Man City v Sunderland Saturday 13th August 17:30

[SALTIRE]

All match discussion here.

 

[silkyman]

<shrugs>

No idea. It's been a bit of a mess of a pre-season so don't have the faintest clue what the side will look like other than Aguero will probably be up front.

 

[Stevencc]

This is as simple a start to the league as Pep and City could have hoped for. I know some City fans like to play up the "bogey team" tag with regards to their relationship with Sunderland but, in reality, City have won the last five league games against them with a total score of 16-5.

This should be a twatting.

 

[Hank]

Can't see anything other than a City win. Our squad needs improving quickly, starting eleven should be strongish but our bench will full of kids.

 

[Christian Slater]

Tickets for this on general sale still. Welcome to Manchester indeed

 

[Dirk]

Interesting to see for me how Guardiola's will fit into the Premier League. I could see him now for 3 years in the Bundesliga and tbh I am glad that he has chosen not to extend his 3 year stay. Although he was happy at Bayern (at least he said so in most of the interviews I've heard of him) but he said that normally he stays only for 3 years at a club, so Bayern had to accept this.
What I really liked about him was that even before he was Coach of Bayern he tried to master the German Language (and that's no easy task) and he wanted to speak from the first moment completely in German (most foreign coaches use interpreters or speak in English. That's very professionell of him.

I think he will start with a win in his new 3 (?) year stay at ManCity.

 

[Mone 1926]

Guardiola couldn't pick a better team than Sunderland to start his season in the best way.

I think that Man City will win this game without many problems.

 

[SALTIRE]

City 5 - 1 Sunderland

 

[silkyman]

Not sure what to make of that team. Hugely surprised to see Hart on the bench and Yaya not even in the squad, but perhaps there's half an eye on the CL qualifier on Tuesday? Kolarov at CB could be interesting....

 

[silvergull]

Hart being dropped isn't a surprise, he's not a Guardiola keeper. What is surprising is he's not got a replacement in.

 

[Nilsson]

Kolarov at cb?

hmmmm

 

[The Iron]

Well that didn't take long

1-0 City, Aguero

 

[G-Dragon]

Title contenders.

 

[Jockney]

a team that boasts talent like kevin de bruyne, raheem sterling, sergio aguero and david silva should not be this fucking boring. city have had about two chances all game. fucking pooooor.

 

[SALTIRE]

Yeah very much work in progress at the moment it seems.

 

[SALTIRE]

City getting some of Utd's luck it appears. 2 - 1.

 

[G-Dragon]

Sign of CHAMPIONS?!??

 

[Nilsson]

Moyes takes off his biggest attacking threat to make his side more defensive. Of course it backfires.

Pep has got some work to do before this City side are fully capable of doing what he wants them to do. Not sure the whole inverted full backs thing is going to work, Sagna are Clichy are not Lahm and Alaba.

 

[Jarv]

Did just enough to win but were not impressive at all. Sure they'll get better though but Pep still has something to prove after largely failing in germany

 

[silkyman]

Happy enough with that. Obviously the win is good (would have been nice to not conceded and gone top!) and you could see in places what they were trying to do, even if it wasn't quite coming off.

Lots of work to do, but that's to be expected with a new manager and a new system, especially as some of the players he's bought to play to that system are still on the sidelines.

Not helped by the shambolic pre-season (Please, please please next year for once can they ditch this tedious 'champions cup' shit and just play Rochdale, Oldham and Blackburn FFS) so the players are still having get the match fitness and learn the new system, when they should have had that shit nailed down in late July.

Get through the CL qualification and the next couple of League games without fucking up too spectacularly, and they should hopefully finally be on all cylinders by the time the derby comes around.

 

[silkyman]

Did just enough to win but were not impressive at all. Sure they'll get better though but Pep still has something to prove after largely failing in germany

Really?

Bayern Munich

• Bundesliga: 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16
• DFB-Pokal: 2013–14, 2015–16
• UEFA Super Cup: 2013
• FIFA Club World Cup: 2013

 

[Jarv]

Really...yes...he took over comfortably the best side in Europe that had just won the treble and won less than the previous guy. I could have won the German League and Cup with that team it's a 1 team league.

 

[Boz]

Caballero overall isn't a better keeper than Hart, Kolarov in central defence, when Mangala and perhaps Denayer have played there for their countries. Rather a disappointing showing from City, though not without it's positives, Stones looked comfortable, Sterling more positive and Silva more like his old self. Agree that Moyes should have kept Defoe on. Both managers need to do some learning after that game.

 

[Dirk]

Really...yes...he took over comfortably the best side in Europe that had just won the treble and won less than the previous guy. I could have won the German League and Cup with that team it's a 1 team league.

That's right, unfortunately. In the last years it's only Bayern Munich.
Pep's 3 years at Bayern brought 3 Championships but he failed 3 times in the semi-final against 3 different Spanish Clubs in the Champions League. Many here are thinking that Pep Guardiola was a "spanish trojan horse" (only joking) so his German Mission is unfullfilled because at Bayern Munich only the CL counts at the moment. Bayern reached the semi-finals 5 consecutive times but won the title only once in recent years. Many Bayern Fans were sad when he left but more were happy

I've watched the match and wasn't impressed. But he won his first match, that's all that counts. Nobody asks later how it was won.

 

[FrazerLloyd]

Man City have a lot of work still to do given that performance and it will be interesting to see whether Mourinho can hit the ground running with a little more pace tomorrow.

Of course, the result was the most important thing today, but Pep won't be overly happy with his team. You could see what he wanted them to do, but the players seemed unable to play anywhere near the pace he requested of them. I expected a rout given the attacking talent City now have available to them, but they just weren't clicking with one another.

As someone has said, pre-season was chaotic for City and perhaps that is the reason it all looked fairly lethargic.

 

[Tesl]

You people saying Pep "failed" in Germany are completely insane. It's just total idiocy. No other manager is judged on winning the CL every year, his crime is having been too good and too successful in the past causing everyone to judge him by completely outrageous standards. Even the best team isn't guaranteed to win the CL, it's a knockout competition where anything can happen in the later stages.

If you are looking for reasons to say that Pep failed and is a shit manager because it makes you feel better, then by all means go ahead -- but keep it out the City threads please.

As for the game itself, I'm just happy we won the match and can go forward from there. We weren't excellent by any means, Pelligrini's first game in charge was far more impressive (smashed Newcastle 4-0 at home). Pep is clearly trying to mould the team to play a particular way and that's going to take time to achieve.

Good to see Silva as captain, that makes a lot of sense. Kolarov at the back seemed like total madness but he ended up having a great game there. Stones looks good to me and I think will be a great signing. I'm not sure how I feel about the Hart situation, I'm hopeful he won't move on and that this was Pep's way of sending him a message early on.

 

[Skinner]

He made the Bayern side worse than when he took over

 

[Stevencc]

Look, the other miserable City fan is back!

Silky has some company, at last.

I only caught the second half of the game and City were uninspiring, boring to watch. It was a little like watching Van Gaal's United, actually. Although they needed a penalty and an own goal to put Sunderland to the sword they were clearly the better team, though - and I expect them to take on Pep's methods with a bit more vigour in the coming weeks and months.

 

[WalshyBhoy]

City were pretty poor. Played with the ball nicely enough, just not dangerously enough. Weird seeing Silva so deep, also clearly lacked Yaya's power and energy. City were strange to watch, and somewhat interesting despite the lack of any real creativity.
Also Stones showing us how quickly he turns from a £50M player into a £50 quid, one. Bizarre decision to rush out with Jermain at your back.

Sunderland looked good, think they'll do just fine under Moyesy. God do I love Defoe though. First name on Big Sam's England team sheet?

It just goes to show you though what a player can do for the squad...