Match Reaction to Citeh

[The Emirates Gallactico]

Fantastic win!!

Nervy as hell for the last ten minutes but we did enough to hold out. Should have easily put it to bed at the second half with all those spurned chances but then again we were amazingly clinical in the first half so that kind of balances itself out.

Defensively, apart from the last ten when we were hanging on, I thought we were excellent especially in the first half. Kept our shape well, didn't go for gung-ho pressing and restricted City to meaningless sideways passing. One of the best defensive displays we've ever demonstrated, something that's becoming ever more frequent these days.

There's still a long way to go before thinking about the league and we can throw away the good work with a poor result against Southampton on Saturday but beating your most likelist rivals (sorry Leceister fans) is definitely a cause for celebration.

Great result

But one thing, Ramsey is fundamentally no where near a great CM.

The thing about Ramsey is that he doesn't stop running and his general industry is a vital assest for us, however against the top teams who can pass really well, his flaws can be exposed especially some of his dodgy postioning and passing. That was nearly the case several times yesterday.

He especially irritated the hell out of me yesterday in the second half by constantly bombing forward in the second half, leaving Flamini on his own and thus making the game unncessarily more open than it needed to be. Worst of all was that he didn't score from his forays forward, despite having some straightforward chances - he could have easily got a hat trick last night. He's pretty much the epitome of a top "British football" type CM, not suprisingly as he's British.

Carzola on the other hand doesn't offer the goal threat nor the high intensity work rate Rambo does, but what he does offer is a more "continental style" control and discpline with his passing and distrubution.

tl;dr - When both are fit: Play Ramsey in CM against mid and lower PL table teams. Play Carzola in the CL and against the top teams.

Also bet those who left the ground early at half time to get ahead of the drinks queue feel pretty stupid after missing the goal.

I know as a predominatly "armchair fan" these days I don't have much of a right to moan, but it was kind of embarassing seeing all those empty seats when play was still going on before the end of the half. I mean, is it that important to get an overpriced pie or hotdog?