**** Tactics and Selection............

[QPRDave]

Why not we took points of all those teams last season with what many will consider to be a weaker squad - team ???

but we are getting to know each other, I'm hopeful we can get wins/draws from some of these games so you may be right

[Ginger Ninja]

Hoilett and Cisse have done **** all do far this season. What makes anyone think they would've changed the game?

[UB5 Ranger]

Hoilett and Cisse have done **** all do far this season. What makes anyone think they would've changed the game?

We will never know as Hughes wasn't brave enough to have a proper go !!

[UB5 Ranger]

we'll always struggle with that defence, talk about giving the opposition space, thought city never needed to get out of 2nd gear, my big worry with sparky is I don't think he is adventurous enough. Would have brought on Hoilett at 2-1 and had a go at them

[qpr]

We will never know as Hughes wasn't brave enough to have a proper go !!

Do you not think if he had made the change and it didn't work people would of questioned why Hughes made the changed bear in mind we were in control? Not a pop I'm just saying when ANY football team loses there are always questions that can't be answered

[CroydonCaptainJack]

we'll always struggle with that defence, talk about giving the opposition space, thought city never needed to get out of 2nd gear, my big worry with sparky is I don't think he is adventurous enough. Would have brought on Hoilett at 2-1 and had a go at them

I dont think they were particularly comfortable for the last half hour. They knew they were in a game. Nelsen could easily have equalized

[Bigears]

Understand why people say he wasnt postive enough with his substitutions, but if he had brought on Cisse / Holliet earlier we could have got hammer by 5 or 6.

City are good enough to score 3 / 4 goals in the last 15 mins and it will damage the confidence and ffaith the fans have a lot.

Yes we played poor in the first half (actualy very poor) but the the second half i thought we done very well Faurlin and Granero looked great, as well as did Park.

Johnson closing down was execptional something Cisse dosnt do, but Cisse finishing is exception something Johnson dosnt do, so away from home to me johnson gets the knod.

Agree with SWP, worked his socks off, but his touch, control and passing was poor today and in the second half everyone seemed to step up, but him. He is the one i would have replace with Holliet but apart from that, I thought in the second half the team done well and so did Hughes.

As after Swansea the last thing we needed was another tanking and going to offensieve with this City team even with 10 mins to go could have seen us well and truly spanked.

[swede]

Hoilett should have been in the starting lineup. He wasn`t at that was strange. Not using him the last 20 minutes is........crazy. Hoilett is, together with Adel (when he has a happy day) our most creative player who can do his man on his own.

I`m dissapointed at the way we lost. We didn`t go at them the way that could/should have been possible.

[theblackmafia.]

I thought in patches we looked quite decent. As per normal we were iffy in defence. It amazes me how they get sucked to the ball and leave thier players. Anyone who says Granero was poor or does not look quality needs shooting. Faurlin was okay considering. SWP was marginally better than having Mackie but I would prefer Hoilet. Park was steady as was AJ. Anton needs dropping for a while. For me Nelson was our best player with Granero. Gutted to lose but I was expecting a deafeat and we were not embarrassed.

[hal9thou]

Unfortunately this game confirmed all my doubts about Hughes lack of tactical suss. He just seems way out of his depth head wise these days.
This has little to do with new players blending in. This is about tactical basics. Consider: 4-4-2 at Man C with Johnson and Zamora. They did their best but an entirely predictable result - over run in midfield and too predictable to upset a sound defence, and right now City don't look that settled at the back.

Our record under Mark Hughes away from home is abysmal. We're stuck with him I fear. By the way, I've been going on about these concerns for a long time, this is not a knee jerk reaction and it is not a criticism of the players. He just seems absolutely clueless.

[Marshy]

Hoilett and Cisse have done **** all do far this season. What makes anyone think they would've changed the game?

How people change after two weeks. Roll back to the hammering by Swansea, and all you could read was that Hoilett looks class and was the only decent player we had.

[stainrodisalegend]

We will never know as Hughes wasn't brave enough to have a proper go !!

cuts both ways. you are saying he should have changed the team at the point we were really on top when with a bit more composure in front of goal we might have nicked a draw. maybe we wouldn't have created those changes if we had changed it - who can say? you can always argue these things both ways. personally i wd have brought cisse on five/ ten minutes earlier and hughes does seem a bit reluctant to make changes but to be fair to him today ferdinand and faurlin had to come off so he only really had one substitution of choice left to make.

[pauldrayton]

I was thinking Hoilett should have been introduced.

I'm happy to give Hughes time. I have to confess I'm not totally convinced by his team selections and tactics yet but we need to give him a chance.

[stainrodisalegend]

Unfortunately this game confirmed all my doubts about Hughes lack of tactical suss. He just seems way out of his depth head wise these days.
This has little to do with new players blending in. This is about tactical basics. Consider: 4-4-2 at Man C with Johnson and Zamora. They did their best but an entirely predictable result - over run in midfield and too predictable to upset a sound defence, and right now City don't look that settled at the back.

Our record under Mark Hughes away from home is abysmal. We're stuck with him I fear. By the way, I've been going on about these concerns for a long time, this is not a knee jerk reaction and it is not a criticism of the players. He just seems absolutely clueless.

Think you have to look who was available. Yes we were completely over-run first half in midfield. If Diakite had been available he might well have gone for a five man midfield but if you had left, say, AJ out (who btw made our goal) who wd you have replaced him with - Derry? Yes Shaun is a good break-up player but does he have the composure against City to do anything with it once he wins the ball and wd he have lasted 90 minutes chasing shadows? Or Dyer - cd Hughes count on him last 90 minutes? I don't think so. I'm not holding Hughes up as a tacticial maestro as thought he got it badly wrong against Swansea but to call him "clueless" for today is arguably, with the greatest respect, itself a pretty clueless remark.

[Sotonsuperhoop]

I was actually very encouraged by our performance today. First half we were off the pace and chasing shadows but at 1 nil half time not too bad. At 2-1 we looked as though we'd snatch a draw, even on 90 mins we still looked likely to score. Good thing was we didn't get spanked and weren't embarrassed.

Granero and Faurlin looked good in the centre as did Nelsen, Bosingwa and on the whole Fabio. At times we passed the ball around well and showed signs of potential. IMO Hughes isn't sure of his best staring 11 yet but he's not as bad tactically as most are making out.

Ji Sung looked awkward on the left and really should play out right, with either Taarabt or Hoilett on the left. SWP showed today how far off a PL player he now is, shame because three of four seasons ago any team would have had him in their starting eleven.

We showed enough composure at times for me to say that results will come and we'll start getting points on the board by mid Nov, not sure we'll get much over the next 3 games.

If it was me away from home I'd start with this

Cesar
Bosingwa Mbia Nelsen Fabio
Park Granero Faurlin Traore
Cisse Zamora

At home

Cesar
Bosingwa Mbia Nelsen Traore
Park Granero Faurlin Hoillett
Cisse Taarabt


But hey I'm not in charge (yet!)

To lose is disappointing, but today we showed a lot of potential and when we get it right the PL should watch out