‘The effort was fantastic’ – David Moyes.
Must have been a different game to what I was watching David, as there didn’t appear to be any effort to win the game or even give City anything to worry about! We sat back and tried not to concede but failed in that, as they scored twice and could have had another half dozen!
This game was always going to be a loss, not because of who we were playing but because of the team we set up with. Where was our attacking threat? Antonio? He’s not an out and out striker, we used to play him at right back FFS! Snodgrass? Hammerhead would give him a run for his money in a sprint!
We played for damage limitation, at a time when we need every point we can get! Moyes is solely response for that result and performance last night!
PRE-GAME
A Wednesday night 7:30pm kick-off is tight, even for an armchair supporter on this occasion.
I have to get home from work, take my wee lad to his training, back home for dinner and sit down in front of the computer to watch the game. But this time I managed to get all done and dusted just in time to see Jesus squander an almighty chance in about the 6th minute.
Having seen the team we had out; I was surprised we weren’t 2 down by that stage though!
THE GAME
I’m not even going to waste my or your time talking about the game. The stats tell the story:
We went out ultra-defensive and yet City still managed 20 shots, and 7 of those shots were on target. Thank God we had Fabianski in goals!
We had three shots, if I remember correctly one was from Antonio that was nowhere near the goals, same for Noble’s shot late on and I can’t remember the other, possibly Snodgrass?
22.7% possession means we had the ball for 20.4 minutes of the game. I’m not sure if that includes our time taken on kick outs, throw-ins or corners when the ball isn’t even in play. I have a feeling it does though as it didn’t feel to me that we had the ball in possession on the field for 20mins of that game.
At least we won the tackle count. But 1 tackle for every 71 touches of the ball a Man City player had? It’s not exactly great, especially when you consider they tackled us every 39 touches of the ball we had.
We also won the most clearances, but when you are inviting a team on top of you from the beginning of the game the whole way through, I’d like to think you have more clearances!
A disaster of a game!
OVERVIEW
This game was destined to be what it was once we seen Moyes’ team selection.
I don’t mind possibly going with the five at the back against opposition who are a threat in front of goals but not balancing it out with a bit of attacking means exactly what happened last night.
We had over £110 million of an attacking threat on the bench in Haller (£45m), Anderson (£40m) & Bowen (£25m). That’s not including Lanzini, although judging from his recent performances he wouldn’t make much difference!
What exactly is Moyes doing? He said ‘That’s what I do, I win.’ He has absolutely no chance of doing that setting up like last night!
His record under his current contract is:
All Competitions:
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Win % |
| 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 11 | 14 | -3 | 22.2 |
League:
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Win % |
| 7 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 13 | -4 | 14.3 |
Awful return! He is inept in my opinion. His interview after the game proves it too!
“I thought the players did a great job in trying to be organised, disciplined and structured in a way that would make it hard for them”
– They SHOULD be organised, disciplined and structured, not TRYING TO BE! Its your job to ensure this! We didn’t exactly make it hard for them, they won the game by 2 goals and dominated the play from start to finish!
“I’d have liked us to play much better, especially with the ball and on the counterattack’
– We don’t have a counterattack; we are so slow at getting forward. And you are not addressing it! Last night we had everyone behind the ball and were relying on Snodgrass and Noble to ‘sprint’ up the field on a counter? Seriously David?
‘We had a few opportunities, and we didn’t take them.’
– I remember about two. We didn’t take them because we didn’t have a proper attacking threat in front of the goals!
“There will be games coming up when we have the chance to play differently, but obviously we’re in a period of a couple of tough games.”
– So, we are continuing with this shitfest of football night against Liverpool?
I generally am not one for chopping and changing managers, but I really can’t see anything changing under Moyes.
We had a better win percentage under Pellegrini (37.5%) and were on our way to the Championship under him.
Relegation now looks a foregone conclusion, especially if we stick with Moyes!
MOYES OUT!
COYI!
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