Delph gave you one goal and tried his best to give you a second. Your Pinnochio joke is as bad as your eyes if you didn't see his mistakes yesterday.
Are you for real? How many goals
did Delph give away again exactly? Its your lies that are the issue here. Delph had a poor game but made one truly costly error. One. Lukaku made 3 that were directly responsible for his team's loss. As I told you earlier erase his and Lukaku's mistakes from the game and you lose the game. Period. Its quite sad that you imagine its remotely a debatable point.
Ifs and buts. Theres an old saying "If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle but she doesn't and she's not", Lukaku didn't take his chance,
But I'll play that game too. If Jesus didn't kick straight at DDG when in the clear yesterday we score, if KDB's low shot 2nd half was a yard further to the side we score. If Bernardo Silva doesn't mess up at the end we score. If Sterling is 4 foot further forward when Gundogan rolls the ball across an open goal we score. If Sterling doesn't run inside when 3 on 2 and KDB players the ball outside we score. I'm sure there was more but we didn't take those opportunities because of poor play and a solid goalkeeper, you didn't take yours because of our goalkeeper.
No. Yet again your are simply refusing to understand the obvious. Lukaku didnt miss an " if, but or maybe chance". He missed a chance as good as what Silva and Otamendi both scored with. A can't miss, clear cut chance. Not a half, possible, if I did just a bit better, I might score opportunity. You listing all City's half chances, and worse trying to claim 'ifs' about them adjusting shooting style simply emphasizes my point further. The game had 4 clear cut chances. 3 created by bad errors and the 1 missed by Lukaku. If I were referring 'ifs, buts and maybe" chances like Lukaku skying the ball over that bar from a decent position, you'd have had grounds to highlight what you listed. Frankly none of your rebuttals hold any water up to this point.
Amazing how you deserved to win vs Arsenal when Sanchez misses an easier chance that DDG pulls off a worldie on because it was great keeping, but when the same thing happens in reverse it's because Lukaku gave us a gift. Hypocrisy?
Not only do you have me confused with someone else, you are simply conflating issues to buttress your weak argument:
1. I have never praised De Gea for pulling off that save vs Alexis. Not once. He should have scored the chance, just like Lukaku should have scored. I praised De Gea, and I praise Ederson for saving the follow up shots.
2. We beat Arsenal by forcing them into 4 errors. Scoring directly from three of those errors and hitting the post with a 4th. That is why we deserved to win. It wasnt because Alexis fluffed his lines, nor because De Gea stopped 14 mostly routine shots at him. You in comparison for all your possession, had only 2 more shots on target than us, and didn't force a single error with your play. You actually scored off two unforced errors, and escaped a draw because of a third. That is the difference between winning because you were better than your opponent and winning because you were luckier.
You had the ball for a grand total of 8 minutes in the first half yesterday. 2 of those were with DDG. Your outfield players controlled the ball for 6 minutes thats worse then at OT last year. You had 25% possession 1st half. Thats worse than at OT last year. If I was a United fan I'd be livid at that. 6 minutes with the ball at home at OT in a must win game. Pretty sure 2 of those minutes were after we scored, so you spent a grand total of 3-4 minute on the ball of the first 40. You were worse than the first half at OT last season.
Still untrue. The last time you visited us in the league, not only did your force at least 2 world class saves from de gea by half time, your forced several bad errors from us, scored directly from 2, and we were hanging on for dear life by half time. We only had more possession then because we were not a threat to you. You let us have ths ball because it even made it infinitely easier for you to rip us apart. Infact Bravo's gift saved us from being dead and gone by half time.
Yesterday, in spite of all your extra possession as compared to your last league visit, barring Lukaku's two gifts, you'd NEVER have scored. United were also not hanging on for dear life that is why we were even able to equalise with in 4 minutes with our first few coherent attacks. Even sans the error we had begun to threaten. Last time we scored off a direct gift. Off zero work from us. At least Delph this time miss timed a ball whilst fending off a threatening attack. Bravo in comparison just plain gave us a goal under minimal pressure.
He added an extra defender because we had a back 4 on the pitch of Walker, Otamendi, Fernandinho and Delph. We played 2 defenders for the first 25 minutes of the second half. Not one of those defenders were overy 5ft 10" and you are criticising him for bring on Mangala to win headers against your huge team and the inevitable aerial bombardment. It's also not true we did this only vs United and that Pep is a gung ho idiot. We did exactly the same after getting the lead vs West Ham (bringing on Fernandinho into the back 4) as soon as we went 2-1 up. We brought on Mangala for David Silva as soon as we got a chance vs Huddersfield following our second goal. Those goals just came later because they defended (and West Ham in particular) attacked better then you.
Man, you do love confusing your self. I never ever called Pep a "gungho idiot". Rather I stated he NEVER switches to a defensive mode during a matcg he feels he is far superior during the game to his opponent. I also never criticised him for switching to such a mode. Not when my argument is he switched to that mode precisely because the game was actually closer than the likes of your care to admit, and he felt we carried a significant threat to warrant the defensive shift.
Furthermore, its laughable that you dare to compare the move to what he did vs West Ham. Vs West Ham he never took off a striker and Fernadinho moving to defence was for attacking purposes. Mangala in that game was brought in to ensure West Ham couldnt fluke set pieces. Vs us however, Fernandinho moving to defence was enforced by injury. And to further prove the move was defensive in nature, he took out a striker to strengthen his defence with Mangala's height, having two dedicated holding midfielders on pitch, and adding an extra man in midfield by removing a striker. That is why David Silva was involved in most of the mid second half tactical fouls that even got him booked. City also started wasting time in possession and strictly playing on the counter with over 32 minutes to play.
I dont care how you try to dress it. Pep went defensive after the second goal and for good reason.
Don't kid yourself, yes we got super defensive and played the game out against United, but we had the more chances to score after that change. You made Pep bring on a defender to hold a 2-1 lead just like West Ham and Huddersfield did and he does in tight games against big powerful teams who can dominate us in the air, Chelsea for their part aren't a big power team up front (especially without Morata) so what was necessary was to stop them dribbling with the ball. Having an extra CB against them would have been inviting pressure for no reason.
Im sorry but its you kidding yourself here. That is why you keep attempting to conflate you having to come from behind vs West Ham to you having to hold on to a 2-1 lead, vs a team, the likes of you claim were so superior to on the day, by resorting to a very defensive stance with over half an hour to play. Maybe you have only followed Pep since he came to City. Those of us who have followed from his Barca job till know his M.O very well. Going defensive vs an opponent he is 'far better than' with over 30 mins to play never happens. He'd normally kill off the opponent, then close out the game in the last 15mins like any smart manager would.
Do you really think Pep is stupid enough to let a tiny CB pairing of Fernandinho and Otamendi face Lukaku and Zlatan in the air?
Do you?
Its like you just skip past my actual arguments and got to a straw man to attack
Let me simplify it for you. Taking a striker off for Mangala WAS the defensive move. Not adding Mangala to the back four. If you cant understand why or how its defensive, I suggest we end the conversation here and just agree to disagree. For it means you just wont get the point Ive been making
