Wednesday 4 March 2009

Man City 2 - 0 Aston Villa (Elano 24' pen, Wright-Phillips 89')

A superb City performance saw them totally out class Villa to win 2 - 0 at Eastlands.

City were brilliant tonight, the team worked really hard and got back what they put in with an impressive victory over a good Villa side.

I still thought that there was a couple of players that could have done better tonight, but I am not going to dwell on it because the overall performance as a team was impressive.

There was many outstanding players for City tonight here's a look at a few of them - Richard Dunne was absolutely solid and made every ball he went for his. Shaun Wright-Phillips, well we saw the old SWP for the first time in a few games. Caused non stop problems for the Villa defence, missed a great chance but we can let him off seems as he got the goal that sealed the game and well deserved it was to. Pablo Zabaleta, this classy Argentine hard man is getting better every game, I am really impressed with his desire and get the feeling he would run through a brick wall if it meant winning a tackle.

MY STAR MAN : NEDUM ONUOHA
I chose to single out Nedum because he was outstanding again tonight and has been outstanding since his run in the team started.

Nedum has always shown potential but at the same time shown a lot of weakness's in his game, any weakness's he did have are gone. His passing and decision making used to be particularly poor at times, he has totally turned that around and his passing and decision making are now spot on.

He is so calm when in possession of the ball at the back, that he makes you feel calm watching him, he never rushes anything even when he has an opposition player bearing down on him and he always makes sure he finds another blue shirt. I also don't think it is a coincidence that Richard Dunne has returned to form since he has been playing with Nedum, because Nedum is more accomplished at centre back than Richards you can see the change in Dunney, it is obvious he is more at ease and has more confidence when playing alongside Nedum.

Playing the way he has been Nedum Onuoha is another City academy product who should go on to represent England at full International level, well played Nedum keep it up.

8 comments:

  1. My only complaint with Nedum is sometimes he leaves balls to bounce that he should header on the full. Did it twice tonight, but apart from that he was excellent. Dunne was superb as well tonight

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  2. On 1 of the other threads on this page is the "let's bring back the atmosphere" thread. Watched the game in the US via Fox Soccer. the atmosphere sounded great. Amazing what a decent hard working performance will produce. Well done team and supporters CTID. Tony

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  3. Atmosphere wasn't great, it was actually a lot better though maybe it is decieveing when watching on tv, typical City I spend time writing about the atmosphere just as they decide to start singing more or maybe I had something to do with it lol

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  4. SWP and Onouha were outstanding tonight. I really do hope DeJong's injury is not too serous as I felt we lost our momentum with his departure.

    While Fernandes gave an adequate performance the difference in class was quite telling. He does not read the game remotely as well and his tackling borders on reckless at times which for me makes him a liability. Still the team performance and commitment was excellent.

    I thought Wayne Bridge raised his game as well. He made some excellent runs forward particularly in the first half (which I think is one of the best first half team performances this season). He looks as though he's finally shaking of the cobwebs from warming the bench at Chelsea

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  5. Excellent performance but i have to agree we lost our way a bit after dejong left the field,a fantastic buy from hughes he keeps us ticking over and very rarely loses possesion.It's frustrating why we cant play like this away from eastlands,if we had just won 2 more away games including the sunderland win we would be sitting pretty now.Great to see bojinov back aswell i think this kid is going be a superstar.

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  6. PJDEMERS, spot on with your comments. Just to pick up on Fernandes. I am a big fan of his, I like players like him with desire but he is really erratic, being a young man I hope the club have patience with him and give him enough time to learn off the likes of De Jong and Kompany, if they do I think he could be a really good player.

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  7. No doubt that Fernandes has wonderful potential but his enthusiasm seems to get the better of him at the moment. Hence my comments about his tackling.

    From comments I've read and heard elsewhere I think a lot of supporters are being quite harsh on Caicedo's performance. while he wasn't spectacular he did what was asked of him. He held the ball up well and gave City a physical presence up front. I think people fail to realize that he's not actually used to playing as a target man. Elano certainly seemed to benefit from his play. Again huge potential with this guy. good technique, pace, and power. Its not going to happen over night but he could become the target man Sparky was going after in the transfer window

    I thought Bojinov made his presence felt in the short time he was on the field. wonderful composure on the ball & some wonderful interplay with Ireland in particular. Had a hand in the goal and always looked like conjuring up something in the final third of of the field.

    Evans gave a good account of himself as well. Great work rate, wonderful chest down for Elano. Particularly telling was him tracking back to win a tackle deep in City's end, carrying the ball out a few yards before hitting a beautiful 40/50 yard pass upfield to set off a great counter attack. However his inexperience did show at times. He had chose to shoot from distance a couple of times rather than waiting for support and while I'm always encouraged by player who'll pull the trigger you're not going to beat Friedel from distance (unless of course your Michael Tarnat). Evans looks like a good player to bring on with 20 minutes or less when defenders are starting to tire. Good work rate and good off the ball running.

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  8. Yeah your right about Caicedo to he wasn't spectacular but did enough, the boo boys were on his back all game, same for Fernandes when he came on, these people don't have a clue better to ignore them.

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