City poor again! Barry stars for Everton

Another frustrating below par performance left us leaving the Britannia feeling grateful for the point that we were coming away with.

Stoke played well today and seem to be an ever improving team under Mark Hughes's guidance, so fair play to them but City are playing really badly under Pellegrini and if it does not improve we can forget about any sort of silverware this season.

First lets look at the team selection, no Aguero or Navas and he decided to throw Jovetic in straight from the start after just over coming injury. Ok so maybe he was trying to rest players because of the CL game but you don't drop one of the best strikers in the world who possesses premier league experience in favour of not one but two new players who are still settling in, one of which who has been injured since he arrived. Along with that he rested the impressive Navas and by doing so he left the team without energy and supply, rotate don't decimate!

Now lets look at the statistics to get a real idea of how poorly we are performing, 35 clearances had to be made in comparison to Stokes 15, out of 21 crosses only 9.5% were successful, only 42.5% of duels won, only 10 shots with just 3 on target, no offsides and yes I am moaning about not being off side because if your attacking well with fluent sharp passing and movement like we should be then you expect to be caught a couple of times and finally although Stoke have good height in their team, we only won 30.2% of aerial duels even though we had 7 players in the starting line up at 6ft plus, these stats do not make impressive reading.

There is honestly nothing I can see in Pellegrini that suggests he is any more capable than Mancini, I am not getting on his back it is still early days but when your going for the title you cannot afford to slip up at any stage and with all due respect our first four fixtures should have been victories on paper and the pitch.

I just feel that at the moment the players do not understand the way in which Pellegrini wants them to play, they look lost at times on the pitch, there's no understanding amongst the players, no shape and no real effort. Everything is trying to be executed in the most perfect fashion, the football we play is over complicated when it doesn't need to be and I can only guess that this is something Pellegrini has tried to implement into the team.

This isn't a blame Pellegrini exercise either, the players are also responsible and certain big names are not nearly pulling their weight. For the purpose of an example look at Yaya Toure never criticised but apart from his two free kicks, if you think about it, what has he contributed this season? He has been a stagnant part of the midfield, no powerful runs forward nor any defensive influence. Players of his ability should be leading by example and inspiring the rest of the team, it isn't happening though just look at todays game, Nastasic at twenty years of age was left defending pretty much by himself at times even though he was surrounded by experienced internationals, not good enough I'm afraid.

Whilst talking about experience it is the perfect time to mention Gareth Barry. On my way home this evening I decided to put my new phone through its paces so I stuck Everton vs Chelsea on, at the end of the game I was impressed by my phone but not as impressed as I was with Gareth Barry's performance. I made it known before Barry left that I thought he should be playing for City and when he did leave I was left disappointed and a bit bitter at the thought that maybe he just wasn't a big enough name for Pellegrini, what else could it have been?

Nobody can question the part Gareth Barry has played in our teams transformation, he was often an undetected top performer for City and I can not think of a good reason why Pellegrini let him leave. He is exactly what we are missing at the moment, we have nobody doing the water carrying in midfield, we need someone who will slow things down, craftily win fouls, win tackles and pop up in the gaps, all the things Barry is good at. He was brilliant for Everton today and I really hope he does well, I also think if Pellegrini were to see his performance today, against one of the best teams in Europe, he would kick himself.

To conclude, I know its not doom and gloom time just yet but things need to change quickly, fortunately or maybe unfortunately depending on how you look at it, these are the pressures of wanting to be a successful club. CTID!

Stoke City vs Man City live stream information

Up to now there are 20 stations that should be available to watch today's match against Stoke.

I know a lot of people are familiar with online streaming now but for those that are not, this should help.

If you go to the following link http://www.wiziwig.tv/broadcast.php?matchid=216473&part=sports then you will see the page that will display the links to watch today's game, the links to the streams will not be displayed until one hour before kick off.

Each link will be run via a different type of software for example you may just be able to click one that will load on your web browser or there will be some where you have to download software.

Each stream will tell you which software it is being run on for example if next to one of the links it says Sopcast you will need to download the Sopcast player software. All software is available via this next link http://www.wiziwig.tv/software.php?part=software .

The best streams to watch are the ones with the higher Kbps rate, so if one stream says 150 Kbps and one says 2000 Kbps then you choose the latter and this will also help you know which software to download so you can get the best possible stream.

A little heads up I always find Sopcast the best software to use, so it would probably be worth downloading that in preparation for when the game links are announced.

 Hopefully this was helpful and not confusing. I think everyone should be able to understand once you explore the links, it is quite straight forward.

Enjoy, hopefully!

Stoke City vs Man City - Sat 14th September 15:00 pm

Tomorrows trip sees us travel to the Britannia stadium to face a Stoke team that have made a good start to the season. We will be coming up against our former boss Mark Hughes and possibly our former Irish star Stephen Ireland, who will both have a point to prove against their former employers.

Stoke is always a tough trip to make and from what I have seen of them so far this season, tomorrow will be no different. Hughes has got them playing some good football, Stoke are notorious for their no nonsense, long ball and just down right basic football tactics and although it has served them well at times in the past, things seem to be changing. Hughes is clearly implementing a different style of football and so far he is doing a good job of it, his Stoke team have been passing the ball really well, their movement is sharper and basically all round they are a classier looking outfit.

The worry for me in tomorrows game is that Stoke revert to their old game plan and set up to shut us out, as is common knowledge we don't seem to know how to break teams down that put men behind the ball, couple this with the fact Stoke are capable of playing a passing game now and it could be the perfect formula to beat us.

As for us, I am hoping that the International break has given Pellegrini the time he needed to figure out why the team are not performing near to the level that they are capable of. We have to start performing, you do not win titles playing the way that we are. We are lacking in midfield, lacking in effort and we are certainly lacking a plan B, things that you would expect a top manager to be able to put right and quickly at that.

Man City Team News:
Our bad run of injuries continues with Kompany (groin), Silva (thigh), Clichy (thigh), Richards (hamstring) and Demichelis (knee) all missing out, Stevan Jovetic had a slight problem with his hamstring during the International break but is expected to be available for selection.

Stoke City Team News:
Marc Muniesa misses out with a groin injury whilst last minute signings Marko Arnautovic and Stephen Ireland are expected to feature.

Possible Man City Line Up: Hart, Zabaleta, Nastasic, Lescott, Kolarov, Nasri, Toure, Fernandinho, Navas, Aguero, Negredo.

Possible Stoke City Line Up: Begovic, Cameron, Shawcross, Huth, Pieters, Walters, N'Zonzi, Adam, Wilson, Etherington, Jones.

My Prediction: Stoke City 0 - 2 Man City.

Worth A Bet: Aguero scores the first goal in a 2 - 0 Man City win @ 22/1.

Man City 2 - 0 Hull City - GOALS AND HIGHLIGHTS VIDEO

Although we were poor again today for large parts of the game, goals from Negredo and Toure helped us to take all three points against a Hull team that came to play.

We were poor again today especially in the first half, we weren't passing well again, our defending left a lot to be desired and we were continuously over complicating things. Fair play to Hull though, they made us look bad as well because they put pressure on us and came to the Etihad with attacking intentions today.

The first half today was not pleasant to watch and the defensive errors started early with a mix up between Joe Hart and Joleon Lescott, the poor defending continued throughout the first 45 minutes, with the midfield non existent at times. Although we did have a lot of possession in the opening half of the game, we continuously gave the ball away with sloppy passing, Hull took advantage of this and upon gaining possession back they passed well and came at us very directly. Our attacking prowess was also a miss in the first half, once we got in and around the box we did what we usually do and played one pass to many or tried the impossible through ball one to many times.

At the start of the second half we saw Pellegrini make a much needed substitution, he brought Alvaro Negredo on in place of the very ineffective Edin Dzeko and it freshened us up. Whilst still not hitting our peak we did improve a lot in the second half, we stuck to a high line and tried to pile the pressure on Hull. We played more as a unit in the second half and it certainly improved us, individual mistakes were not as often, the passing was more fluent and in the end these slight improvements helped us on our way to victory.

Pellegrini needs to have a long hard think during in the international break because the team are just not performing, we seem to have a nervous energy about us at the moment and I don't know if that's because of the pressure of how he wants them to play or just because of the pressure involved in being a top team, regardless what the problem is it needs to be fixed. As well as the manager analysing what is wrong, the players also need to have a look at themselves. There are far too many big names not performing at the moment, the likes of Yaya Toure, David Silva, Joleon Lescott and Joe Hart to name but a few are top players at the top of the football ladder and it is hard to see why they would have a drop in form, whatever the reason we need them to get their heads down and start performing consistently if we are to have a chance at the title.

Goals and highlights.

Man City vs Hull City - Saturday 31st Aug 12:45 pm

Our next game sees us come up against another newly promoted team, Hull City. After our showing against Cardiff it is evident we can not play that badly again, especially against these new boys fighting to stay up.

I can't say I know a lot about the way Hull play because so far this season I have only seen snippets of them, although I have studied the stats from their first two games. Against Chelsea in their first game the statistics suggest they more than held their own at Stamford Bridge, but then the figures collected from their game against Norwich are poor, so the stats didn't help me get a picture of what kind of team they are, apart from an inconsistent one perhaps. What I do know about them is that they have a manager and a squad with a wealth of premier league experience, so you would imagine that they will be testing opponents.

As for City, well we just have to play better than we did against Cardiff, it is as simple as that. First of all our defending was terrible right the way through the team against Cardiff, we seem to fall apart when Kompany is absent. It must be a big miss not having your reliable captain around but it is not a valid excuse, our players are good enough to cope without him. Secondly, I grew up being taught that football is easy if you do the simple things well and it always turned out to be true. I think City need to take on this philosophy because we are always over complicating things, mainly by trying to walk the ball in. Overall, when we play to our potential, I believe we are almost unstoppable. We just need to rid ourselves of the inconsistency that has been affecting us since last season and then we can be confident of going on to win these games and trophies.

Man City Team News:
Nastasic is expected to return to the starting line up after recovering from an ankle injury, Stevan Jovetic is also expected to be in the squad after suffering with a minor hamstring injury, Micah Richards has been training after also having trouble with his hamstring and could return to the squad, Vincent Kompany continues to be absent with a groin injury.

Hull City Team News:
Stephen Quinn is expected to return to the squad having been out with a hamstring injury, Abdoulaye Faye is struggling with a calf injury and may miss out, Yannick Sagbo is suspended.

Possible Man City Line Up: Hart, Zabaleta, Nastasic, Lescott, Clichy, Silva, Toure, Fernandinho, Navas, Aguero, Dzeko.

Possible Hull City Line Up: McGregor, Chester, Davies, Elmohamady, Figueroa, Koren, Huddlestone, Livermore, Boyd, Graham, Aluko.

My Prediction: Man City 4 - 0 Hull City.

Worth A Bet: Fernandinho scores the first goal in a 4 -0 Man City win @ 80/1.

Champions League Group! Your thoughts?

The Champions League draw has just been completed and we have been drawn against, BAYERN MUNICH, CSKA MOSCOW AND FC VIKTORIA PLZEN  in GROUP D.

I like getting the top teams as soon as possible because it is a dream that we get to play against these famous clubs, something unimaginable a short time ago.

This time round we have managed to get the current champions in Bayern Munich, one of Russia's top teams in CSKA and current champions of the Czech Republic FC Viktoria Plzen.

Brilliant draw for us this time, we get to test ourselves against the current champions and we have a couple of weaker teams in there to give us a good chance of going through, couldn't of asked for anything better in my opinion.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Cardiff City 3 - 2 Man City - TERRIBLE!

Well in my pre match I had us down for smashing Cardiff today, although I stupidly made this prediction based on thinking we were going to be consistent, silly me!

We were absolutely terrible today and although Cardiff worked hard, the defeat was all our own doing. I discounted Cardiff as a poor team and I stand by that, all they did was stick ten behind the ball and that was us gazumped, just as we were against the same tactics last season.

Today our passing was just awful, our defending poor and our work ethic was lacking, it is almost like they think they have a right to win these games at times and just do not put the effort in.

If we were to look back at the game you would see we actually dominated possession, but as we know that doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. It is ok to have a lot of the ball when your not giving it away every other pass or trying to score the prettiest goal every time you go forward.

We need to just keep things a little more basic at times and our class will shine through. As I mentioned we always seem to want to score the prettiest goal we can rather than just making sure we do the basics properly first, today for example our goals came from having a pop and your run of the mill cross and it worked, but more often than not for some reason we want to walk the ball in. I thought this would of been addressed in pre season as this is not a new issue, it was a big problem last season when we weren't scoring enough.

Now to the players, I am not at a stage where I want to pick out certain players yet as it is not something I like to do if I can help it and seems as its just the second game I am going to let certain people off. What I will talk about however is players that I think should be playing, Gareth Barry being the player in question.

What has Barry done wrong that means he should be frozen out? Barry has been a major part of our transformation and has seen us through plenty of games by very quietly marshalling the midfield, today for instance he would have sat in the midfield cleverly breaking up play, something that needed to be done but just wasn't. It is almost like he is just not fashionable enough to play for City, I would bring him back into the fold with immediate effect.

Just to finish up, is it drastic to think that this is an extremely bad result in terms of the title race? I personally don't. We cannot lose games like this if we want to win the title, in fact we have to win these games if we are to finish top, don't get me wrong I am not panicking but it is not a good sign if we can't take advantage in these more favourable fixtures.

That's my opinion, what do you think?