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Sam
Sam
Slashman X
bluemoon.
Chera
City in Europe compared to PL is baffling. Also the atmosphere was ridiculous.
bluemoon.
Well, that's a pretty awful mistake but he also missed a penalty.
My point was about the refereeing in general though, rather than just tonight. Even in our first CL campaign we had some dodgy decisions on penalties.
Chera
Could argue Nasri should have been sent off aswell. Aguero dived for the first penalty which the ref got correct but the second one I'm not sure as they didn't show a replay.
In terms of City moaning about his display, he may have been poor overall but he let Yaya off with the 2nd booking and also should have sent Nasri off so he wasn't necessarily bad against City.
Slashman X
bluemoon.
You've entirely missed my point. The referee yesterday was bad for City but I am not blaming him for our defeat or our performance. I am observing that we haven't had very much luck with referees in the Champions League as a whole. Aside from yesterday, there was a penalty and a red card against Roma, two different penalty decisions in Moscow (one for them, one for us) and pretty good penalty appeal for David Silva against Bayern. On top of that we've had a fair few unfortunate decisions in recent years, the most obvious that I can remember being our first match against Bayern in 2011 when we had two clear penalties denied then lost 2-0.
Chera
Why do we think City have failed to perform in Europe the past few seasons? You can point to tough groups but the performances haven't been good enough. Pellegrinis tactics of persisting with 2 men up top? It took Fergie and United a few seasons to work out Europe properly.
Pellegrini must be thankful that Smalling for sent off on Sunday because if you didn't win the derby then he would be under real pressure now.
bluemoon.
Well ask those City fans then. I've already given my opinion on our failings, and whilst the referees haven't helped, ultimately it's on City.
Ninja
Of all the players you've signed its hard to think of too many that have been unqualified successes; Kompany, Silva, Toure, Aguero, and Zabaleta spring to mind but thats about it. And theres a vast litany of players who just seem like squad filler? Neither World Class nor bad, just a bit stuck in the middle.
The Platypus
Five great team changing signings in about six seasons isn't exactly horrible business tbh.
I reckon most top teams boast similar ratios.
bluemoon.
For me: Good but not spectacular.
Well, considering since the takeover we've been buying players for about four different levels/standards (Europa League, Champions League, title contenders, title winners) I think a lot of the transfer activity was alright, but there were more than our fair share of mistakes.
The Hughes-era was undoubtedly the worst - but bizarrely also brought in three or four of our best players of the last 6 years - the likes of Adebayor, Kolo Touré and Roque Santa Cruz were unforgivable wastes of money. My only real criticism with the players we signed is that we weren't more intelligent with how we picked our targets, Hughes, and Mancini to an extent, were consistently allowed to buy very obvious targets for fees that weren't especially good for us. i.e. 'Premier League proven' players, I think if we'd spent last time trying to sign those types of players we would have improved quicker and probably spent less money. A better manager than Hughes wouldn't have hurt either.
For me, part of the issue is expectation. When were the takeover first happened the spokesman was a bell-end who went around very loudly talking about how we could and would sign all of the best players in the world. Frankly, I don't think that was ever actually the plan, but understandably that encouraged people to look at City's signings with that in mind. I think it's only the last few seasons that our transfer activity has been particularly bad. The García/Sinclair window was truly disastrous and we're fortunate it hasn't caused more issues and this past window doesn't look that brilliant now albeit with the important factor of FFP restrictions. Both times we've won the league, we've had, for one reason or another, low-key transfer windows aimed at improving the squad, when really we should probably have tried to improve the first-team. Missing out on Hazard after the title-win still stands out as a horrific mistake, it was a ludicrous time to get self-righteous about agent fees.
Shola
bluemoon.
Happy with them overall. Overpaid a bit for some, probably underpaid a bit for others. Apart from the age of them - generally older players - I have no real issue with them. From the outside it seems to me that Txiki is very good at his job.
Slashman X
bluemoon.
Yeah, I get that. It's not a massive issue but I do think it's a slight negative.
Slashman X
Ninja
You're playing shit though, so probably not ideal either.
Slashman X
Yeah but still, gives a bit of hope rather than a definite 7-0 loss.
7-2 now seems very possible
BR.
Chera
BR.
And yeah I'm not sure what De Sanctis was doing either.
K3V0
BR.
Ninja
Ninja
Crane
VP.