The Official Manchester City Thread

[jellydog]

If Chelsea beat Man United today I figure City will be home and dry.

[mrbojangles]

At the time of the announcement we were getting Pep and Pellegrini was leaving, many people slagged City off for the way we supposedly treated him. We knew and stated on here that Pellegrini knew all along we wanted Pep. Here, in his own words, is his take:-

 

"I knew Man City wanted Pep Guardiola": Manuel Pellegrini opens up on his exit from the Etihad

 

Manuel Pellegrini has admitted that he took the Manchester City job despite knowing that Pep Guardiola was the club’s first choice for the position.

 

Pellegrini joined City in the summer of 2013 and spent three years at the club, leading them to one Premier League title and two League Cups. The experienced Chilean says he enjoyed his time with City and has no regrets about leaving Malaga to take the job, despite knowing he was not the club’s number one target.

Guardiola left Barcelona in 2012 and was taking a sabbatical year when City parted company with Roberto Mancini at the end of the 2012/13 season.

 

The Catalan coach eventually decided to join Bayern Munich in the summer of 2013 and he spent three years with the Bavarian giants before taking over from Pellegrini at City in 2016. His succession from the Chilean at City was publicly agreed in February 2016, meaning Pellegrini spent the final few months of the 2015/16 campaign knowing he was about to be replaced.

 

However, Pellegrini is firm in his assertion that the looming presence of Guardiola had no negative effect on his time with City, because the club had been open with him all along.

Asked by The Athletic whether he felt undermined by the club’s open pursuit of Guardiola, he said: “No. When I first met with City (in 2013), the sports directors told me that they worked with Pep in Barcelona and wanted to work with him at Manchester City.

 

“They also explained that he had stopped for a year and was in the United States, but that if he wanted to join City, he would be the manager. If not, there would be no casting for managers, I would be manager.

“Pep decided to join Bayern Munich (that same summer) and the next day City called me and said: "Manuel, we have to talk with you, we have a contract’. Malaga were happy for me to leave because the money was being cut and all the players were being let go, so I signed with City.

 

Full story:- "I knew Man City wanted Pep Guardiola": Manuel Pellegrini opens up on his exit from the Etihad - Manchester Evening News

[Bredbury Blue]

ManCity fan Erling Haaland

at Wembley watching the team he grew up supporting - with his father and ex-City

captain Alfie Haaland

- win the EFLCup, in 2014. Will he be joining us this summer?

 

 

[Bredbury Blue]

 

[jellydog]

The days of Yaya!

 

 

[Bredbury Blue]

Who would you rather have KdB or Yaya?

Yaya for me.

[Bredbury Blue]

Fraudiola

 

 

[jellydog]

Wolves finally fold under the incessant City bombardment.

[mrbojangles]

5 hours ago, jellydog said:

Wolves finally fold under the incessant City bombardment.

 

After we scored the first goal, we just seemed to keep hold of the ball and stroke it around without really penetrating their goal too much. Although their goalie kept them in it with some fine saves. Once they got that smash and grab equaliser, City stepped it up to another level.

 

I now wish to go to confession. Forgive me footballing God as I have sinned. I had City down for a 3-1 win in the prediction league and for a moment, I wanted that Jesus last goal to be ruled offside. What sort of a world has it become when you want your own team to have a goal disallowed ????

[Bredbury Blue]

Not necessarily a comment about City - although we had 3 borderline VAR offside decisions last night - but about VAR offside decisions.

 

The Laporte decision of offside was real borderline. The 'offside line' of the Wolves' players foot was easy to plot, but plotting an 'offside line' on Laporte's arm was contentious. We've seen it so many times this season that VAR decsions are too close to call. Plotting where the position of a player's head, knee, foot is usually pretty clear, but plotting where the arm/shoulder/torso starts and finishes has become a matter of (the VAR officials) personal opinion.

 

I think Lineker's comments below sum up the situation pretty well.

 

Yet another of the Laws of the Game that needs sorting out!  

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Gary Lineker mocks Man City disallowed goal against Wolves

Aymeric Laporte's goal for Man City against Wolves was ruled out for offside.

Gary Lineker has hit out at the offside rule after VAR disallowed Aymeric Laporte's goal for Man City against Wolves.

City led 1-0 through Leander Dendoncker's own goal and Laporte thought he had doubled the lead moments before half-time when he turned home Bernardo Silva's flick-on from Riyad Mahrez's cross.

With the assistant referee flagging for offside, the goal was referred to VAR, and it proved to be the narrowest of calls, with the goal eventually being chalked off on account of Laporte's arm being narrowly in front of a Wolves defender's ankle.

It was a decision that prompted mockery from Lineker.

The Match of the Day host shared his thoughts on social media, questioning whether defenders were getting too much of a benefit of the doubt from offside decisions.

"Level is no longer onside," he tweeted.

He added in reply to a user: "Thought it was inconclusive looking at the replays.

"The technology is not there yet to determine such borderline decisions."

In further replies, Lineker argued that offsides should only be considered when visible to the human eye, rather than through the current system of using lines to decide fractional calls.

"I dream of VAR saying it's too close to call," he said.

[Bredbury Blue]

18 minutes ago, mrbojangles said:

 

After we scored the first goal, we just seemed to keep hold of the ball and stroke it around without really penetrating their goal too much. Although their goalie kept them in it with some fine saves. Once they got that smash and grab equaliser, City stepped it up to another level.

 

I now wish to go to confession. Forgive me footballing God as I have sinned. I had City down for a 3-1 win in the prediction league and for a moment, I wanted that Jesus last goal to be ruled offside. What sort of a world has it become when you want your own team to have a goal disallowed ????

 

I thought we were very decent except for the 10 minute spell when they replaced Jonny at wingback and bringing on the additional forward on about 55 minutes until about 5 minutes after the goal; we took our foot of the throat of Wolves, looked like we might concede, did concede and then i was seriously worried until we went back up a gear and took control again. 

 

Mahrez was brilliant and easily MOM. He has amazing talent and when he plays like that you question why he isn't one of the best 5 players in the World, but we know that after a brilliant game he usually drops a level. When he is playing like that he's just joy to watch. Wolves players didn't have a clue what he was going to do.

 

As we are making confessions, at 1v1, their goalie making brilliant saves against us as he always does, i thought the footballing gods were going to go against us last night (but my wife says I'm always pessimistic; told her it's the way us City fans of old think).

 

Enjoying this amazing run while it lasts.

 

 

 

 

 

[mrbojangles]

6 minutes ago, Bredbury Blue said:

The Laporte decision of offside was real borderline. 

 

People are blaming VAR for it but really it's the rule they are told to work to. I thought they were going to look at this. To me, they should stop messing about with angle of the dangle rubbish. It should be simple and just use the feet for the line drawn and maybe not just the toe but if any part of the foot is onside, then ok give it. VAR has got to be used for the intention it was designed and not to create too much stoppage 

[mrbojangles]

2 minutes ago, Bredbury Blue said:

 

I thought we were very decent except for the 10 minute spell when they replaced Jonny at wingback and bringing on the additional forward on about 55 minutes until about 5 minutes after the goal; we took our foot of the throat of Wolves, looked like we might concede, did concede and then i was seriously worried until we went back up a gear and took control again. 

 

Mahrez was brilliant and easily MOM. He has amazing talent and when he plays like that you question why he isn't one of the best 5 players in the World, but we know that after a brilliant game he usually drops a level. When he is playing like that he's just joy to watch. Wolves players didn't have a clue what he was going to do.

 

As we are making confessions, at 1v1, their goalie making brilliant saves against us as he always does, i thought the footballing gods were going to go against us last night (but my wife says I'm always pessimistic; told her it's the way us City fans of old think).

 

Enjoying this amazing run while it lasts.

 

 

Agree with all of that. The only downer I have on Mahrez is that even my wife knows he has to cut back inside everytime. Defenders must know it cos everyone does but somehow he still manages it

[Bredbury Blue]

1 minute ago, mrbojangles said:

 

People are blaming VAR for it but really it's the rule they are told to work to. I thought they were going to look at this. To me, they should stop messing about with angle of the dangle rubbish. It should be simple and just use the feet for the line drawn and maybe not just the toe but if any part of the foot is onside, then ok give it. VAR has got to be used for the intention it was designed and not to create too much stoppage 

 

Yep. Offside is based on the parts of the body which can score a goal, but why not make it very easy to judge if we are going to persist with these micro-judgement lines, by using the position of the head only - i.e. where one players head is compared to the other player's head.

[Bredbury Blue]

Another confession: I much prefer Stones & Dias partnership to any other CB partnership. 

 

Incidentally read that City's only injured player, Nathan Ake, is back in full training today. 

[mrbojangles]

5 minutes ago, Bredbury Blue said:

Another confession: I much prefer Stones & Dias partnership to any other CB partnership. 

 

Incidentally read that City's only injured player, Nathan Ake, is back in full training today. 

 

I too prefer Dias and Stones.

 

Ake will struggle to get back in contention for a place

[sanuk711]

As an Arsenal fan--I have to admit if you don't enjoy watching that sort of football, then your following the wrong sport.

 

Wonderful stuff.

[jellydog]

7 hours ago, mrbojangles said:

 

After we scored the first goal, we just seemed to keep hold of the ball and stroke it around without really penetrating their goal too much. Although their goalie kept them in it with some fine saves. Once they got that smash and grab equaliser, City stepped it up to another level.

 

I now wish to go to confession. Forgive me footballing God as I have sinned. I had City down for a 3-1 win in the prediction league and for a moment, I wanted that Jesus last goal to be ruled offside. What sort of a world has it become when you want your own team to have a goal disallowed ????

I have done similar. Just think how bad it would be if any real money was involved. 

[Bredbury Blue]

21 wins in 74 days is a game every 3.52 days, 2 games a week for 10 weeks, some going.

[mrbojangles]

3 hours ago, Bredbury Blue said:

21 wins in 74 days is a game every 3.52 days, 2 games a week for 10 weeks, some going.

 

Absolutely. To keep that level of concentration up is a credit to the players and Pep. He is rotating the players really well, keeping them sharp. Whilst we remain in all competitions, the quantity of games isn't going to ease up either

[Bredbury Blue]

Think TV will have to consider closing down the footie forum. There's no Arsenal fans and no Liverpool fans posting anymore, and only ManU fan and 1 Spurs fan posting.

 

Did something upset them? ????

 

[Bredbury Blue]

Firstly I thought ManU played really well; we didn't. Seen ManU quite a few times recently and that's the best I've seen.

 

Obviously Jesus error put us on the back foot after 30 seconds and we never really recovered. Too many players on an off day, we didn't look like pulling it back. With Shaw's goal it felt like it was over. Not sure why at that stage Pep didn't try and recover it with Foden (for Jesus, <deleted>), Bernardo (for KdB, <deleted> since he came back and Bernardo should have started) and Walker (for Cancelo, really <deleted>).

 

The ball going through Sterling's legs in front of goal summed it up for me.

 

Still, we'll take the 20 wins and move forward. ManU seem to have the hoodoo on us at the Etihad, they won the battle but hopefully we can in the War.

 

3 days to the next game...phew.

 

 

[jellydog]

Well, just for that we are going to beat the tar out of Southampton on Wednesday.

[jellydog]

Testing! Testing!

[Bredbury Blue]

[Bredbury Blue]

I can understand a referee getting this decision wrong as it happens so quickly (though it looked a penalty in real time to me), but the VAR official not seeing such a clear and obvious error - when everybody else saw it - is incompetence!

 

The Laws, interpretation and refereeing  / VAR is worse now than before VAR came in. It's got so bad that, from The Mail:

 

EXCLUSIVE: How do YOU want to fix this VAR mess? Premier League write to clubs, bosses and players to ask for 'improvements', with a plan for changes next season amid non-stop reffing controversies

 

 

 

[KannikaP]

On 3/3/2021 at 12:15 PM, Bredbury Blue said:

 

Yep. Offside is based on the parts of the body which can score a goal, but why not make it very easy to judge if we are going to persist with these micro-judgement lines, by using the position of the head only - i.e. where one players head is compared to the other player's head.

The offside rule was introduced many many years ago to stop a centre forward standing in the oppositions goal area. Time they scrapped the rule and let them get on with playing .

 

[jellydog]

Turned it up a notch in the second half and walked away. Pep went with three in the back. I guess he was bored and thought he'd tweak for the heck of it.

Nice to see Aguero last 90 minutes and I guess KUN is in the evaluation phase that will determine whether he stays or goes.

[jellydog]

Where is Mr. Bojanglers?

[mrbojangles]

4 hours ago, jellydog said:

Where is Mr. Bojanglers?

Here bud. Busy at the moment getting ready for retirement and the big move. Lot's of stuff to sort out and the current hoops for travelling add to the headache. I'll happily stay here 3 days longer than I have to if it means the quarantine has been reduced. Waiting for the official confirmation of go/no go is annoying though.