and failed to score. It is not the players fault either, the tinkering with the formation and our back line damaged us in the Champions League and has damaged us in the League. We drew our way out of contention in this title a long time ago. The loss at the weekend shows a low morale in the squad and the manager is the one to blame.
Credit to Bobby Manc for delivering the title last season, but in reality with the squad and the funding at his disposal I think any first rate manager would be able to do the same.
Bring on Viera or Mourinho?
Bale is exactly what we need! Been crying out for him for the past two years. He would make our team so much better. He would free up room for Silva and Aguero to work, and would also bring out the best of Dzeko.
Cavani and Falcao are the shiny new things, but they won’t make us a better team the way Bale would.
Oh and he’s got EPL experience! No “settling in” period. Praying we go after him this summer.
Gareth bale has been in absolutely blistering form this season, If I were mancini I would make him my number 1 transfer target, he would improve the team immensily and provide different options in attack, plus his absolutely lethal on the counter attack, his also not a bad finisher, a lot of people are calling for cavani and falcoa, but I agree bale is what we need.
It’s the first time since he left that I’ve genuinely thought we missed De Jong. Not necessarily him but that sort of player. We miss Vinnie tremendously when he’s out too- not just his footballing talent but his commanding captain attitude.