Man City 4 - 2 Viktoria Plzen - Dismal - Goals and Highlights

I wasn't expecting much tonight in way of exciting football because of the changes to the team, I did however expect to see a solid performance from the team and a comfortable win, that didn't happen.

I am not happy with our performance tonight I thought it was terrible, but a win is a win and I suppose that will do for me seems as we are already through, I am much more concerned with Pellegrini's decisions.

I am still not convinced by Pellegrini and he certainly didn't endear himself to me tonight, firstly and most importantly I am absolutely disgusted that Kolarov was allowed to captain City.
Kolarov has never played with any kind of fight or passion for City and his performances have been consistently bad for the majority of the time he has spent at our club, with tonight's performance by him a prime example of that. So my question is, how on Earth did Pellegrini see fit to make him captain?
This was a bad call by Pellegrini and I don't feel like he has taken picking someone to captain our club seriously, if you have played football you would be able to imagine the confusion and discontent in the dressing room when the other players found out he was captaining them, terrible decision by the manager.

Then there was Pellegrini's decision to include Aguero and even Nasri for that matter, these guys shouldn't of been playing tonight as far as I'm concerned and shouldn't have to be considering the squad we have. Now I am a person who does not believe in rotation and I think that professional footballers should be able to play as many games as they have to, however when you get a good chance to rest your most important players then I think that's quite acceptable, I feel like Aguero in particular was put at risk of injury tonight when he did not need to be.

I have to finish off my little rant with a few words on Edin Dzeko, if you read my blog regularly you will know I try my best not to persecute players but I have had enough of Edin.
This guy is lazy, he couldn't trap a bag of cement, his shooting is terrible and basically he just does not care about playing for City, for him to score tonight almost felt like an injustice had been done.
I can only imagine Pellegrini kept him on tonight in order to not totally kill off any kind of confidence that Dzeko has, that is the only possible reason I can think of, I know pub teams that would drag him off if he played like he did tonight. He is consistently poor now and I can only surmise that he does not want to play for City because both him and Kolarov alike for that matter do not perform this poorly for their countries, it is time to show these guys the door.

I know I am being very negative especially considering we have just scored 10 goals in two games but sometimes you have to concentrate on the negatives to get to the positives. I think I am so annoyed because the things I have highlighted from tonight's game are traits that we have seen throughout the season so far, poor managerial choices, poor individual performance and a lack of fight, all these things need to be weeded out for us to win trophies.

I think I must have needed to get these things off my chest for a while considering this was not the article I was writing in my head on the way home, no time to dwell on it though and I am already looking forward to seeing our first choice team against Swansea.

Goals.

Man City vs FC Viktoria Plzen - Wed 27th Nov 2013 KO 19:45

How refreshing to be going into a Champions League tie at this stage of the competition without having to worry about qualification, of course we still want to win but it will be nice to sit in the Etihad and watch City without any pressure.

Having just smashed Spurs six nil in the league, we now go on to face bottom of our European group at home, the possibilities are of course endless.

We are not going to put six goals past every team that visits the Etihad but we should be looking at putting a few past Plzen, players are bound to be rested for this game but with our squad being so strong the lads that do play should be able to cruise to a comfortable victory.

Now I know some people who will argue that there is pressure because we want to finish top of the group, I would have to disagree, finishing top of the group would be nice but only for the significance of being numero uno. I keep hearing people saying that its important because it means that we get an easier tie in the next round, that is a load of nonsense, every game after the groups will be tough, if we finish second in our group are the teams that finish first in theirs going to get an easy tie?

The only ones who should feel any pressure tomorrow are the players who come in, the likes of Dzeko, Hart and Richards need to impress when they get the chance if they are to get regular football and these games provide the perfect opportunity for them to do that.

Man City Team News: Vincent Kompany (thigh) was expected to be named in the squad after training with the team but Pellegrini has now ruled him out, David Silva (calf) and Stevan Jovetic (calf) are also not ready to feature. Jack Rodwell is again suffering with a knock but Aleksandar  Kolarov is expected to return from illness.

FC Viktoria Plzen Team News: No information seems to be available regarding injuries but upon seeing their squad sheet for the game it seems that Plzen have no major injury concerns.

Possible Man City Line Up: Hart, Richards, Boyata, Lescott, Kolarov, Milner, Fernandinho, Garcia, Navas, Toure, Dzeko.

Possible FC Viktoria Plzen Line Up: Kozáčik, Rajtoral, Procházka, Hejda, Limberský, Hořava, Horvath, Petržela, Kolář, Kovařík, Tecl.

My Prediction: Man City 4 - 0 FC Viktoria Plzen.

Worth A Bet: James Milner scores the first goal in a 4 - 0 Man City win @ 70/1.