CHOULO19

Let's not kid ourselves, Luis was signed to be first choice but he has yet to perform at the level required to get that spot. In the matches he's played in the PL he's looked nowhere near as solid as Azpi and is bullied off the ball too easily. He's obviously struggling with the physicality of the league which is even obvious in what he says. I've heard him being asked several times about the difference between Spain and England and three of the answers that stuck with me are: "the physicality and intensity", "in England the players just don't give up" and "here the refs don't blow fouls that given in Spain."

The Arabic commentator was calling him "Lee Qatar-Mall".... I realize that that adds nothing to the discussion, just thought I'd throw it in there... Also, :doh:

Yes you are. Mak made the comparison of Frank's time here to Nedved's 8 seasons at Juve. You made the comparison to Nedved's 4 seasons at Lazio which makes less than zero sense, tbh. Because he only spent 4 seasons there at the start of his career. His prime was at Juve where he was one of the best players in the world. He has absolute divine status with the fans. Of course no one from Italy offered Del Piero a deal, the mere offer would be an insult! Read my post again, I was talking about the Liverpool offer which he declined because of the Heysel disaster. And of course Scholes would have had tens of offers if he told his agent that he wants to continue playing, just look how much he offered united when he came out of retirement. You don't think Ash and Drogba had offers in England? You don't think it would have been much easier for them to stay where they have lived a large part of their lives? If that is aimed at me, then you should read my post again because the main point is that I DON'T expect loyalty from Frank. Of course it would have been nice, but I don't think he has an obligation to do it. I have no issues with him moving to City. The only things that upset me slightly about this is the fact that he blatantly lied about moving to an English club and the little play he pulled by appearing to move to NY and not City.

You're comparing 4 seasons Nedved had at Lazio to the 13 Frank played with us?! Nedved at Lazio was no where near the legend and cult hero like he was at Juve and certainly not like Frank was here. The mere comparison is ridiculous. And if you know anything about the relation of Nedved with Juve and the fans you'll certainly know that he does not need to make up stories to "suck up to the fans" because he already is a god to every Juve fan. The statement, btw, was in his autobiography and not some random thing he said to the media. And the final sentence is obviously not true. There have been A LOT of players who move countries or even retire entirely to preserve their status with the fans. Nedved and Del Pierro are just two examples. Carragher, Scholes, Ashley Cole and Didier recently for us...etc.

Typically, Spurs are in their best form of the season coming into the match against us...

Nedved is a completely different type of personality, though. He always was is passionate about the club and crazy about the fans. Juve was and is a family to him. Same with Del Piero who was even treated badly at the end by the board and management, but he still went to Australia instead of Liverpool because he did not want to offend Juve fans over the Heysel disaster, and that was way back in 86! Am I really the only one who is not surprised by this? I'm obviously upset that he lied and came up with this silly ploy to join City, but I wouldn't consider him joining City something out of character for him. If a year ago you would have told me that he would what he did, I would not have been the slightest bit surprised. Frank has always first and foremost looked out for Frank.

You still don't realize that it was all just a ploy to preserve his public image and that he was signing with City from the start?! Don't give them ideas!

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you? Since 2010, in the EPL, City have played 9 matches against Sunderland. They won 2 matches against Sunderland, lost 4 and drew 3.

Right now? Probably JT and Mikel and maybe Cech, but that's about it aside from the youth players.

Probably, because he was not on the bench! Fucking terrorist...

No.

I'll take whoever is left once everyone else decides.

I think it helped that the exact same players had played 3 matches in 7 days and looked exhausted. Plus, for some reason we insisted on playing through the middle and not exploit the wide areas. And, to be fair, you parked the bus extremely well

Look how narrow the influence of the players were before Remy and Schurrle came on. No wonder Sunderland found it so easy to defend against us.

As long as he and Cesc don't both get the fifth in the same match, we should be okay.

We needed width and runners behind the defense today. We needed Schurrle. Don't know why it took till the 83rd minute to bring him on. Either bring him on with at least a good 15 minutes or don't bring him in at all!

I think it has to do with fatigue which was also why Iva was not going forward as much. Wickham was beating him with the slightest burst of pace. Iva's role takes A LOT of stamina. He can't do it as well 3 matches per week.

"Only one team wanted to win" Jose, mate, have a look at the match highlights again. Thank f*** Willian's shot from outside of the box in the first half was not blocked, otherwise we'd have had NOTHING on there!

I like the kid, but Iva made him look like Leo f***ing Messi today.

That was so unlucky.....Sunderland deserved to get the three points! Seriously, I understand the argument for stability, but the team looked as tired today...well as a team that has played 3 matches in 7 days. The changes also came way too late at the 76th and 83rd minute given that it was very obvious that things aren't working very early on and we failed to create a single goal-scoring chance. Apart from the speed of passing and pressing, we also lacked width today. I think having Luis today might have made a difference. That is kind of tactical stubbornest that we usually laugh at Wenger and Guardiola for. Also, Costa seems to have lost the plot today and was more intent on injuring the Sunderland defense than actually scoring. All that said, we can afford to drop two points here. We're still fairly comfortable. Let's just hope that the performance is a one-off.

He's really smashed that one in!

Think we should bring on Messi...

Need to be quicker in our passing and pressing.

I'm all for stability, but this kind of game could really use the runs of Schurrle and a left-footed LB.

This is going to be very tough.