The morning after the night before.

I think it is hard to get two much greater extremes than the flare, talent and vibrancy of Barcelona! and well Middlesborough! Enough said!! Here I could almost end my report and leave you to fill in the blanks, for everything one would fear could happen did!

Tuesday night as stated was brilliant and I think I would have preferred it if we had gone straight on to face a Liverpool, a Chelsea or an Arsenal! Indeed 'Boro' probably represented exactly what we didn't need. For they arrived and didn't get off the team bus rather drove it straight onto the pitch parking it firmly in there own half and refused to leave it! To say they were appalling first half was an under statement, showing no interest in playing football with at times ten men in defence! Never mind no attack there was at times no midfield! Simply hoofing long balls out to nowhere to create rest bite from our relentless pressure.

I do however think we made some fundamental mistakes in selection, for we picked a team to face a team that would attack us and I think we should have been more savvy to what Middlesborough were inevitably going to employ. In that you don't need to play both Fernandinho and Gundogan against such poor teams that simply don't attack. Surely these teams are the opportunity to play both Kev and Silva in the middle playing off each other, with only one more defence minded centre mid. In this case I would have played Gundogan and rested Fernandinho, as he had limped off in the Barcelona game and that guys legs do put in some serious miles and tackles for us. Freeing you up to play both Navas and Nolito, if Sterling needed a rest, giving us that extra dimension of attacking flare going forward, which is needed when a team camps so deep! Trust me we needed no more defensive cover than this. Looking back to the glory days of Yaya and Silva it was always most exciting when they played off each other in the middle and as I say Kev is the new and vastly improved Yaya and they can definitely play this in a lot of games against lower level opposition and maybe even some of the more difficult games such is Kev's tenacity and work rate! So when the second half started with Silva and Kev simply switched around with Kev once more wasted on the wing I was a little frustrated! Yes the ginger prince can whip in a wonderful cross like he did for Sergio's 150th goal, but such is his work rate he can do this from being based in the middle of the park! By the time this was changed with the arrival of Nolito and Kev pushed back into the middle with Silva at the expense of Gundogan it was too late! This factor when combined with two others firstly Lady Luck deserting us somewhat again, and secondly  as I keep banging the drum this year we are not converting enough of our chances!!! I so hope this isn't the season where we look back and say it was down to not being clinical enough, a season of missed opportunities!

Colin Bell stand, Third Tier

It could have been 10!

So i do it right and finish early for the game and i'm in town by 5:30, this more of us who can must try to do to make Europe special. Walking to the ground I was excited and weirdly optimistic! Outside the ground we met one of Jim's mates who reads the blog and he asked me my thoughts 'I again stated I have got a feeling about this' to which he replied same old City blind optimism!! I stood my ground on my opinion though and once in the ground we walked past the little betting booth and Jim said do you want a bet. Now I don't have a betting account on my phone or anything like that, I'm one of those if someone else can be arsed to put it on and they mention it i'll do it and just chuck them some money. Straight away without hesitation I stated 3-1 and handed Jim a fiver which he matched and placed the bet. However last minute he put a second bet on of 2-0, to us, so there was a fiver on each, fucking Jim!!! so 160 quid became 80 quid! I wasn't arsed though as he placed it, and i wouldn't of even bothered if it wasn't for him!

Anyway we reach our seats and battle commences! We start pretty positively, but within minutes I am complaining of two things to Jim, firstly that the Ginger God is wasted on the wing and that he needs to be around the ball as much as possible, secondly that we are sitting to deep in defence allowing that front three especially too much time on the ball. However even with these tactical problems we break forward and are robbed of another penalty, again! This ref was 'shite' and it is masked by our performance in the second half but first half and the start of the second half he looked bent, another one of these ref's that favours the giants, for whatever reasons! Then in a devastating counter attack they are in the lead against the run of play again, but they take their chances and because of the best player in the world I guess. I wonder if he was in our team this season how many more goals we would have scored? Bag fulls is my guess!

Then ten minutes before half time i see 'the change', with Kev and Dav switching and I am that confident that i turned to Jim and said now watch what happens, and with that the game changed, it was all us, an utter delight to watch! The goal before half time was crucial from good old Gundogan a team goal with unselfish play which is always good to see. Then half time arrived and you were left wet with anticipation!

We were not disappointed as the second half commenced as we pressed up squeezing the spaces not giving their talent the time to think, something they had enjoyed in the first half in abundance. Allowing our talent to shine, and shine it did, with Kev's wonder strike amongst other things! Leaving Barca looking shell shocked as we literally bullied them!

For me everybody was man of the match and if i was being hyper critical i would single out our finishing, especially Sterling who was doing well to get into the positions but showing no composure once there. Again i must bang this drum as it literally, with the first half penalty could have been ten and was so god damn exciting, but if what resulted from Stone's weird 'balls up' high up the pitch hadn't hit the bar and had gone in to make it 2 all it could have been a completely different story. A fine line that we simply didn't need to tread, if we could simply be more clinical. However that didn't happen and i don't want to focus on anything more negative on a night that was so great. I would like to give special mention to Zaba! He was amazing and thank God we didn't lose him this summer as that would have been a crime for such a club man and still such a great player. The way he would run through brick walls for us shouldn't be undervalued and with Kompany out he makes the perfect Captain and I am glad Pep is finally seeing this.

What a great game I left the game buzzing on such a high, the atmosphere was great all game and that's what Europe should be about!

Colin Bell Stand, Third Tier.    

West Brom and it's all back on!

So i once again find a really good feed and am watching the game from the comfort of my couch and that's how everything stayed really! comfortable I mean! For we still missed a few chances which is our biggest problem this season, God if we can become more clinical we would be destroying teams! Anyway the goal come eventually with Sergio showing us his repertoire of poacher come artist, with two great goals and just like that the ship steadies! Then late on the seemingly very nice guy, who cost less than Pogba's agent got paid, popped up with two more to make it very comfortable in the end, with the score probably flattering us a little bit! But who cares the rot has stopped.

Well done lads. Perfect job. #cmoncity #ilovethislife #amoestavidanoquierootra #premierleague vamos Carajo muy buena victoria vs WBA

A photo posted by Willy Caballero (@willycaba) on Oct 29, 2016 at 9:51am PDT

Gundogan brings another dimension to our midfield, as i have already mentioned in other posts he has got beautiful feet but he also does a fair bit at the back as well. Indeed i have heard people say he is our replacement for Yaya i disagree i think King Kev is more that and see Gundogan as bringing something fresh and new to the equation and i think he is more like Silva and Ferandinho's love child if they were to have one! for me what he really brings is the ability to play him, the ginger prince and Fernandinho in the middle in top games where we need that bit more steel in the middle of the park, where we used to play Fernandho with Fernandinho. Which never really worked because we lost creativity, but not now IIkay as he brings both steel and creativity in a slightly more defensive package than De Bruyne and those two combined with the rock i think makes for a formidable centre three. At these times you play Silva on the wing and bring him in for lower level teams to rest players or injuries which was the case here. Indeed the German Turk's acquisition simply leaves us with so many more options, and begs the question of what's the point of Fernandho, but i guess on this day he did a job at fullback for us!

Anyway the result we needed and it seemed like lady luck who had deserted us may have returned!

My Couch, screenside!

It's a shame it was plan B.

We made all the effort to go and he puts out the B team! An ill considered B team! I still love you, but your worst decision so far Pep! Yes we have probably got bigger fish to fry in terms of Europe, but it's still a game against them and we made 'them' look good, and they are shit! We needed the confidence and momentum and in my mind should have put our strongest team out like them, for it was a derby after all, a derby that 8,000 fans turned up to. More important than that though it was a chance to bury their confidence for this season! 

However if you are going to play the kids, play them with some experience, a hybrid team not a completely different one! It felt a bit like Pellegrini was back! Play Garcia with Fernandinho and Gundogan around him, put Sterling and Nolito on the wings and yes give Maffeo and Iheanacho a game and I still think this tweaked hybrid team would have won. With the only doubt being centre back as it just seems at the moment that despite his mistakes we can't play without Stones if we want to play the football Pep demands, and as for Kompany we'll god knows what is happening there!

It was all a shame really because the atmosphere, stood at the top of the south stand, was brilliant first half! It was still pretty good second half if a little frustrating! 

So the next day I turn on sky sports and talk sport at different times of the morning as I head off to work just to see how the media portray it? Not one mention of our B side turning out, just more pro United bullshit! Just same old typical media crap when it comes to us. Then you listen to first Mourinho praise the crowd for the atmosphere?? Which all came from us?? And then to see Phil Neville's ass licking off the not so special one on another city light and United heavy media production, and it made you want to cringe! For the record they just about scraped past our complete B team at home! Anyway at least it's only the league cup just a shame we couldn't reward the great support, and get back on a role.

South stand, the scaffolding project!