Premier League Match 14 - Manchester City 2 Southampton 1

Redmond Confronted by Asylum Escapee

Manchester City away free hit. They’ve been demolishing everybody with 12 wins out of 13 so far, easy progression in the Champions League group and no worries at all. It seriously wouldn’t surprise you if Manchester City won the trouble of Premier League FA Cup and Champions League this year. So, it’s a free hit.

We come here on the back of the thumping win against Everton which will have injected some confidence back into the squad. Having stumbled upon a winning formula, I fully expect Pellegrino out to change all that round tonight and pick up the players probably in three at the back formation which we saw a glimpse of in the last 10 minutes against Everton.

City are ridiculous this year, usually managing to put five out of Jesús, Aguero, Sané, David Silva, Sterling, de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva on the pitch at any one time. Yaya Toure doesn’t get a look in and nor hardly does Ilkay Gundogan. They have so many players that they paid so much ridiculous money for that it’s not actually a fair fight. It is fucking ridiculous. Also of course, they have Pep Guardiola as the manager. Now you can argue that he managed Barcelona in Spain and Bayern Munich in Germany and now City in England so in fact he’s had the most resources of any club in every league but he’s managed in. Regardless, he happens to be quite good at getting results with the cards loaded in his favour so no one can complain really. You can see the difference it is made in some of the players who have got much better since he’s been there with Raheem Sterling being the most obvious example. It’ll be interesting to see if the other English players that he has like Kyle Walker and John Stones improve massively as well. Ryan Bertrand was heavily linked with them in the summer and recently the rumours have been saying that they may be in for Virgil in January or in the summer. To be honest, with Guardiola as the manager and Sheikh Mansoor pumping ridiculous amounts of money into the club, who could blame them if they wanted to go to the blue side of Manchester.

Pellegrino surprises no one by changing to a more defensive line up.  In comes Yoshida, Lemina and Romeu so it’s obviously going to be three centre backs with a solid midfield.  Austin is rested for the Bournemouth game and Shane Long is picked, purely I would expect to to the Jack Russell thing and chase about after the City defenders all game..  Nathan Redmond has been picked to add a bit of pace as well but as we kick off, it looks like a back five, with four in midfield with Hojbjerg right, Redmond left and Long up front on his own.  All the lightweight players like JWP, Davo and Boufal are on the bench.

City of course have possession a lot and whoever has theball has about 7 options and there appears to be danger everywhere.  Fernandinho has the first effort which goes well wide.  We have our first break on about 5 minutes and it’s Hojbjerg up the right to Long who tries to find Redmond but we win a corner.  Over it comes from Bertrand, flicked on by Yoshida and Wesley meets it from about 6 yards, unmarked.  It’s an absolute sitter but he nods it onto the bar – fuck it.  Ah well, it would only have annoyed them if it had gone in – hang on, they’re breaking like lightning and Sterling sees his shot well turned aside by Fraser and Jesus gets the rebound on target by Fraser saves again.  Jesus is very much present for someone who doesn’t exist.

It’s of course going to be  massive effort in concentration and Lemina pulls out the skills but then loses it and Fraser has to pull out another save to deny Fernandinho.  It’s now like the Alamo with City playing ridiculous football.  Otamendi heads over and then Aguero forces a save and Gundogan hits the side netting.  The wek part of City’s side is of course the defence but you can’t bloody get to it often.  We doso when Lemina megs Kompany on the left ahnd side of the penalty area but runs out of room and con only poke a ball at Ederson.  Shane Long does soom to have Kompany rattled though and he breaks past him only for Kompany to take one for the team and just grab him for an inevitable yellow card.  Keep running at the old crumbly bastard.

Right on half time we miss another sitter – this time it’s a Redmond corner and Virgil rises unmarked, nods it down to Yoshida who is again unmarked and shins it over the bar from 6 yards.  As ridiculous as it seems, with our approximately 10% possession, we’ve had to two best chances.  Half time and a good half – digging in as well as possible and carry a bit of a threat at the other end.  I feel that Pellegrino has got this one right.

The concentration has to be maintained and it takes all of 3 minutes for it not to be.  City build on our right and when the ball gets knocked infield to Jesus, Yoshida runs up behind him and nails him to a fucking cross.  It’s a ridiculous tackle because he was facing the wrong way – just stand your ground and let him have it.  Anyway, incoming free kick from Kevin de Bruyne and he whips it near post, past our pointless one man wall and it deflects off of someone and flies into the net at the near post with Fraser having no chance.  City run to Otamendi but body language tells you that Virgil’s stuck that in his own net.  Bollocks.  Plan A has gone South so now what.

Plan B appears to be to let City put the game to bed as soon as possible as a loose ball in midfield gifts possession away and Jesus cuts in from the left, turns some bread into fish or somesuch bullshit and whilst he’s at it, curls one wide of the far post.  Instead of attempting to perform miracles, he could try scoring a goal as three minutes later he had a chance of resurrection when Maya fucked up and gave Aguero the ball but Jesus took the offering and saw Fraser save again.   Fraser is on it tonight, saving a long range blast from de Bruyne and watching on as Aguero put one over the bar.

Rather than just wait for a second goal to go in, Pellegrino takes of Hojbjerg for Boufal and immediately Saints look more of a threat.  With 15 to go something unbelievable happens with has nothing to do with Jesus.  Bertrand hoiks over a cross from near the corner flag on the left and Boufal shapes to volley from beyond the back post.  This is enough for Dlph to jump out of the way and defend like and 11 year old as Boufal instead, takes it down with a sublime first touch before pulling it back for Romeu to smash high into the net.  Fuck me, we’ve scored.

Pellegrino seems to think now that another substitution might get us another goal and Austin is on for Long.  The last 15 is all City as you’d expect but we’re holding out and wasting time like we’re West Brom after 3 minutes in an away game.  A cross comes in from oue left but Fraser is fouled and despite Sterling putting it into the net – no bother.  5 minutes extra….shit.  Cedric goes down injured and we bring on McQueen – I’m not sure what formation we’re playing – Bertand is still on the left in front of McQueen so it now is possibly 4-5-1 with Maya at right back.  Can we hang on… fuck it.  Sterling and de Bruyne torment us with the ball on our right as the clock ticks 95 and Sterling jinks across the top of the box, finds a bit of space and curls it into the far top corner in just about the only place where Fraser couldn’t reach it.  Sterling goes mental, City go mental, Guardiola is on the pitch, fuck off.  We kick off, one pass, whistle goes, fuck off.

For Fuck Sake. 96 minutes into a 90-minute match and we concede the winning goal. What an absolute pisser.  We deserved a point for the way we played and the effort we put in.  No complaints at all though and we come out of it with immense credit.

The first thing to say is that Pellegrino got it absolutely spot on today managing to find a balance between resting players for the game against Bournemouth and picking a side that least had a chance of upsetting Manchester City and we almost did it. If you take it the heroic defending and goalkeeping as part of the deal, you could argue that we really should of won it on clear chances as all three centre backs had good chances to score on our set pieces with Wesley hit the bar and Virgil and Maya putting very presentable chances over the top. It's not exaggerating to say that Manchester City are very much like Guardiola’s Barcelona side in that eventually they just wear you down and it's an absolute miracle if you can keep the levels of concentration and discipline needed to keep them out. Everything has to go your way and it very nearly did but today, unfortunately on 96 minutes, the luck ran out.

The fallout from the game has been very interesting. I was absolutely raging when five minutes was added at the end but it appears to have been acknowledged that we were wasting time throughout so perhaps five minutes was justified.  It’s funny how you don’t notice it when it’s your own side doing it.  The injury to Cedric meant that five minutes became six and it was in that last minute that Sterling scored the winning goal. It was a completely heroic performance by side today and one which would not have seen possible just a couple of weeks ago. Like I said, Pellegrino got it spot-on and for the first time, tactically showed that he is prepared to be adaptable to suit the situation. Let’s not kid ourselves that was three at the back. It was basically a five with four in midfield and one upfront with Redmond and then Boufal trying to give Long some support.

All of the focus after the game has been on the antics of Pep Guardiola are as the players left the field.  He has clearly been skipping his meds.  Not only was he celebrating like a lunatic and the kind of way that would certainly have got Jose Mourinho banned from the touchline, he then ran onto the pitch to talk to Nathan Redmond and was jumping around like a maniac and grabbing him and pushing him and yelling at him. Pep’s explanation was that he was telling Redmond what a good player he was and tell him that he should attack more as he is one of the best one on one attackers in the country. The media then tried to make out that Pep called him a wanker according to a mind reader and then Redmond himself cleared up the issue by basically saying that Pep’s version of events was correct and that Redmond replied that he was doing what is manager told him to do.  Pep has since admitted that he said roughly the same to more of our players – that we should have attacked more.  Well it would certainly be entertaining if he was our manager.  He had me until he said that Shane Long had quality – sorry Pep, that’s one thing he doesn’t have.  Pace and Jumping.  That’s it.

Here’s little challenge for any manager who is playing against Manchester City and the next next few weeks. Go up to Kevin De Bruyne and tell him that he’s decent but whay’s he playing so deep – he should attack more.  Grab him and push him around a bit as well and mention that he should basically not do what his manager has told him to do. Let’s see how Pep reacts to that. There has been a bit of criticism of his actions in the media but the mood seems to be that as it’s Pep and he’s a legend, that’s okay. No it isn’t. If I was Pellegrino I would be absolutely steaming about it.  Part and parcel of being a professional footballer is doing what your manager tells you to do even if you don’t agree with it. Years and years ago, I had a conversation with Jimmy Case in the car park at The Dell where he basically said that if your manager tells you to smash 80 yards up the pitch then that’s what you should do otherwise you’re gonna find yourself out of the team next week. It’s pretty obvious really. Guardiola has absolutely no right to talk to anyone else’s players and also for that matter has no right to complain about teams playing defensively at Manchester City. What the hell does he expect? He has 20 players at his disposal that all in the £50 - £100 million bracket and he’s playing against a team that has Shane Long upfront who scores goals with about the same frequency as Halley‘s comet turning up. It’s like bows and arrows against nuclear warhead. It’s unbelievable to hear so much sour grapes from the manager when his team actually won.

It’s not that we defended superbly well all match because there were times when I was looking at Virgil and Maya in particular and wondered if they never play football before as they were taking it in turns to dawdle on the ball will be caught miles out of position but somehow, we almost pulled it off. The main reason for this was of course the much-maligned big man in goal who was magnificent throughout and he really deserved better than to be on the losing side. The heavily armed midfield of Hojbjerg, Romeu and Lemina did what was expected from them and we really could’ve won this game.  However, there is no doubt about it but this City side is going to win the league by mile.

Saints go to the Vitality Dean Court Very Small Bag of Shit and Resentment Stadium on the weekend to play Bournemouth who have just lost at home to Burnley, checking their mini revival. If we can go there and get a result like we did last year then it would really set them back as well as propelling us up the table. There is real reason to be optimistic now as we seem to have been shaken out of our malaise for the dismal defeat at Liverpool and you can see now that we can actually look quite a good side. No doubt we will have the return of Charlie Austin, Steve Davis, Dusan Tadic and Sofiane Boufal for this game. The Moroccan only had 20 minutes tonight but showed sort what sort of form he’s in with the setting up of Romeu for the goal. What a touch that was to make the defender look absolutely stupid before he rolled it back to the big man to smash into the net. Come on then Bournemouth, what have you got?