Khusanov, keep your head high. You gave everything.
Cherki, keep your head high. That second half was you at your fearless best.
Elliott Anderson, keep your head high. A warrior, as always. Never stopped fighting.
Bouaddi, keep your head high. You showed exactly why you belong.
To the rest, there's a lot to do. This wasn't good enough, and you know it. But a game like this builds character. Learn from it, stick together, and come back stronger.
I believe in this team. We'll respond. We always do. City till I fucking die. @ManCity 🩵
Cherki, keep your head high. That second half was you at your fearless best.
Elliott Anderson, keep your head high. A warrior, as always. Never stopped fighting.
Bouaddi, keep your head high. You showed exactly why you belong.
To the rest, there's a lot to do. This wasn't good enough, and you know it. But a game like this builds character. Learn from it, stick together, and come back stronger.
I believe in this team. We'll respond. We always do. City till I fucking die. @ManCity 🩵
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Geronimo Morgans retweeted
One of those days, congratulations to Brighton though they defended so well and we just didn’t take our chances 😔
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Giving him 17. The weight of that number on his back. Maybe even the football gods are frustrated, wallahi.
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Solve one problem at a time. Don't solve one and create two more.
Cherki, Bouaddi and Anderson works really well from a technical-tactical standpoint, and I've been saying it since our defeat to Villa. Bouaddi anchors at the base, screening the back line and giving us security aggressive press. Anderson connects the phases, carries, and arrives late in the box. And with Cherki, you get creation from every front: from the wide men isolating 1v1, and from him receiving between the lines, turning, and threading passes into the half-spaces.
Starting Enzo F instead shifts the entire creative burden onto the wide men, who then get doubled and tripled, and it heaps extra workload onto Bouaddi & Anderson OOP, because Enzo doesn't screen, doesn't counter-press with any intensity and leaves gaps in our rest defence.
Keep Enzo F on the bench. Bring him on for Cherki when things aren't happening and you need fresh legs or a different rhythm. That's balance. Yeah, that’s solving problems, not creating them.
Cherki, Bouaddi and Anderson works really well from a technical-tactical standpoint, and I've been saying it since our defeat to Villa. Bouaddi anchors at the base, screening the back line and giving us security aggressive press. Anderson connects the phases, carries, and arrives late in the box. And with Cherki, you get creation from every front: from the wide men isolating 1v1, and from him receiving between the lines, turning, and threading passes into the half-spaces.
Starting Enzo F instead shifts the entire creative burden onto the wide men, who then get doubled and tripled, and it heaps extra workload onto Bouaddi & Anderson OOP, because Enzo doesn't screen, doesn't counter-press with any intensity and leaves gaps in our rest defence.
Keep Enzo F on the bench. Bring him on for Cherki when things aren't happening and you need fresh legs or a different rhythm. That's balance. Yeah, that’s solving problems, not creating them.
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Semenyo is one of our more clinical players (at least better than most on his day), and people hate him (some fundamental technical basics and all), but man, like every attacker in that team, there are bozo genes when it comes to putting chances away this season. Look at that PSG game, he alone could've had a hat-trick. Fine, now look at Ndiaye today. Look at the chance O'Reilly missed (a header). The Nunes chances. Haaland's efforts (the ones that were blocked). As a collective, we simply have to be more ruthless going forward.
miss you king
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Listen, it's not acceptable to me, yeah, to have 67 touches in the opposition box, create 5 big chances and miss every single one. 5 big chances, and we miss them all. Not acceptable. You can't have that much of the ball, create like that and not put your chances away. What are n earth are we doing?
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First, I don't think any game can be won without taking the chances you create. And it really hurts me. It pains me right in the stomach. It kills me inside.
Second, Enzo Maresca, how do you manage to get it wrong after getting it right? Why take off Bouaddi, the deeper player who solves our build-up issues, yet keep on a player who adds nothing between the lines for even more minutes of nothing? Poor subs. That's poor in-game management, two games in a row.
Poor in-game management from Maresca, coupled with failing to take the chances we create. That has been the story in every single one of our defeats. And it hurts me so much. So, so much, man.
Second, Enzo Maresca, how do you manage to get it wrong after getting it right? Why take off Bouaddi, the deeper player who solves our build-up issues, yet keep on a player who adds nothing between the lines for even more minutes of nothing? Poor subs. That's poor in-game management, two games in a row.
Poor in-game management from Maresca, coupled with failing to take the chances we create. That has been the story in every single one of our defeats. And it hurts me so much. So, so much, man.
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There's very little value in having Enzo Fernández at 10. Very little. He's not creative, not a creator between the lines. Ironically, this is a game where he should be crashing the box with late runs, but it's Anderson doing it, while still working with Bouaddi to kill transitions, which they've done brilliantly as a pair. A £125m signing was supposed to bring us a maverick. A difference-maker. This is not good enough at all.
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Acheampong is a brilliant talent in Chelsea's hands. I want to see this kid succeed. I really like him as a footballer.
Josh Acheampong is one of the most brilliant young RCB profiles you can find. The physical and technical tools are already seriously refined: mobile, aggressive in duels, comfortable defending wide zones, stepping into midfield, covering depth and progressing play from the first phase. His ability to defend the channel while still giving you progression IP is gold. There’s still refinement needed, particularly his positional consistency OOP, decision-making under sustained pressure and becoming more dominant aerially/physically against elite forwards. But the base is ridiculous. Proper modern RCB profile with massive upside.
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Bouaddi & Anderson pivot. Football, man. The stuff of dreams.
Your team to take on Brighton! 💪🩵
XI | Donnarumma, Nunes, Khusanov, Dias (C), Gvardiol, Bouaddi, Anderson, Fernández, Ndiaye, Doku, Haaland
SUBS | Rulli, Guéhi, Kovačić, Cherki, Reis, O'Reilly, Allan, Foden, Lewis
🤝 @etihad
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Maresca is always going to defend his players in the press, even when they're going through a rough patch (recurring mistakes, and low confidence as a result = Guehi and Donnarumma. He gave Guehi the armband vs Brighton right after subbing him off vs Villa, and he'll do the same for Donnarumma).
He'll never say anything that makes his players feel bad (he's only just started his managerial tenure, stepping into the biggest shoes there are from a managerial POV, so the dressing room is everything). He'll never give the journos what they want.
So Donnarumma is going to play. How he makes sure he stops making silly mistakes is down to him.
But how Maresca believes we can beat the likes of Brighton (and the best teams in the league/other competitions) with him between the sticks is down to Maresca. And whatever happens, he has to take the blame and not run away from it.
He'll never say anything that makes his players feel bad (he's only just started his managerial tenure, stepping into the biggest shoes there are from a managerial POV, so the dressing room is everything). He'll never give the journos what they want.
So Donnarumma is going to play. How he makes sure he stops making silly mistakes is down to him.
But how Maresca believes we can beat the likes of Brighton (and the best teams in the league/other competitions) with him between the sticks is down to Maresca. And whatever happens, he has to take the blame and not run away from it.
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