The Morning After!

As usual I never post an article on a match immediately after a game, much preferring to have had time to reflect on the game itself & of course the outcome.

Firstly I have to say, although he has done well recently Sherwood's lack of experience showed up in several ways last night.

His team selection and going for one up top smacked of fear, yes City thumped us 6-0 at their place, however we should fear no one at home. By picking such a team we were on the back foot from the off.

Secondly why are we not told to get at them from the off, we ALWAYS start off like it is training session. City are an extremely good team yes, however by starting slow we made them look amazing & they could have been from another planet

Playing Bentaleb & Dembele in the middle with Siggy & Lennon (was he there?) on the flanks did not work.

Consequently City over ran us & looked rampant and could have had 3 by the time we got up into their penalty area. Only frantic defending & good saves by Lloris kept the score down.

Apparently we had an extra man in midfield, really? Well when you play one up top, it allows the other team to play 3 at the back and one of the defenders then moves into the midfield when required.

Aguero is a fantastic player & if he and Messi can hit form together in Brazil, then I see Argentina winning the World Cup this summer. Their goal records for Argentina are almost identical Messi has scored 37 in 83 games averaging one goal every 2.24 games. Aguero has scored 21 in 47 internationals averaging 2.23 games per goal.

On to the evenings controversial bits then. The offside call was dubious to say the least. In the lino's defence, I think Ade was obscuring his view of Zabaleta who was level with Dawson when the kick was taken. He should have kept his flag down if his view is obscured, instead he guessed. Good goal disallowed.

Next the penalty decision & sending off. Rose clearly got the ball first and then the player, there was no reason to give a penalty & Marriner showed great weakness in allowing his lino to make his decision for him. He was closer and in a better position to judge than the lino. So a double whammy for Spurs, not only was it not a penalty but we also got a man sent off too!

Mind you Rose is not in my opinion the best of tacklers and was an accident waiting to happen sometime soon!

Then we had the Fernandinho handball on the line.....................as it has been pointed out by others, if the ball had stayed out then Spurs would have had a penalty and Fernandinho would have been sent off.

Because the ball ended up in the back of the net, he escaped punishment.
As an ex-referee I believe this is definitely a grey area that needs scrutinising by both the FA & Fifa. At the very least the referee should have given him a for ungentlemanly conduct (covers virtually anything a player does) as it is Fernandinho gets off scot free for a deliberate attempt to cheat, whereas Rose gets punished for a fair & legitimate tackle!

At the end of the day, we cannot compare this to the result at The Etihad. That day we looked awful & the team had little or no heart. Last night we at least battled, I don't think we would have won with 11 players on the pitch, with 10 it was always a question of how low can we keep the score down to.

This is by a stretch the best footballing side in the country, with even Arsenal a good bit behind them.

They have spent a lot of money on players, and to a large degree spent very well. They have two very good strikers and two absolutely World class ones in Aguero & Negredo.

Yes they have benefited from having a mega rich owner, however I think their fans have been supportive to the team, even attracting 30,000 crowds in League 1 a few years ago.

They also rooted out trouble makers like Tevez, Balotelli, Barton etc and they look like serious contenders to challenge the big three in Europe, Real, Barca & Bayern!

As for us, we have to accept that we cannot compete with teams like City, United, Chelsea & Arsenal until we get a bigger ground to increase revenues, retain our best players (back to a bigger ground again) and unfortunately bring in a top manager like Gaal or someone of similar stature and experience.

I think Tim has done well, however I also think he is out of his depth. I would like nothing more than to be proved wrong, starting this weekend with a win at Hull!

So in conclusion, there was no disgrace in last nights result. We lost to a far superior team, in fact a team who could finish the season with 4 trophies and start next season as Champions of Europe!