West Brom 2 - 3 Man City - Quick summary and Goals video

The score line looks close but the game was not, West Brom were gifted two goals through poor defending towards the end of the game.

I have to start with team selection, Dzeko started the game and was involved in the first goal but contributed nothing else, Kolarov started because Clichy was absent and fair play to him tonight, he played a part in two of the goals but he really does need to work on his defending badly. Then there was the decision to play Demichelis, he was leaving big gaps down the middle and kept getting caught wrong side, he was at fault for West Brom's second and just should not have been playing as a left half ahead of Lescott.
I mentioned it in my preview to the game about Demichelis playing alongside Kompany because I knew that Pellegrini would do just that, it was clear from his performance that the manager made the wrong decision again, same goes for starting Dzeko again because he shouldn't be playing ahead of other people who deserve a chance more than he does.

Although everything about tonight's performance wasn't great as I just touched on, we did play quite well as a team, we controlled the game and West Brom were not a bother to us until the 85th minute, I don't even think they had a shot on target until Anichebe scored, we certainly didn't deserve to concede two goals anyway.

The bottom line is that we won and we won away from home, hopefully we can take some confidence from that and go on to beat Southampton before that all important Arsenal game.

GOALS.

Man City 3 - 0 Swansea City - Goals and Highlights.

Another home game finished, another home win in the bag and another three goals, a perfect result on the face of things but there are certainly still issues that need ironing out.

We started well today, we looked sharp, organised and up for it, when Negredo scored a free kick it was easy to think that we were going to go on and score a hat full again, however we tailed off and to be fair some of that was down to Swansea.

After going one up we seemed to take our foot off the gas, our intricate through balls weren't coming off and we just couldn't take hold of the game. Swansea were also playing a smart game, they knew they didn't have much of an attack due to injuries and instead were happy to sit inside their own half and wait for us to come at them, their midfield was crowding us out and when they saw a chance to break they went for it.
The first half finished with us leading but it could of easily been the other way round, Swansea had some really good chances and if their finishing had been better they could have gone in at the break having scored a couple of goals.

The second half started almost identically to the way the first half did, we had the bit between our teeth and immediately set out to put Swansea under pressure. We weren't spectacular in the second period but we took a hold of the game a lot more than we did in the first half, don't get me wrong Swansea never looked like they were out of the game at any point but we were putting them under a lot more pressure and creating chances. Stepping it up a gear going forward ultimately proved too much for Swansea to handle and two goals from the impressive Samir Nasri were the rewards for putting in a tad more effort.

It wasn't the best performance today, the midfield was being bypassed too easily again, we were untidy and we are still sacrificing possession of the ball in favour of a direct approach far too much at times, but after feeling very frustrated with the team lately, I am quite happy with today's result.

Don't get me wrong I am never going to be happy when there are issues that need ironing out, however the most important thing today was that we won the first out of three games leading up to the Arsenal match, especially with Spurs, Utd and Liverpool dropping points.

I just really hope that Pellegrini can sort out these little problems that the team have and that we can go on and get the away game monkey off our back, if that happens and we get six points from our next two games and then beat Arsenal, I am convinced that no team will be able to get in our way and stop us from winning the title.

Goals and Highlights.

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 6 - 0 Tottenham Hotspur - Goals and Highlights

We all enjoyed our home comforts today, the team continue to baffle us after beating a very good Tottenham team six nil.

What a win today, to score 6 goals against any team at this level is impressive but to beat a strong team like Spurs by that deficit is ridiculous, not to mention that we still weren't quite firing on all cylinders today.

It was like the team had read my pre match, the Spurs defence were scard to death of Aguero and Negredo and couldn't cope with them, Fernandinho and Nasri won the midfield battle with a helping hand from Toure and Navas and our defence managed to keep out a very unimpressive Roberto Soldado.

Now I won't for one minute suggest that we absolutely pasted Spurs all game today because we didn't, we were very good for large parts of the game but most of all we were clinical when it mattered.

Apart from us being a goal up just seconds after kick off, the first 20 minutes of the game were quite evenly contested. Both teams were playing with a high tempo and both had good chances to score, as the game progressed we started to dictate the pace of the game and take control, adding a further two goals before half time pretty much secured the three points.

We started the second half as we finished the first, putting constant pressure on Spurs with free flowing attacking football. We were relinquishing possession due to our gung-ho style at times but we looked quite happy to let that happen if it meant that we could play with that extra bit of freedom, the team were obviously confident that Spurs were not going to cause them a problem, three more goals in the second period of play finished off what in the the end was a hammering.

We were good today there's no doubting that but I still believe that we can play better, although we won six nil we didn't really play to our full potential, we had just done enough by our high standards.

We were a bit sloppy at times and gave the ball away more than we should, the defence were left wanting on a couple of occasions and we let a few good chances go begging, all these mistakes happening while easily winning the game, which is somewhat mind boggling.

Of course when we play 'good' that is like anyone else playing unbelievably well and although it comes across like I am picking holes in the team after winning six nil, I am not. When the level has been set high then there will always be room for comparison, I suppose the main comparison should be the difference between us winning and losing because when we are capable of beating a strong team like Spurs without breaking much of a sweat, it is hard to believe we can lose games to the likes of Sunderland.

No time to dwell on lost points in games gone by though, hopefully we will kick on again now and go through a period of consistently winning, if we get the away form sorted and carry on winning at home then I am convinced that we will win the league regardless of what any of our rivals achieve this season.

Goals and Highlights.

Man City 7 - 0 Norwich City *Goals Video*

68.5% possession, 27 shots, 772 passes, 100% of tackles won and 7 yes 7 goals, what a performance by us today, Norwich were lucky it wasn't much worse.

Firstly I feel disappointed with Norwich, so how Chris Hughton feels is any ones guess, we were quality today but Norwich were very poor, they are a much better team than they shown. Their downfall today was that they didn't consolidate and settle for defeat, they kept trying to play against us and that was a very bad idea.

Barring five or so minutes early in the first half where Norwich passed the ball well, they didn't get a look in, we chewed them up and spat them out with ease.

We were just on a different planet to Norwich today, it was almost like watching under 10s play against men at times. As a team we didn't even really exert ourselves today, everything we did was precise and effective, every player did their job and did it well.

The first players to take a bow in our team today should be Silva, Nasri and Aguero. Silva and Nasri were pulling all the strings in midfield, Norwich couldn't get near them and when they did they got turned inside out. Whilst they were busy cutting through the Norwich midfield Aguero was running the defence ragged, they couldn't deal with his movement, they didn't know whether to come or go and when they did decide to make a move on him he was already out of sight.

The whole team were exceptional today, they played like they had been told to go on the pitch and just enjoy themselves. It was a refreshing performance to watch, there was no hangover from the defeat to Chelsea, we looked confident and assured, breezing through the game.

There is a worry that has come from today's game, not a worry for us but everyone else. I have just seen Pellegrini's post match interview and he was asked if it was our best performance under his management, he said no and I have to agree. Of course we were out of this world today but it was easy and we didn't have to put maximum effort in, if we had of played like we did against Utd where we put everything we had into the game, we would of scored double what we did today.

Hopefully this quality of performance will continue, we have become more consistent lately and look more confident, if we can keep it up we will soon catch Arsenal and then leave them behind.

GOALS.

Newcastle United 0 - 2 Man City - *Highlights* Leicester drawn in the next round

Goals from Negredo and Dzeko in extra time were enough to secure victory at St James park, the win has set us up for an away tie to Leicester in the quarter finals.

The game was quite poor to watch tonight, we were lacking creativity and desire, we looked like we were playing a training game at times. When we did produce some good movement and passing we scored two goals and it took us until the 99th minute to do that.

As far as Newcastle are concerned they didn't put in a good performance either really and looked very unconvincing, they did create a few chances though, some were poorly executed, some well defended and some just unlucky, I would certainly understand their fans going away from the game thinking that they should have scored a couple of goals.

The best way to describe the result is 'job done', there wasn't really any positives to take away from our performance apart from maybe Pantilimon's decent showing in goal, which included one really good save to keep us in the game.

Most important thing is that we are through to the quarter finals and only a few games away from a final appearance, although to get there we will have to play a lot better than we did tonight.

Apologies for the quick post match, work beckons in the morning unfortunately.

Highlights.

Chelsea 2 - 1 Man City *Goals and Highlights*

Well we have seen some bad away results this season but this has to be the worst considering the manner in which we lost, we played well today and it would have been deserved had we won the game.

I will start with the mess up that lost us the game, with the game at 1-1 a harmless ball over the top somehow ended with the ball in the back of the net. Nastasic was running on to the ball watching it come over his shoulder with Torres on his tail, as long as Hart was stood in his area the danger would be averted, for some reason Hart wasn't stood in his area. Instead Hart decided to charge out of his area towards the ball when all he had to do was stand still and wait for Nastasic to nod it back to him, Nastasic did indeed head the ball back but past the on rushing Hart, leaving Torres to run on and score.

I have heard many different opinions on who was at fault already, I am sticking the blame firmly with Hart. It was easy to see what was going to happen all he had to do is wait for Nastasic to head it back. I think the people blaming Nastasic are wrong to do so, it looks like he could of changed where he headed it when you watch it but it happens a lot quicker than that and he would of been more concerned about not missing the header whilst expecting his keeper to be waiting to receive it.

As well as that mistake I wasn't pleased with Chelsea's first goal, Clichy was beaten far too easily and it was too simple for Schurrle to trick Demichelis with his movement as well. Well I am talking about Clichy he hasn't been himself for some time now, he looks sluggish and easy to beat, he was integral when we won the title and I am a really big fan of his, I think he is a victim of rotation and I hope he returns to full form soon.

Back to the game, apart from the horrific mistake at the end, we were superb. We controlled large parts of the game and man for man we were the better team. Pellegrini made the right decision by putting extra men in midfield although he put one to many in there for me, because I think with two up top we would have had the game sewn up, that is by the by though because we did play well enough to win the game regardless of that.

We played really well as a unit today, everyone was playing for each other and out working the opposition, the midfield particularly were better than I have seen them for a long time, with the stand out performance in my opinion coming from Fernandinho. Three Brazilians were on show today and Ferna was the one that stood out, he never stopped running from front to back, he was getting stuck in and constantly cutting short Chelsea's momentum. He has been getting better and better lately and if he continues he will justify his price tag.

Then there is Sergio Aguero, apparently his weakness is his left foot, for him to play as a lone striker was a worry, what a load of rubbish! This lad is phenomenal, defence's cannot live with him, he has everything a world class striker needs and he is improving all the time, for me he is easily one of the best three strikers in the world. I would give him another new contract now because he is definitely an important part of our future.

To sum it up, we were solid today and for me we deserved at the very least a point from the game, the performance was encouraging and if we continue in this vein of form we will soon have made up the six point deficit, keep the games coming CTID.

Goals and Highlights.

Man City 5 - 0 Wigan Athletic - Goals and Highlights

Another game and another win, a very comfortable 5 - 0 victory was secured with goals from Dzeko, Jovetic (2), Toure and Navas.

Our 'second choice' eleven breezed through to the next round of the cup, we played well tonight but the team certainly didn't have to overly exert themselves to secure the victory.

Although this wasn't our first eleven tonight with Marcos Lopes the only youngster in the starting line up, we still had a strong team. We won very comfortably at five nil but it could of and probably should of been at least six or seven, we wasted a lot of good chances.

If I were to analyse the game it would just be for the sake of writing words, there was nothing special about our performance as such, we just did our job and did it well. If there was anything to highlight it would of been the performance of Lopes, he is still only a kid but he looks very good and confident to boot, hopefully we will start seeing him around the first team a bit more so he can keep developing because he is far too good to be playing with his own age group.

We have had three good results on the bounce now and I am starting to get a bit excited about what this season could hold for us if we keep it up. I don't see why we cant go on to win the next ten games if I am honest, the team must be absolutely brimming with confidence at the moment and when you put confidence with class then you generally have a recipe for success.

Apologises for the short post but there is really nothing more to say about the game and I have unfortunately got work in the morning so bed beckons.

GOALS AND HIGHLIGHTS.