Chelsea lost to Newingcastle. And suffered afew injuries. I think they suffered the most.

Suffering.

I blame the owners.

34 years

Given, Vidal, Boyata, Mee, Cunningham, Vieira, Johnson, Ibrahim, Guidetto, Santa Cruz, Jo.

That was the team last night. Seven of those would not get in the Barnet team.

Fantastic dive by Alex for that penalty last night.

Cant believe the ref gave it, mind.

Thats because he was an Arsenal player though. Would be different if it was a on Chelsea player.

City are still well short of being capable of challenging for 3 cups and a CL spot in one season. Last year, when we weren't in the Europa League, it was worth having a crack at the Carling Cup. This year, with the current injury list, it isnt. Sensible team selection by Mancini for me.

But its probably the most realistic to win.

Rafa's fault init.

It begs the question as to whether winning the Carling Cup and ending the 34 years, whilst finishing 5th or lower, is preferable to winning nowt and finishing 3rd or 4th. Personally I'd prefer the latter, albeit with a decent run in at least one of the other two cups.

Our problem is that we still dont have an established playing style and system in the same way as United, Chelsea and Arsenal. They can bring in reserves and juniors and still look the same, all of their players from juniors upwards are familiar with and comfortable playing in their system. If we make wholesale changes we end up looking like a completely different team. I think Mancini is making progress in imposing a style of play on the club, he's made quite a few changes to the first team this season without upsetting its balance. The trouble is that it still only works with his 15/16 best players.

He's going to get you points on his own this year. Apparently Barça had an offer turned down while Laporta was still president.

That's a shocking team. I will say with confidence that 3 of that back 4 will not be good enough to play for a championship team. Boyata is the exception. He looks like he could become a terrific defender.

I must admit to hate watching Vieira. You can tell he has the intelligence and mindset of a world class player. It's just a shame his body is not up for the challenge.

I can't wait for Kolarov, Boateng and Balotelli to play for us. They will address
our weaknesses. I genuinely feel they will greatly improve the team. Hopefully, we will be more entertaining too.

Was pretty funny listening to skysports last night, they made a point of telling you that this isn't Hodgesons squad and they were all Benitez signings. Sounds just like the last 5 years with them moaning about Benitez being stuck with Houliers signings.

Whats happened to city's world class youth policy?

The entire strategy behind City's academy has had to change in the last 2 years. Before the takeover the emphasis was on producing a conveyor belt of players. Some, such as Richards, SWP, Ireland & Johnson, were more than good enough for City's first team at that time. A larger number weren't but moved on to other clubs, mainly in the championship, for fees of £250-500k or so enabling the academy to fund itself and keep on churning out players. That approach met City's needs prior to the takeover.

Now the emphasis is changing to quality rather than quantity but that change in approach will obviously take time to have a noticeable effect.

Sorry but

Only if you mean that by different his view would be warped enough by bias to be wrong. Shawcross went in for the ball fully committed, exactly as a centre half should. Unfortunately things went a little badly, but these things happen. Arsenal (i.e. Wenger) just got petulant over the ill luck they'd had with a few injuries. Tony Pulis' comments post match were spot on.

I thought Rio and Brown looked fairly shakey. Hernandez was wasted out wide, I do hope Fergie won't stick to chucking him out wide in games to accommodate him like he has done in the past with other strikers.

Macheda was unlucky not to have brilliant service, but he had one glorious chance which he should've taken. Ketchup should be chucked onto the scrapheap too, he had an absolute shocker.

He'll be seeing if Hernandez can do a job outwide due to the Valencia injury as we don't really have much cover on that side.

It wasn't a premier league footballers challenge. It was a sunday league challenege. I remember a few years back I was playing Sunday League as a favour as I always played Saturday (dare I say it but at a higher level). I got the ball and every time was taken out in whatever way. What p!ssed me off the most was these horrible things probably didn't have to get up on a monday morning for work, but I did! No good for me having a broken leg just because their clumsy. I remember saying to a ref once..."and you wonder why you don't get footballers playing at this level"

That tackle reminded me Sunday League. A stupid "lets go through them let them know their in a game" challenge to try and impress their mates.

Fair points.

The club are investing more in youth – the amount we are spending each season is obviously not sustainable. The club have apparently looked at Barcelona’s model of youth development, and are looking at replicating that. I guess that will take several years to pull off. This will involve bringing in youth footballers from all over the world. That’s reflected in our current youth team squad – even though we had more players in the England U18 (or was it u17) squad than any other club in the PL. I think last year we had four international captains in our u18 squad.

One of the major changes the club had to make in order to improve the recruitment of players (including youth) was to improve the scouting network. I think I read somewhere that United and two or three other clubs in the PL had as many as four times more worldwide scouts than we did. If memory serves, Blackburn had more scouts than City. We now have more scouts and the scouting network said to be far better organised.

On a separate point, you made a good post on Bluemoon in the last day or so re Mancini. I thought you were spot on.

I disagree. It was a 50-50 ball and Ramsey was just as much charging at him. Ramsey simply got there first and there was a clash of legs on the follow through. Nothing to do with trying to impress anybody. If a player didn't go in for a loose ball like that situation he'd be accused of being windy.

Why can't you win the Carling Cup and finish 3rd or 4th?



United have won the CC the last two years and they haven't finished outside the top four.

I disagree that it was a 50/50 ball. It was Shawcross's ball. He was involved in an earlier challenge, he had possession of the ball, he was involved in a collision with an Arsenal player which hampered him. Then Ramsey launched himself in the air to nip in to win the ball. Unfortunately for him he was nipping in to win the ball at the same time as Shawcross was swinging at the ball to play the ball down the Arsenal end.

As to whether my opinion would change if it was a Chelsea player. At the time of the incident I'm sure club bias would have made me see a viscous assault on a Chelsea player. But by the third or fourth replay I think I'd be able to say honestly that it was an honest challenge and just a collision that happens. IMO there are 20 challenges a week where a player swings in in a manner that legs could be broken. It's just that most of the time players hurdle tackles or jump to evade them.

I've got to side with Citeh on this one a little. United and Chelsea have learned to battle on all fronts and manage to compete in all competitions while collecting trophies.

Citeh haven't even finished in the top 4 yet. They haven't experienced what it's like to need to win week in week out in the league while playing in Europe during the week. They haven't experienced finals. Citeh have a great deal to learn, and obviously have to learn everything quickly.

You just can't point to what United/Chelsea have done and then say Citeh should be doing it as well. Liverpool and Arsenal have managed to take top 4 spots for a few years but they haven't managed to win anything.