Was wondering if we could try and put our fingers on what people think the problem is at the minute; is it unmotivated players, a lack of tactical nous from the manager, the system, confidence, stamina/fitness, organisation, a lack of leadership, simply a case of a much-changed squad bedding in, a bit of bad luck, all of the above or something different entirely?
Danny, Bitter & Blue
The current problems - if they are that - stem more from the three drawn home games than the recent run as a whole. In all three fixtures we have lost leads to toss away points from positions of advantage, and interestingly all in the latter stages.
It is easy to target individuals - Lescott, Hughes or whoever, but the problem for me is not selection, tactics or motivation but that we lack ruthlessness; namely in being able to kill games off or close out games in the manner that Chelsea or United are able to do. As a team we have not been in the position where we are used to doing this so to some degree it is part of the learning curve we are going through.
I think we are on the right path, and the margins between a good start and a very good start are not that huge. If we had won two of the recent seven games there would still be praise being handed out.
The end of 2009 will see us reach the half-way stage and by then we will have a far clearer idea of our expectations for the season, and what (if anything) needs rectifying to get where we need to be.
Jason, This Is Our City
I believe Hughes and his team have run out of steam. Against Liverpool Hughes allowed Bellamy and Wright-Phillips to play deep in our own half, obviously fearing an under-strength Liverpool would punish us, which in my opinion shows Hughes has no confidence in Bridge or Richards. Long balls were being fed to Adebayor and when the ball was knocked down no City player was around to receive.
I do not want this to sound anti-Hughes so want to add, i'd rather Hughes succeed and get us into the Champions League next season just to wipe the smug looks from the faces of our haters than see him leave but again Hughes showed his immaturity in the world of football management against Hull; he allowed City to bow to an average club's pressure once again instead of getting in the faces of our under performing players and egging them to take the fight to the bitter end. Instead clubs are bullying us into draws and our players are hesitating and stuttering.
I believe Hughes has done a sublime job so far on and off the field but I think he has done all he can. I'd love to see him prove me wrong until the end of the season but I just can not see it happening right now. Some of our players also are to blame, Richards for his under-performances, Lescott for his stuttering start in the centre of defence and Barry for not bringing what he did for Villa to City.
As a whole I keep finding myself coming back to Hughes to ultimately take the blame, I find these players would not be a problem if he did his job right. I am not saying I think I can do a better job but merely saying Hughes can do a better job with the resources he has at his disposal. For instance, Vincent Kompany is back fit and may I add that he is one of our taller defenders. Considering Lescott's stutter in the centre of defence and knowing he's stronger at left-back, why did Hughes not played Vincent Komapny along side Toure against Hull? Why is Hughes not playing Vladimir Weiss on the left and opting to play Bellamy when Bellamy is clearly more effective behind the front man Adebayor?
I ultimately think Hughes has shown all his cards and has nothing left in his portfolio, he's riding his luck from this point on.
Lloyd, Man City Issues
Personally, I think it is very difficult to put your finger on one particular reason, there are many things that have been effecting what we do of late.
I was beginning to warm to Mark Hughes at the start of the season when we went on a winning streak but I have now seen his main frailty. He is obviously a very good man manager who works out what makes players tick and he is not afraid of punishing the likes of Robinho and Elano when necessary. However, his biggest weakness is tactically, a couple of times this season he has put out an unbalanced team with the wrong formation. The main problem, though, is his substitutions – Hughes appears to only be able to change players like for like, he appears to have no Plan B.
This was clearly illustrated when we were being over-run in the midfield on Saturday, Jimmy Bullard was running the show and we were clearly missing Gareth Barry. All of the fans around me recognised that the likes of Kompany or Johnson needed to be brought on to shore up the midfield. Instead Hughes opted for to bring on Bellamy for Robinho and Santa Cruz for Adebayor. It was obvious what he was going to do. The only challenge to this would be when Hughes brought Carlos Tevez on at Anfield after sixty minutes to replace Gareth Barry, but this was a change that even he could not ignore.
The other problems are that we cannot hold onto leads - Fulham, Burnley, Liverpool & Hull. For God's sake, we are at home and should attack teams in a ruthless manner. And this leads me onto my next point. Another thing I have noticed, this time from our recent away performances is that we have decided to wait for our opponents to attack us before trying to attack them respectively.
We certainly have the talent to go out and ruthlessly attack a team from the word off as the Top four do. The most satisfying thing for me would be for City to take a team apart away from home and comprehensively beat them by three or four goals.
Wallace, ESPN Soccernet
None of the above. The club is missing Elano and his ability to pass into space anticipating the runs of his team mates. Over two seasons when Elano started the club won 50% of the time, but when he didn't that number falls to 25%. The Brazilians departure is even more pronounced because the club bought Barry and Adebayor, two players who are at their best running onto the ball.
It is no coincidence that Ireland, who thrives on that style of play, has struggled this season. City are lacking a player with vision. That one change/addition in January would cure a multitude of ills.
Jack, The Lonesome Death of Roy Carroll
I've written before that it is too simple to blame the defense. Yes, neither Kolo Touré nor Joleon Lescott have fully justified the monies spent on them, and defensive errors have cost us points (we gave away three penalties in November, which is an embarrassment!), but the problems run wider and deeper than just the defence.
The fact is that the late equalisers we have conceded recently should never have been equalisers, we should have killed the game by the 88th minute against Burnley and by the 82nd minute against Hull. When you remember how good our home record was last year you see that this is an area in which we have regressed, which is worrying to say the least.
And saying that, I would divert at least as much of the blame on to the Carlos Tévez/Emmanuel Adebayor partnership, which is at least as overpriced and under-performing as Kolo and Lescott at the back. The fact is that Adebayor has not played well once since the Arsenal game, and that Tévez's bright sparks fades in the shadow of his abject scoring record. This, I think, has been one of Hughes' main mistakes.
In the case of both Tévez and Adebayor (but particularly the latter) he was sucked in by a few good performances in recent years while ignoring other glaring issues regarding their consistency and temperament. Maybe he thought that an arm round the shoulder and £160,000 per week would get the best out of them. But so far he hasn't and it's costing us points.
Even then I'm not sure that simply getting the best (or, at least, better) out of our two strikers would solve the biggest issue. Which is that Hughes does not seem to have any sense of our best side or system. The decision to switch from 4-2-3-1 to 4-2-4 has marginalised Stephen Ireland (who is not Xabi Alonso, as much as we might hope otherwise) and unbalanced the team. At times we have switched back to 4-2-3-1 (Arsenal at home, Liverpool away) with some success as Nigel de Jong and Gareth Barry provide a better platform for Ireland than either does on their own.
The issue with this se-up is that it only allows three of Wright-Phillips, Bellamy, Robinho, Tévez and Adebayor to play. I would have no problem with any of them spending a while out of the side, but they are among some of the manager's favourites, and dropping them would involve answering some very difficult questions about the best possible balance and make up of the side.
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i think their certianly a few issues, players not performing to thier required standard, which having read alot on TLDORC, i have to agree with alot with what jpb has written.
ReplyDeleteBut wallace from espn, has hit a key note for me, Elano for all his bad points was a magnificent player, and unique in ability within the squad, we have plenty of player including ireland who surge forward and hang on to the ball. Elano was different, collect and release, come deep and take from defenders. I have been somewhat been dissapointed with barry, who hasnt quite delivered in all respects, he's more defensive than i antisipated. JPB mentioned xabi alonso, he is of a similar type, that we dont have. For all we have spent, we still lack in the middle, i said this at the start of the season and stand by it now. I beleive Hughes hoped he could get bentley to do it in some role for us.
We saw at Hull, how influential Jimmy bullard can be, we dont have a bullard type since barton left. Bullard wouldnt be good enough to get into a chelsea team, yet we dont have anyone as good as him.
We are weakest in the middle, the key place for me in football, your 1st line of defence and attack. You only have to look at chelsea midfield to see why they are so powerful.
I think recently, Hughes faults have been his reluctance to sure up the midfield in games, just making like for like swaps in attack hasnt worked for us, as teams surge at the end, we struggle to hold on. It's a shame becasue we have options, kompany for one.
We also struggle upfront, again jpb rightly laid blame on ade and tevez. But i see it as a tactical problem. Hughes should be more strict with the lads. Adebayor tends to drift and doesnt get in the box enough for a lead striker, he needs to be reigned it. Tevez is also allowed to roam and drop deep, so we end up in good positions with very little in the box.
A promising sign from last night, at the arsenal game, was hughes decided to bring on VK to sure up the middle, and hold of any backlash from the young gunners. It worked, and we managed to snatch another goal on the break. It's an important lesson to learn, we dont have to less effective going forward on the break, once you reinforce the middle.
I dont know what to predict about the chelsea games, becasue i cant gage which team will turn up. Thats still citys problem, raising our game for big teams, and perhaps being to complacent against the lesser sides. We want to see the spark and energy everymatch from the players, and not just when we go a goal down.