Bettor.com analyzes why http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Roberto-c31294 Mancini’s star studded team weren’t able to beat the Dutch visitors in yesterday’s UEFA Champions League clash at the Etihad Stadium.
The Citizens were below-par. There is simply no doubt about that. Yes, they managed to claw themselves back into the game and yes, they do have quality in abundance. But their major weakness and flaw was the defensive side of their approach, which was lacklustre
and never really stood a chance against Ajax’s creative attack.
Let’s take into account the opening goal of the game.
Ajax’s Van Rhijn plays in a relatively tame cross, but Matija Nastasic makes a meal of it and deflects it out for an unnecessary corner.
Pressure, it seems is already on the hosts as they gift their opponents a chance to score. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Christian-Eriksen-c9074 steps up to take the set-piece and the Eredivisie giants prove their attacking prowess by finding the back of net with ease.
Analyze closely and you see that assist grabber http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Vincent-Kompany-c36184. Yet they allow him a crack at the ball and his screwed effort lazily makes way across the
post before being diverted cleverly past Joe Hart by http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Siem-de-Jong-c33482.
City should have concentrated on Eriksen’s lofted corner, but instead they gave Moisander a chance to maneuver and the player made them pay greatly.
Furthermore, it’s common knowledge that two bodies should be marking the post but in the process of the goal, only http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Pablo-Zabaleta-c29022 can be seen on the right side.
Had someone been marking the other side, the ball would have been cleared, or at the very least De Jong could have been stopped.
Mancini, though, stood up with fury and decided not to make any formation changes, something which came back to haunt him a few minutes later.
Eriksen was at the corner flag as per usual and he curled in a superb cross for De Jong to finish once again. The same process, same people and same strategy employed by Mancini’s backline, which allowed the Ajax skipper to bombard forward without cover
and beat http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Joe-Hart-c18699’s outstretched palm for both pace and precision.
Yaya Toure was the guilty party in this one, as he can be seen marking De Jong just a second ago, but opts to let the midfielder run at the ball. And the result, as we can see, is that City might be out of Europe’s premier competition even before the group
stage fixtures are complete.
While the Sky Blues were thoroughly compressed at the back and struggled to contain their opponents, credit must be given to their talented attackers, who managed to level things with two brilliant efforts.
Firstly, Toure scored with an outrageous bicycle kick and then later http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Sergio-c33030 Aguero proved his worth at the Etihad by netting a sumptuous finish towards the end of the game.
While it wasn’t enough to earn three points, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Mancini-c23323’s men were wrongly denied a goal after Aguero had seemingly gotten the winner, only to see it disallowed for an incorrect offside decision.
Yes, they are strong in midfield. And yes, their firepower is second to none. But this is the UEFA Champions League and Manchester City cannot afford a wimpy backline that is cannon fodder for low level European teams such as Ajax.
Mancini needs to make a decision; Eliminate youngsters such as Nastasic and stand a chance of making the knock-out stages of the Champions League or continue like this and be ousted from the competition at its earliest.
Time is running out for the Italian and after quite some time, so is the patience of City’s ultra-rich Abu Dhabi owners.
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