MAN CITY 0 – 1 Chelsea – PLAYER RATINGS
4 Feb
Hart - One excellent stop from Ramires in the first half and out quickly a couple of times after the break to thwart the visitors. Relied on the woodwork to rescue him three times, but he was solid enough - 7
Zabaleta - Not the only one to be teased and tormented by Hazard but one of the main victims. His usually impenetrable defending transformed into a wishy-washy hesitance. Advanced as frequently as possible to support Navas but not his finest evening - 6
Kompany - The leader of the side and the vocal figure of the back four but found life very tough against the pace, trickery and effervescent movement of Chelsea when they swarmed forward - 6
Nastasic – Concerning. He seemed overawed, and that’s not something associated with him. Struggled in the air, on the ground and on the ball. He was such a positive last season but has regressed this campaign - 4
Kolarov - Some typically powerful crosses and it was only Silva’s and Dzeko’s finishing which meant we didn’t profit, but he was absent at the back. Ivanovic had the beating of him in the air throughout, William and Hazard did the same on the ground and he couldn’t contribute much after the break - 6
Demichelis - He’s an easy target for criticism but in the first half especially, he was fine. Of course, he’s not particularly mobile but he read the game sharply and made a series of interceptions and tackles. Faded in the second half and it was a surprise not to see some fresh legs introduced but he largely did his job - 6
Y. Touré - An imposing figure early on, where his strength and touch enabled him to escape from a couple of tricky situations, but when we needed him to raise his level as we searched for an equaliser, he drifted into his lethargic mode. Offered no support to our defence when Chelsea attacked and that’s not good enough from one of your two central midfielders - 6
Navas - Our brightest player. Gave us width, pace and a more direct approach down the right. Tried his best to run at, and commit, Chelsea’s defenders but his end product wasn’t always there - 7
Silva – For all the praise directed towards others members of the team, he’s our most important player and it’s telling that with him having a quiet night, our creativity was heavily reduced. Matic and Luiz did a terrific job to shut him down, and it meant that when he did have time on the ball, it was in deeper, unthreatening areas - 6
Džeko - More signs of an improved workrate but when the ball was played up to him, it needed to stick and it didn’t. His touch let him down and his finishing was timid and erratic, as usual - 6
Negredo - A disappointing night. He has been excellent in big games this season but he was a passenger against Terry and Cahill. Couldn’t impose himself physically on the visitors’ backline and, as with Dzeko, his wayward first touch meant he couldn’t bring others into play - 5
Subs
Jovetic – Another bright contribution. Showed glimpses of what he can do, running at Chelsea, displaying a trick or two and injecting some urgency. One shot at the end almost rescued a point - 7
He is an easy target because he was absolutely terrible and not just he’s a centre half playing midfield terrible, more like I have never kicked a ball in my life terrible. I don’t want you to get on players backs but if your going to so confidently publish player ratings at least get them close, Nasty was really bad for the first time in a city top but no worse than Demichelis, don’t know where you get these ratings from.
I strongly agree that MD should not have been centre mid, or at least no the only holding midfielder. However I thought he did ok first half then obviously tired second half – he had eff all help from Toure!
I totally disagree.
He isn’t mobile but I thought he read the game well, and his tackling was good.
I think some city fans feel every player has to have an outstanding performance on every occasion.
We’ve become spoilt and unrealistic in our expectations.
City and MD will be top of the league the next time we play and beat Chelsea
The real question is:
1- Was there a player on the bench who is actually a DM
2- A player who could at least put a good 30 minutes shift (I am being a devil’s advocate that he was not fit but I do not buy it]
3- A player who could be at the very least as good as Martin D in the last 30 minutes [Still I am being the devil's advocate and I believe he is much better and more aggresive]
4- A player who is younger, fresher, faster, more physical
The answer is YES. And that was Rodwell. The fact that he was kept on the bench esp the last 30 minutes when our DM were totally incapacitated due to slow tracking of Yaya and slow legs and natural decay of Martin D because of his age is totally fucked up and unbelievable. Had it not been for the goal posts, this would have been a humiliating defeat. I wonder if that had happened how many folks would have been praising Martin D and Yaya pairing. The 1 – 0 is very very deceiving with regard to our DM and Martin D
Truly baffling that Demichelis played till the final whistle and Rodwell did not get a call for at least the last 15 to 20 minutes at the very least when City was out of ideas and goal post was our savior left and right due to a dysfunctional DM esp the last 30 minutes of second half.
Sorry guys, but if you want to know why Demichelis (may have) looked so poor, then look no further than Yaya. He offered no protection, jogged back at a canter and gave Dem no cover at all. Of course he’d get exposed for pace in that scenario, but I think too many are allowing Yaya’s goals cloud the fact that he rarely defends in any shape or form.
At least Demichelis battled, along with Silva and Navas, can you say the same of Yaya and several others?
Agreed yaya was good first 30 minutes and no more but Fernandinho copes with that every week and even then Demichelis’s poor tackling, diving in, bad decision making and down right kamikaze style can’t be put down to yaya’s laziness, sounds harsh because Demichelis put the effort in no doubt about that but there was 47000 people sat around me that could put effort in sadly that isn’t enough at this level, ultimately Pellegrini was at fault here and I am well on side with you on the phantom that is yaya.
Imagine how good Ferdy would be then, if Yaya wasn’t so lazy? Or, imagine how poor Demichelis was made to look for the same reason…
Easy to look like a headless chicken, if you’re the only chicken that’s even running…
Good point well made!
Entertaining article and comments. I still think we should mark the managers though and ours would be a four. It wasn’t Demichelis’ fault – he just shouldn’t be anywhere near the squad, and paired with Yaya!!! who IS bone idle and a complete liability when we don’t have the ball. A half decent midfielder could easily have blocked the winning shot from where Yaya was but of course he just dangled a leg. We needed energy and mobility in midfield and having got it badly wrong he should have put Milner and Rodwell on at half time. His refusal to play his best central defensive combination of Lescott and Kompany in big games is very worrying too, but of course like Milner and Rodwell, Lescott is an English international, unlike his love child Martin D.
I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!!!!
WTF was Toure doing on the goal?!?! Kompany had just put his body on the line then Toure dangles his leg when he should have taken the ball and the player into the bloody stand. I watched post match analysis and all they mentioned was Silva not being there and nobody was around the goal scorer!! Well Toure was and did NAFINK!!
Interesting comments. I have been criticising MP all season for his tactics and choice of some players, especially Demach and Garcia. This was the man (Jose) against the boy (MP) who decided this game. Jose brilliant 6-0-3-1 formation knew exactly how to beat city and their DM weakness. But MP had no idea! Jose is 8/1wins against him. If Jose was City manager MD would not have played, Rodwell and Milner would have been on at half time and yaya/demach off. Sorry but this manager has his pet players and insists playing them no matter how bad they are. Sorry to say it but I dont think City can win league with MP. KOMPANY and LESCOTT are still the best defenders but MP likes spanish speaking players no matter how badly they play. It is very frustrating watching his team choices this year.
Were the richest club on earth, let’s have a squad which reflects that, no way am I panicking but were meant to have scouts the world over, this is city now’ not when I supported them as a kid- different ball game now, but there needs to be 4 or 5 brought in over the summer, Chelsea made a laugh of us’ not settling for that, so learn your lessons hard & fast manuel\ tixi or else Chelsea/London will always be the top option for high quality players.
And you all laughed when i said Dimi wasn’t up to it… Where is this astute reading of the game everyone mentions? He dives in and then leaves himself stranded as play carrys on around him. I don’t doubt he was once a top notch CB and also has played the DM role with some distinction at Bayern but his time as a first team starter has passed. As mentioned above do we even have a scouting system in place or do we just check newsnow for the most popular names linked with us eg Mangala.
Ps on a side note, Matic is the player we all hoped Garcia would be!
You werent the only one FRAH! I have also been saying it as well and criticising MP for playing a player who is well past it and continually dives in exposing the defence.
I like Pellegrini but this match was crying out for more substitutions in the 2nd, no idea how he didnt see how tired we looked and how desperate we were for a change.
Also, people will blame demichelis but I knew we would struggle right when I saw our starting lineup. There was no pace. You can’t start Demichelis at Center mid and Negredo and Dzeko up front and expect to create a lot of chances
Some very well made points….however I do find it interesting that some people seem to have only just noticed that ‘the best, most frightening midfielder in the league’ actually needs someone to do all the running for him. Fernandinho has got better and better throughout the season and Monday showed just how much he is missed. Of course yaya is exciting with all those runs that brush opposition aside but without a midfield partner who covers every blade of grass that Yaya doesn’t we are left wide open. It seems the manager had little choice but in DM we have a player that is clearly ‘his man’. In a multi-million pound organisation that is wrong. Lescott should have been in defence and he could have given Milner and Rodwell a half each if they weren’t fully fit. I am beginning to believe the English players are in the squad because they have to be – we need 8 but he doesn’t have to play them!
At Board level it was poor decision not to bring the players in…whatever the amount was from Porto it would have been small beer compared to virtually a guarantee of winning the league.
Amazed at everyone targeting Demi. Easy to say he shouldn’t play there, simply because he is aging, a lack of pace, and that is not his position. Milner, Rodwell, and Garcia were all not available to play. Negredo was not 100% fit either, cue his subbing instead of Dzeko’s. Peligrini did what he could with what was available and while both him and Demi are an easy scape goat, the team simply did not play like they wanted to win minus Jovetic and Navas. This loss will make the team hungrier to win even more and I am not worried about that. Also, Fernando has signed a pre-contract for summer and will come on a free transfer most likely so a good piece of a business with all this FFP up in the air. Support your team lads.
Good grief, someone talking sense, I nearly gave up before I reached you old son, glad I persevered.
I thought your assessment pretty much spot on VfaB. Our midfield reflected the players that were available so it’s hardly fair to slam Demichelis who was a bit akin to a Bedouin camel herder tooling a team of huskies.
The knowledge of the guys who were amazed that none of the players who are out injured were picked ahead of him astounds me. Don’t give up your day jobs, you’ll starve. As for picking Rodwell to start – haven’t you noticed that he gets a nose bleed when he stands up quickly. He has a way to go before he earns the managers confidence enough to start a PL game ahead of a warrior like Martin Demichelis, who has won more medals in his career than you, his detractors, have had ice lollipops.
I think Hart deserved even an 8, he seema like the 2011-2012-season’s Hart since he came back from the bench amd against Chelsea he was very good.
I am not gonna rate the defenders since although they did not have a good performance (expect Kolarov maybe?) from my experience as a football player you can’t judge a defender when he is alwatys left exposed and wi Rd h no protection from the midfielders.
Demichelis made a number of interceptions but he was run over by Chelsea’s pace. He didn’t play well. I am not saying it was his fault (he was played out of position) and at least he showed some passion.
Yaya was our best player on the picth i would give him a 7. Showed his class many times with his technique and range of passing but the others could not convert them. His defensive weakness is long known and we must learn to live with it and do not judge him about this every time something goes wrong.
Silva was the most eye cathing figure. He created many chances played good in general but given that he should have scored at least two times given the chances presented to him he gets a 4. He was our fate determining player.
Navas was bright showed eagerness but he produced no much end product. When on the side he always cut the ball to his (surprisingly) week left foot and that was it.
Negredo was mot fully fit , he didn’t get the ball right and he was not provided with chances. Not his fault but he didn’t play any role to the game. 5
And here comes our WORST player in the picth. Dzeko please bring a transfer bid of 25m and we will put a ribbon around you before we sell you. No exchanges accepted. Against Chelsea once again he was horrible abysmal (i hope english was my native language to say even more)! He didn’t win one header in the whole game he wasted some really good chances and his first touch was once again non existent. I am surprised that he is not ashamed to say that he wants and deserves to play more. YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH , GET OUT! Hopefully now that Jovetic is back he will be again the third choice in the selection row.
So I’m a bit confused here, Yaya gets a pass for being selfish & lazy? I’m sorry but in my experience as a player, a mf, no matter how talented, has no place in the starting 11 if he is not willing to take on responsibility. There is one word for his defensive weakness, it’s called laziness. He can’t tackle, can’t track runs, doesn’t clog the passing lanes, doesn’t apply pressure, in short he does absolutely fuck all when City don’t have the ball in that is absolutely unacceptable as it means all the remaining have to take on added responsibility.
Which brings be to a bigger point. Week in week out, people post incessantly about tactics and systems but what is the point if just one player shirks responsibility. The system collapses. As long as Yaya keeps dodging his responsibilities it doesn’t matter what tactics or system MP choses.
Don’t get me wrong. As an attacking player Yaya is immensively talented, but he is without a doubt mentally lazy, and that is unforgivable for a player of his abilities. Maybe you can accept that but I can’t.
During his whole City career, Yaya was always playing better when he was alongside a good defensive midfielder to ease his defensive responsibilities. Remember when we won the league the (second) game against Newcastle? We played with two forwards, Tevez and Aguero. Around 65-70 with the scoreline at 0-0 Mancini makes a rather curious exchange. He moves Tevez (a striker) out and plays De Jong (a holding midfielder). And what was the outcome of this? Yaya, relieved of any defensive responsibilities moves up front and scores two goals almost winning the league for us. Every time he has to play great at defence, his attacking play was weaker. He can’t sprint for 90 minutes. I wonder why this Yaya issue never shows up when we destroy our opponents and he is to blame for every loss. In every system, the human factor is present and should be taken into account. I won’t add anything more here, I will just say that without Yaya we would have been 5th at best now.
Essentially YaYa is best as a #10 but the fact remains his faults defensively are not because of a
Lack of ability but application. Even in the #10 role that Mancini often employed, there is no reason YaYa can’t help out defensively. It is an issue because teams like Bayern, Chelsea, and Barca have sussed this out.
I concur largely with V-FAB although Joe was certainly worth an eight. In the end, a slap against cross-bar or post is a miss, in many of which a good keeper plays a part. And I would counsel against getting too aggy with Demichelis who played with passion and no end of skill all night. Yes, his legs have gone but, thus far, he has performed creditably in his preferred position of CH. Against Chelsea he was asked to perform a role and came up short but that doesn’t make him a bad player or a bad guy. Fi-fi-fo-fum, methinks I smell a witch hunt here; there regrettably always seems to be a certain kind of City fan who needs a scapegoat. Now Jerry G has shown signs of improvement the knockers turn their attention to another soft target.
That said, though, I am losing patience with Dzeko. I don’t think he provided a lay-off with a header all night. His jumping is woeful, his first-touch not great, his movement off the ball, naive. What’s more, for a big guy he just doesn’t put himself about enough. I’d imagine you lot are too young to remember Martin Chivers, Spurs and England, a striker with a fabulous technique and the heart of a chicken with angina. There are similarities.
Lescott, Kompany, Clichy & Zab should be the back four of choice for the big occasion every time. Apparently Lescott has a better win percentage over the past 2 1/2 seasons than any other player in our entire squad, and by some distance! One up top, Jovetic on the left with Silva in the 10 (interchangeable)and Milner, YaYa holding. There done it – hindsight is a wonderful thing! CTID
Totally agree with you costarica! Would someone kindly tell MP about Lescott win percentage. When he has played in the non premier league games the defence looks so much better!
I really can’t understand how you people think that Lescitt would have played better than Nastasic. Lescott is a turtle and Nastasic is a rabbit in terms of speed and agility. Have you forgotten how many times Lescott was left behind or run over by quick attackers? Last year’s home game against Liverpool is a textbook example.
Lescott knows his limitations and also what he is very good at i.e being a centre back. Vinnie plays with so much more confidence with JL alongside him. Sadly Nasty has become a bit of a liabilty, giving away endless free kicks on the edge of the box, getting caught causing apprehension in his own team mates (ask Joe Hart) and not possesing the physical presence to defend set pieces well. I’m not convinced he’ll ever fulfill his potential. For JL read John Terry (he’s not a rabbit either).
Against Chelsea it was Hart’s mistake and not Nastasic’s. Nastasic is quicker Lescott is more physical that’s why Nastasic plays against quick opposition and Lescott when e.g we have to mark Lukaku and Agbonlahor
I’ll go on what I see week in week out and the teams results. It’s indisputable that Kompany and Lescott are the most successful CB partnership we’ve had in the modern era. Beyond doubt! That’s the reason we conceded the fewest goals three seasons on the bounce and lifted two major trophies. Clichy and Kompany provide the speed and agility in the back four. Lescott provides strength, stability and experience. I’m not saying JL is the long term future but I somehow don’t believe Nasty is either. Naturally I hope he can prove me wrong but at this critical stage of the season JL is def the man for me.
Mourinihos master plan , simple ! Counter attack at pace into the space that toure leaves every game and overrun the poor sod who has to mark or try and tackle three players . Toure has touch and strength and a decent passer with a mean free kick , but he is the strength that becomes the weakness if overplayed .all the world scoffed when hamman bucked the trend and pointed it out but fernandinhos brilliance has covered a multitude of sins and Toures limitations , doesn’t track , can’t tackle ( or if he does like a fairy or gives a foul ) , poor in the air for a big lad and one eye on a move to a psg or a Barcelona ( who are not that naive ) , cash in , save some wages and get a 100% er who turns up for 100% of EVERY game.
You are spot on Pedro about Yaya as is Didi Hamann. While he is an immensely talented player, Yaya is not irreplaceable. I’m always baffled when some of my fellow Citizens refer to him as a holding/or defensive mf. But then again, asCity fans, we are well known for having a great sense of humor…
You have a memory of a goldfish. In view of one (team and not Yaya’s) disappointment you start saying sell Yaya. Every player has his advantages and his disadvantages. We must learn to live with them and our coach HAS to find a way to hide the disadvantages to the extend possible way instead of bringing them out on sight.
I am very harsh on Yaya. But it’s not just based on one performance. I’ve been posting here & at Bitter & blue about his laziness for 3 seasons. Suffice to say , I’m in agreement with Didi Hamann. Yaya is comparable to Tevez in that he is immensively talented but replaceable..As far as my memory, I think I’m more of a dog rather than goldfish. Truth is I actually tend to agree with most of your posts and opinions but unfortunately we seem to be at an impasse about Yaya.