While it was in the September of 2008 that Sheikh Mansour took control of Manchester City Football Club, the 2008-09 campaign for the blues wasn’t the best on the pitch. In fact, it ended with the team outside all of the European places and had a Christmas Day in the relegation zone wedged into the middle of it. That was the last time that City met United just twice over the course of a season; every year since then, there has been more than the minimum two Manchester derbies.

Those two derbies of 2008-09 were bleak for City: Two defeats, no goals and barely a shot in either. There was so much between the two sides, you’d never have believed the gap had looked smaller the year earlier – when Sven’s side had twice beaten their local rivals. Fast forward to a new manager and throw in a few new players and progress had stalled somewhat.

But that’s when City got serious. In a manner, the club declared war on the team from across town. With a summer of additions – including the high profile signing of Carlos Tevez – the blues had suddenly gone from a team with no European football to one that was pushing to finish fourth in the Premier League. That transfer saga was the start of where the bad blood began to get worse between the two Manchester clubs. Previously, City’s mid-table woes and relegation battles had mattered little to United’s title challenges and European nights, and vice-versa. The sides met twice a year and battled it out, with the bragging rights at stake.

But that Tevez switch signalled the start of City’s rise; the now infamous poster being a cheap dig that got United’s back up and had those in charge of the reds foaming at the mouths. They were rattled. It added extra feeling to that first meeting between the two sides and it felt, for the first time in a long time, that City were somewhere near to pushing United all the way. It was the first step in the blues’ rise; they went in off the back of four wins. Of course, we all know how it ended: Michael Owen stole the points with a goal in added time to added time.

We might not have realised it at the time, but that game marked the beginning of a new era of Manchester derbies. This was no longer the haves against the have nots; this was the beginning of a fight for power. City were trying to wrestle it from United and it was no longer simply bragging rights at stake. This was league position and future success for City. For United, it was a battle to stay in poll position and to avoid being eclipsed by their nearest rivals.

Before that match in 2009-10, Sir Alex Ferguson uttered his famous “not in my lifetime” quote – in answer to the question of whether City would go into a derby match as favourites. Not only has he since been proven wrong on that front, as the blues have now gone into a derby with shorter odds than United, but he has himself passed comment on it, claiming the blues were where the money should be placed for this season’s FA Cup tie.

As much as us City fans don’t want it to be true, the fact of the matter is United aren’t going to just go away. They’ve had dominance over England for nigh on twenty years and, as is the case with any sort of evil, undemocratic Empire, the idea of giving up power isn’t one that is ever jumped at. The inconvenience of the matter is that, to become top dogs in this country, City are going to have to dismantle what United have built brick by brick. Mario Balotelli almost hit the nail on the head; he said ‘Why always me?’, when he should have asked ‘Why always them?’

Since the takeover and since City have been climbing the table in their quest for success, they have had to overcome United at every significant point. The coincidental and slightly queer fact that the reds have been constantly standing in the blues’ way for every little achievement is quite symbolic of the fight as a whole. They have what we want and we have to forcefully take it from them. To be a success, we have to stop them from stopping us.

Back in 2009-10, City had their best chance yet of picking up silverware, having just smashed three past Arsenal’s kids and made it to the semi-finals of the League Cup. Leaving the ground, fans were desperately trying to find out who the club had drawn. And then the news broke: Manchester United. To make matters worse, it was the most difficult draw, being the home leg first and the away leg second.

The reds, having played a weakened side all the way up to that point, signalled their intent to the competition and towards City. One could be forgiven for thinking United were more concerned from stopping the blues winning the cup, rather than winning it themselves; the policy of playing fringe players stopped immediately when it became obvious City were serious about lifting the trophy that so many teams shun. United won that battle, but only just.

The progress for City took another dent later that season. The push for a Champions League place over Tottenham, Aston Villa and Liverpool appeared to be swinging into the blues’ favour, until one Manchester United rocked up at the City of Manchester Stadium. A last minute goal again won the game for the visitors, and that sparked a run of form that saw City lose out to Spurs in a penultimate match ‘playoff’. While City had clearly improved, they were still some way behind United.

Then came last season. City managed to earn one more point in the Manchester derbies than the campaign previous, but that was a somewhat soul-destroying and wholly forgettable 0-0 draw at Eastlands. The undoubted highlight of which being the final whistle, when fans could finally go home and wonder how better they could have spent that ninety minutes. In fact, it’s the fixture in February that is more telling – City turned up at Old Trafford and were marginally the better side, a marked improvement on the year before. They only lost that game due to a freak, out-of-this-world, unbelievably good goal, that, on another day, would have landed somewhere on the M60.

But that wasn’t the half of it. With City looking to end a trophy drought of over three decades, it looked like the FA Cup was going well. The big sides were dropping out and the blues had been given favourable draws against lower league opposition and, on the one occasion they drew a Premier League side, it was at home. But then, just before the quarter final with Reading, the balls were pulled out of that strange bowl thing on ITV and, if they got through, City would be paired up with United. At Wembley. The reds were, once again, blocking the path of City’s progress.

This time, City came out on top – and deservedly so. Rooney was missing, as was Tevez, and both sides went toe-to-toe for the honour of being an FA Cup finalist. The banner at Old Trafford proudly displayed the years since the blues had won a major trophy (not that they care, obviously); it wasn’t officially sanctioned by the club, but clearly endorsed, as, had they wanted it gone, it could quite easily have been removed. Roberto Mancini had previously failed on his first attempt to fulfil his promise of tearing it down.

To do it, he was going to have to get the better of United. First it was the League Cup. And then the FA Cup. As we know now, he kept that promise. He went on to complete the cup run by seeing off Stoke in the final and lifting the trophy last May.

The next time the two sides would meet was the Community Shield: The opening game of the season; the curtain raiser. And, back in August, nobody would have predicted just how significant the two teams that contested that match would be. It’s telling now that the showpiece for the English Premier League would be contested by the two teams vying to win it nine months on. City threw away a two-goal lead to lose that game and, from that point on, proceeded to smash records in the opening months of the season, as team after team were dispatched en route to October and a trip to Old Trafford.

A United win would see them leapfrog the blues into top spot. A City win would see them open up a five point gap at the table’s summit. It would turn out to be the blues’ biggest step yet in taking a wrecking ball to Sir Alex Palpatine’s Empire. Six huge hits were sustained that day and City inflicted United’s largest ever Premier League defeat at Old Trafford. Fans that had been arguing that the gap between the two clubs was getting shorter began to argue that it was actually getting wider: That blue had become more dominant than red.

Of course, that was too premature.

The FA Cup was next: The third round draw threw these teams together once again. But for an unjust red card, it could have been a different story; but a club mustn’t lament its bad luck. United made it into the pot for the fourth round, though City gave them a scare, with one man fewer for eighty of the ninety minutes and from three goals behind. That first cup might have gone in the trophy cabinet, but the second one after it was still not going to be an easy task.

And now it comes down to this. This evening, City host United for the final time in the Premier League this season. A home win will see the blues back on top of the league on goal difference. A draw will play right into the reds’ hands, giving them a three point lead with two games to play. An away win will all but confirm the title is heading to Old Trafford. While many of us hoped that the title race would be over well before this match, when the fixtures were announced it was always going to be inevitable that this would play a key role.

United have stood in City’s way in everything they have tried to do since the takeover. If City are to knock United into second place in this country, then they will have to do it both literally and metaphorically. In the wartime metaphor, the battles have been tight and close, and, for three years, City have been gradually gaining ground, while United have stagnated. But in the literal world, the reds have stopped the blues on several occasions in the past.

A win this evening will go some way to swinging the balance of power and will take the war to its next level. United stood in City’s way for Champions League qualification and that was eventually overcome. They stood in the way of a trophy to break the duck and that was eventually overcome. They now stand in the way of league progress. It’s do or die. All or nothing. Win or lose.

To exorcise the ghosts of the past, the torment of United’s success compared to the blues’ exploration of England’s lower leagues, City simply need some success of their own. To get it, however, it seems like they are always going to have to get the better of their rivals.

The next battle in the war begins tonight.

I am sure I am not the only writer or reader of Bluemoon who studies his Bible and likes to relate the teachings of the good book to the modern world of football. This illuminating passage; primarily set as a trap against Jesus – with the scene’s backdrops  being the sin of adultery and  a system of justice which our Lord questioned and Christianity interpreted as a need for forgiveness….. – still there? Good.

We have had lots of stories in the media recently reference cheating. From the Ashley Young incidents over diving to the obvious time wasting tactics of the Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard  in the match last week against United (bless him, said the City fan) but why are we acting so shocked and outraged as if it has only just started?

Wouldn’t you like to know where and when all of  this began. All this evil that’s ruining the game I love. Did it all start this season? Did it begin at the start of the Premiership? Or was it in the eighties?  How about the seventies when in one landmark moment of football’s rich history Brian Clough told Johnny Giles, Billy Bremner, Norman Hunter and all to throw all their medals in the bin “because they had won them by cheating” – a cruel line that didn’t do justice to the defining team of the era and signed his death warrant with the best job in English football?

Perhaps it started at Anfield: where from 1972 until 1991 any forward from an opposing team had to be permanently maimed and carried off on a stretcher before the referee would even consider awarding  a penalty? The mysterious phenomenon that football supporters refer to as “Fergie time” pales into insignificance compared to that – but perhaps these are different  arguements rearing up here.

The ones we like to call “agenda”s against our own particular clubs; anyhow back to the cheating. I think it started with you. Yes, you! Back when you first began to kick a ball about.  Remember it now do you? Picking teams in the street. If there were seven of you I bet you were always in the side with the four, and who picked the teams? Him who brought the ball and did he pick his best mates or the best players? The greatest arguments though had to be of where to place the imaginary crossbar: “over”, “under”, ”over”.  This crossbar in a ten year old’s head could be anywhere from 6 foot to 12 foot high and I am absolutely positive that these not so childish arguments alongside the efforts of a Russian linesman in 1966 were the origins of the  calls for goal line technology.

“Flash Goalies”! Now there was a concept any corrupt FIFA official would have been proud of. For younger readers, the flash goalie appeared in all manner of small games in the park, the street or the playground where whoever is nearest to the Goal gets to use his hand. If I had a pound for every time I had a shot tipped down by the hands of a keeper only to follow up and have another keeper pick the ball up I would be in the corporate suites by now.  Street keepers, flash or not, were also the biggest cheats out there. Who remembers turning around against the current play and witnessing  a keeper sneakily and in a hideously evil manner nudge the Adidas holdall or school jumper acting as a post a good Yard closer to the other one? Who didn’t do it themselves?

The worst examples of cheating witnessed for me are the “special one’s” not so secret orders to Ramos and Xavi Alonso (ex–Liverpool, say no more) to get themselves sent off ; therefore facing suspension for a dead rubber and eligibility for the knockout phase of the Champions League and the horrible events in Paris where the Irish were knocked out of the World Cup by the previously wonderful and could do no wrong, hand of Thierry Henry.
Now I have used these as my worst examples by studying each incident using my own particular brand of ethics and moral code. The Madrid fiasco was ridiculous in that it was such a perversion of the system with the prospect of little reward in real terms it made a mockery of the sport. The Paris incident was far worse, and possibly led  to the loss of millions for the Irish FA and the broken dreams of its fans and players.

A couple of weeks ago The Daisy Cutter’s Noel Draper made a very good case for the non -introduction of technology in football. He argued convincingly that the game in the school and the park and at Wembley all had to be to the same set of rules and referee decisions and “Gods of Football” luck at all levels. His thoughtful but minority opinion lost another that night in Paris.

When the issue of the Ashley Young “diving” was discussed on the forum my response was “Yes ,it’s cheating but if it was Dzeko or Balotelli it would be professionalism”.
The answer to all this is clear. We are men, we are tribal and we are fickle. We conveniently forget the misdemeanours of our own. We take with us to our graves the injustices against our team. We reserve the right to be fickle and we reserve the right to predjudice. Notice Liverpool get two unflattering comments in such a short piece.
According to everybody my team face one of their biggest matches ever on Monday night against the current Premiership Champions and current Champions League runners up. Will I be outraged if City win by cheating? No. My prejudice will tell me truthfully that “justice has been done”.  If we lose by cheating will I cry like a baby or will  I take it like a man and remember the boy who is to blame?

“Let him who hath no sin, cast the first stone”.

23rd September 1989 – City 5 United 1

Due to City’s spell in Division 2, the fixture had not been played for almost two years (testimonials aside) and having spent a fortune re-building his side, Alex Ferguson’s United were hot favourites to claim bragging rights. City’s line-up included no fewer than 5 products of their youth academy and 4 of those were local lads. Played on a gloriously sunny afternoon, the hordes of Mancunians poured into Moss Side in their thousands creating a tension filled, hostile atmosphere.

Local referee Neil Midgley led out the teams to a cacophony of noise from all sides of Maine Road. The Kippax and Platt Lane stands packed to the rafters. United started well and looked set to put City in their place. The match though, was disrupted when violence broke out in the North Stand. A number of Reds had acquired tickets for the home end and were intent on causing mayhem. It was the worst thing they could do. City fans fought back and drove the trouble causers forwards onto the edge of the playing surface, Midgley took the teams off until order was restored and Mel Machin calmed his players down and sent them back out with a new intent.

At this point, my old man made a decision for me that I will always be grateful for. As an 11 year old lad, I’d never witnessed football aggro on this scale and only wanted to go home. I imagined walking a gauntlet back to my Dad’s car with fighting all around after the match and thought it best to escape while everyone was inside. The decision was vindicated within minutes. First David Oldfield smashed in from White’s daisy cutter cross and whilst a still clearly shell-shocked United defence were trying to compose themselves, Paul Lake caused more carnage in the area and the ball fell to Trevor Morley to poke home to make it 2-0. Before half-time, a sweeping City move was finished off by a diving header from Scouser Ian Bishop. The match seemed to be over before the break.

United came out with after half-time looking to get back into the game as soon as possible and a spectacular scissor kick by future City manager Mark Hughes had blue nerves jangling again. City legend Paul Lake grasped the nettle though and went on a one man mission to finish off United’s comeback. Drawing Jim Leighton after a lung bursting run from the middle of the pitch before a simple pass for Oldfield’s tap-in, Lake’s inspiration earned him a man of the match award. The Platt Lane began to empty but the goal of the day was still to come. Ian Bishop’s killer pass was allowed to bounce twice by David White on the right wing, who then crossed on the half-volley. Andy Hinchcliffe’s bullet header and five fingered salute celebration in front of the Platt Lane cleared the few Reds that remained.

The walk back to the car that I’d so dreaded earlier in the day actually became one of my most cherished memories of Maine Road. It was like a sky blue carnival had hit Moss Side with City fans hanging out of car sunroofs and window, tooting their horns and playing ‘The Boys in Blue’ over and over again. Alex Ferguson said of the occasion in his autobiography that he returned home and lay on his bed with his head under the pillows for a few hours that night. I went to bed dreaming that every derby would be like this, the nightmare truth was there would be a 13 year wait for another City win.

9th November 2002 – City 3 United 1

After 13 years of Derby hell for City fans, Maine Road had one last chance to send the old enemy home from Moss Side with slapped legs. In the time that had passed since the 5-1 annihalation, United had dominated English football whilst City had fallen down two divisions and come back. Again, United were the odds-on favourites for this one. The confidence coming from the Red camp was summed up in the morning papers where Gary Neville had spoke of his determination to never lose a Derby. Whether or not Kevin Keegan pinned the back page to the dressing room wall or not I don’t know but there was a determination from the start from the home side. Neville continued to make an arse of himself in the tunnel immediately prior to kick-off when he completely shunned United’s legendary keeper Peter Schmeichel who was playing his one season in goal for City. His day was about to go downhill rapidly.

Early in the first half, Nicolas Anelka robbed Rio Wobblegob of the ball and set Shaun Goater loose. Anelka continued into the box and was on hand when Goater’s shot was parried by Fabien Barthez to side foot the hosts into the lead. The lead didn’t last long though, Ryan Giggs searched for a Red shirt in the City box and found Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who duly equalised by sliding to meet the ball, lifting it past Schmeichel.
What followed next will live long in the memories of Blues everywhere and will haunt the senior Chuckle Brother for the rest of his days. The late Marc Vivien Foe launched a ball towards Goater but over hit his pass. Gary Neville simply had to play the ball out of defence down the channel but instead tried to be clever by taking on the Bermudan forward. He dithered for too long and watched in horror as Goater robbed the ball and restored City’s lead with a smart finish from an acute angle. The United skipper held his head in his hands as the Blues attempted to raise the four roofs of Maine Road.

The second half began with both teams going for the game deciding goal. Had United scored it, the Derby could have gone either way. Anelka squandered a one-on-one chance early on but the Citizens didn’t have long to wait. Niclas Jensen’s cross field pass was cleverly diverted by Eyal Berkovic into the path of the Goat who drew Barthez before lifting the ball over him and into the United net for his 100th City goal. The North Stand changed their famous “Feed The Goat” chant for a short while and to a man stood on their chairs to boom “Who Let The Goat Out?”.

The final clash at Maine Road ended City’s Derby draught and Gary Neville became the oddest cult hero in Blue history.

10th February 2008 – United 1 City 2

City went in to this Derby having not won at Old Trafford for 34 years. The match was to mark the 50th anniversary of the Munich disaster and the build up to the match was dominated by tributes and hopes that City fans would act respectively for such a sombre occasion. United turned out in a 1950′s retro kit without any sort of emblem. City ditched their sponsors to give the game a pure feel.

Prior to the game, Alex Ferguson and City boss Sven-Goran Eriksson laid wreaths on the pitch before an impeccably observed minutes silence for all those who lost their lives on the return journey from Belgrade. Simple red and white and blue and white bar scarves were held aloft during the silence as Mancunians of both red and blue showed the watching world that we can do class when the occasion calls for it.

The game got underway and the City fans recieved their rewards. Joe Hart kept United at bay who had started the brighter and a save from Ryan Giggs kept the score at 0-0. City grew into the game and a ball from Martin Petrov found Stephen Ireland who’s blocked shot fell for Darius Vassell. Now Vassell was never a natural goal-getter and needed two bites of the cherry to put City into the lead. United pressed for an equaliser but it was the Citizens who struck on the brink of half-time. Petrov had tormented United all afternoon and when he crossed from the right wing, debutant Benjani glanced a header home to send his new team in two goals to the good. The missed plane on tranfer deadline day during the previous week was forgotten as the travelling fans embraced him with a spontaneous chorus of “Benjani, whoa, Benjani, whoa, he comes from Zimbabwe, he scored on Derby Day”.

The second half saw United contiue to search for a way back but City were always dangerous on the counter attack. Michael Carrick’s consolation goal came too late for the home side and City completed a league double over United. In front of a worldwide audience, the Blues had shown their true colours. Fantastic behaviour from the away section and a confident display on the field, City left Old Trafford with their heads held high.

16th April 2011 – City 1 United 0

Until tonight, probably the biggest Manchester Derby there has ever been. The Scousers, Sheffield and North London had all had their days out in the sunshine at Wembley and now finally, England’s second city had the nation’s undivided attention. An enormous occasion for both clubs, City desperate to end a 35 year wait for a trophy which would lead to the tearing down of the infamous banner adorning the Stretford End, for United the chance to keep the Blue juggernaut juddering along in uncertainty for another year.

The journey started early for me. Setting off from Hull at 5:15 in the morning, I had to call in at my Red brother’s house in Eccles before meeting my Dad at Knutsford Services, ditching my car and heading for Watford and the Wembley Central train. The motorway was awash with Sky Blue. Admittedly we saw plenty of Reds making their way but pulling into Watford Gap Services, the Blues outnumbered Reds easily.

On arriving in London, news began to circulate that Wembley Way had been the scene of outbreaks of violence. Albeit in a City pub, fans were talking of Blues being attacked on the most famous walkway in British football. I made a quick decision to avoid it and kept the rumours from my 10 year old lad. The atmosphere was evil and we saw Blues misbehaving as well as Reds.

The match began with United looking to put the game to bed early. Dimitar Berbatov was guilty of missing a couple of glorious chances although Joe Hart’s goalkeeping was the main reason he failed with the first. City began to get a foothold in the match and Mario Balotelli tested Edwin van der Sar before half time. The teams went in deadlocked at the break and emerged knowing that the next 45 minutes would provide bragging rights for a long, long time back home.

A mix-up in the United defence early in the second period saw Yaya Toure drive at Nemanja Vidic and slide the ball under van der Sar. The City contingent, still aching from an exhausting pre-match ‘Poznan’, erupted. From the first minute to long after the final whistle, they never stopped chanting, singing and roaring Mancini’s men to victory. There was time for Paul Scholes to lose the plot and recieve a red card before the whistle was blown and City were booking return journeys for 28 days later.

At full time, Mario Balotelli’s celebrations were too much for Anderson and Rio Ferdinand who spat their dummies out and caused a completely unnecessary scene on the Wembley pitch.

The Citizens supporters sang long and hard as the team and coaching staff acted out an impromtu ‘Poznan’. Manchester City went on to win the F.A.Cup to end the decades of hurt. It was made all the sweeter for beating the old enemy en route.

23rd October 2011 – United 1 City 6

And so to the most obvious and recent City victory over United. Both sides had started the Premier League season extremely well and were the top two going into the Manchester Derby for the first time in years. The weekend’s headlines had been all about Mario Balotelli whose home had been the unlikely venue for a premature firework display. Roberto Mancini kept faith with the Italian and sent City out in an attacking formation. Alex Ferguson’s claim a couple of weeks beforehand that the Reds had played “all the top teams” was about to come right back and bite his Govan rear.

The first half saw City begin slowly but gradually grow into the game. Ashley Young practised his theatrics and Wayne Rooney looked threatening. Midway through the opening period, David Silva and James Milner combined to set up Balotelli for a sublime side footed finish from the edge of the Stretford End penalty area. One of the most iconic celebrations in Premier League history followed when Mario raised his shirt to reveal a t-shirt printed with the legendary “Why Always Me?”.

United were stunned and were visibly rocked on their heels shortly after half-time when Jonny Evans was sent off for a professional foul. Balotelli doubled City ‘s lead shortly after and the game began to run away from the hosts. Sergio Aguero made it 0-3 within ten minutes and the game was almost out of United’s reach. Darren Fletcher pegged one back in the last ten minutes and I admit that briefly, I envisaged another remarkable comeback from the Reds. There were more goals to come but the match was only going to get worse for the home supporters.

As the game drifted into injury time, a City corner was eventually turned in by Edin Dzeko. David Silva was played through and slid the ball between the legs of David de Gea to make it 1-5 but the goal of the game and the pass of the season were still to come. City have previous for saving the best for last when thrashing their neighbours as the 5-1 victory above described. The ball was headed towards David Silva in his own half, Silva controlled it with his first touch and with his second, volleyed through the United defence perfectly for Dzeko to run onto and smash a sixth past the bemused de Gea.

United fans attempted to break their own stadium evacuation record set at Wembley only six months earlier as the away section rubbed their eyes and checked and double checked the Old Trafford scoreboard. The scene of so many miserable matches, the self proclaimed “Theatre of Dreams” had become a fantasy playground for all things Blue. The chance to complete a second league double in four years tonight would give City the advantage in this thrilling title race as we head for the Derby of all Derbies.

After a season of ongoing drama between the two Manchester clubs, it was almost destiny that City’s first title challenge can be ended, or given a huge boost by way of a derby game. I could talk about all of the famous derbies in the past, about the importance of this particular one in the future of both clubs, about the mind games between the clubs but it’s essentially all just words. We know what we have to do. United know what they have to do. It’s 11 versus 11 on Monday with the ultimate prize up for grabs.

I don’t really do previews, and indeed this is the first. One of the reasons that I originally chose not to do so was because shape alters between each game depending on the opposition and their strengths, so trying to draw parallels from watching a one or two games that you can predict events with doesn’t work. In preparation for this then, I analysed the United-Wigan game, the United-Aston Villa game, the United-City games (the league and cup game), and of course I have my analysis notes from City-Wolves, City-Norwich and City-West Brom games handy. What follows are the general trends noted and what I believe to be an accurate picture.

United aren’t as simple as they may first appear. Although they set up with a basic 4-4-2, it’s incredibly fluid and adapts to a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 or 6-3-1 depending upon whether they are in possession of the ball and where the threat is coming from.

Their basic 4-4-2 shape, and also what I believe will be their line up against City, is De Gea in goal, Rafael at right back, Ferdinand and Evans in the centre, Evra at left back. On the left wing is Ashley Young, whilst Valencia is on the right with Scholes and Carrick operating in the centre. Rooney and Welbeck are up front.

However, the United team seems to work in blocks. The full backs and the wingers represent one block. The centre backs and the centre mids are another block, whilst the strikers are the other block. their movement and fluidity depends not only on whether they are in possession or not, but what their partner is also up to.

The fullbacks and the wingers move in tandem with each other, and take turns providing width. Whilst Young or Valencia might come wide, Evra will tuck in centrally and vice versa. Defensively, they often end up side by side when teams have the ball in the centre D and United’s line is deep. This translates into 6 at the back, with a sort of diamond like midfield/attack sat in front of them. I’m not sure that we’ll have much joy down here, as Valencia and Young are incredibly organised dropping back and we won’t be able to create overloads. Our West Brom system relied on our fullbacks getting forwards and an attacking midfielder moving over to create a passing triangle on the wing, giving us both an overload and space to breath in possession. As I see Yaya playing, I don’t think that we will have the fluidity necessary to create these as Barry cannot be his pivot point that sets them up.

United’s central block is a square consisting of Ferdinand and Evans with Scholes and Carrick. It’s actually a bit weird how the defence and deep lying centre mids move in tandem, almost like they were tied together. Apart from Evans, that is. Now, let me start by saying that I rate Evans quite highly and he has been an excellent defender this year. He’s good in the air, he can pass a ball, he can run with it, and his tackling is pretty good. However, he constantly breaks his own defensive line akin to what Zab does for us when he presses the wrong zone. He’s far too willing to get right up close to an attacker and will cover 5-10 yards to do so. If he attempts this with Tevez, Aguero, Nasri and Silva, they’ll ping the ball around him and potentially embarrass him. Our greatest strength is the expressive movement, quick passing and intelligent movement of our players and Johnny Evans just became the man in City’s collective crosshairs. If United want anything out of this game, Scholes and Ferdinand have got to help Evans. Speaking of ‘Plug’ Ferdinand, his biggest defensive weakness seems to be how long it takes him to turn when he is running back towards his own goal. I imagine that his “never fully healed” back injury that almost retired him a few years back has something to do with this but in combination with Evans, you can see where I think the gaps will be Scholes and Carrick work extremely well together, it must be said. Scholes is the guy who wants to get his boot on it, whilst Carrick does pre-emptive marking. Marking wise, United employ a mixed system of both zonal and man marking depending upon where the threat is coming from. In the defensive third, it’s almost always man marking but the space in front of that is where they mark space. They block off the space to passes that they do not want the opposition to take but leave obvious gaps so the man in possession has a teammate to pass to. As he attempts the pass, they immediately close the man down and try to nick it. This will be interesting to watch against City, purely because it relies on Scholes and Carrick (two very intelligent footballers) reading the game better than the man in possession, who could well be Nasri, Silva, Toure or Barry.

Up front, their attacking block is a simplistic “give and go” system. One will always stay high up whilst the other one has free roam on the pitch. Although Rooney is famous for his dropping back, it’s a rotation system between him and Welbeck and Welbeck is no slouch himself in the attacking midfield positions.

The football they play consists of a combination of counter attacking and wing play, with the objective being trying to find space for their players between the D of the 18 yard box and the penalty spot. This is not United in their pomp though. With a team consisting of Tevez, Ronaldo and Rooney up front, they broke with speed and precision passing, using one-two combinations all the way up the pitch. This toned down version of United however is a little slower on the break than they were and rely on much more through balls onto the wings.

One thing struck me after sitting and analysing their games in such detail. There is no joyfulness in the football of Manchester United. There is very little expressiveness, none of their players seem to be enthused and they are disciplined. Much of their chances are created from well drilled patterns of play emanating from (I imagine) months and years of hairdryer treatments on rainy, muddy pitches at Carrington with their stern eyed Scot overlooking their every move. Ferguson knows how to be successful and it shows in their organisation. They are a very well oiled machine, moving not only in the blocks mentioned earlier but these blocks then moving in relation to other blocks. It’s the footballing equivalent of Ivan Drago; all disciplined strength but seemingly no love for the game or self awareness. David Silva could not play in this system; it would kill him just like it killed Juan Sebastian Veron, another player who required the trust and expressiveness that Manchester United do not allow their players to have. At their highest levels with the triumvirate of Tevez, Ronaldo and Rooney, they allowed their players to shine and shine they did but as their flair players moved on they were replaced with “efficient players” like Valencia and Young. Over the last 5-10 years, United have created Picasso and made him paint commemorative plates with cats on.

Yes, he’s much more efficient and successful by normal standards but they’ve killed his spirit. And that’s what Man United lack at the moment; the artistic spirit of adventure that enthuses all of us who love the game, players and fans alike. This is why Scholes is still so important to them in a wider sense, he’s the only one who brings joy to their ruthlessness. This is also why they can take poor players and win them Champions League medals (Wes Brown, Ronny Johnson, Jesper Blomqvist, etc), because their players aren’t important, they are just machines on the pitch who execute the instructions laid out before them.

Philosophy aside, the meat and potatoes of the United side has always been their ability to recreate these drills. They have a few favourites that City need to watch out for.

The first one is a counter attacking move which constantly puts them into dangerous positions. In a breaking situation, a long ball is played up to a man up front, who then brings it to feet, passes it five yards back to a player running up to them, who immediately plays a direct/long through ball to the wings. The players are different but the movement is always the same, with the objective of getting either Scholes or Rooney behind the man holding up the ball. Young and Valencia see this coming a mile off and when the ball gets to the feet of the man up front (Welbeck or Rooney), they know to get as wide as the pitch allows and get a sprint on as there’s a through ball coming.

This one is an interesting one to play against City and I’m not sure if it will work as well against other teams. It all relies on somebody pressuring the big man’s back in defence and losing out on control, leaving the passer free. Playing a disciplined stopper such as De Jong would alleviate this though and even if the pass does manage to get through, we don’t use our full backs in set piece situations in which we’re attacking anyway so it’s a straight speed race.

The second one is the breaking midfielder routine. When Carrick or Scholes find themselves in a Yaya Toure style piece of space to run into, they don’t try power their way through. Instead, they will carry the ball five yards, Rooney will drop back to provide a one-two pass and they end up carrying the ball another five yards into the opposition area. Again you’d be surprised how many times this particular passage of play is successful and it’s always the same characters involved.

I feel that this centre approach to build up is actually more of a threat than wing play, simply because our pressing routine in the final defensive third makes the one-two an enemy. The absolutely pivotal thing here is to make sure that it is a defensive midfielder and not a defender who is tracking the backwards run of Rooney, as this is the space which they most often try to exploit, particularly Welbeck who makes more shadow runs that confuse defenders than he does active runs in which he tries to receive the ball in the box. I’m happy enough that Tevez would track any run back from Scholes or more likely Carrick and Lescott won’t get suckered out. As a quick aside, Lescott has come on leaps and bounds under Mancini in not getting suckered in at the wrong time, and under Hughes he used to constantly piss me off by getting beaten by one-twos.

Another is more of a “finishing touch” thing than an actual piece of build up play. The build up play is the phase of play that gets you into the position to make a finishing touch, or an assist to make it a bit less wordy. Every man and his dog is aware of the threat that Valencia and Young pose from the wings. However, United are not a team who rely on aerial strength; almost every cross from the wing is at knee level or below and it’s very rarely behind the line of defence. Those times when it is behind the lines come from Valencia smacking the ball across the goal and hoping for a foot out, something that I advised City’s wingers to do a few reviews ago.

In crossing situations, Rooney LOVES to run diagonally from front post to back post, then check his run at the last minute and find some space around the penalty area. In fact, changing the speed of his run is probably the single most way that he manages to create himself five yards of space and it’s a bit unpredictable to the exact moment when he will do it. Valencia and Young both see, to try and find him with a low sidefoot pass to a few yards above the pen spot even if he has yet to check his run. Welbeck much prefers to go to the front post and hope for a smash pass in the between the keeper and defence, whilst Scholes or Carrick are always on the bounds of the box in case it drops there.

I’m officially worried about this. I mentioned in the Wolves Review that one of the problems that comes from our double pressing man system on the wings (when Clichy/Barry move over to the left back spot to press a right winger for example), is that it creates a large gap just outside of the area IF the winger runs to the touchline and cuts the pass back across. This is Rooney territory, and when he has the ball and a bit of space here, he’s absolutely lethal. There are several ways to deal with this, and all of them seem to involve breaking defensive shape (which I don’t think we like to do) or alternatively give up some attacking option (which we definitely don’t like to do). Whomever is the attacking midfielder on their side usually tracks the full backs so they can’t be central. Either Tevez will need to cover this space or we’ll have to wing it a bit and stop the source. I’m betting we stop the source.

It’s not all doom and gloom for City, as United’s defence is vulnerable to the type of direct balls that we like to play away from home, due to the aforementioned problems with the Ferdinand/Evans partnership. One potential exploit that I have noticed is that they really do not like the ball in between the lines on the wings. If it’s just in front of the full back but just behind the winger, both of them are attracted to the ball which creates a few moments of confusion and their centre backs are attracted to the big gap next to them. If we can make shadow runs into that space, we can drag their centre backs across, leaving space in the central positions. For all of their intelligence, Scholes and Carrick are not great at covering the wings defensively and are much better in the centre.

Set piece wise, you can stop Rooney breaking quite easily. As he often takes up the back post position defensively and they use a man marking system, if the man at the back (which would be Zab for us) goes very, very wide, Rooney tends to follow him to become closer to the byline than the centre. If a ball does drop for United, he has that extra few seconds of sprint to do and he isn’t in the central position that he prefers to break from.
United like to break as fast as possible on the wings, and De Gea has a very good kick which will often create this opportunity. He REALLY doesn’t like to be pressed when a defender passes back though and often hesitates.

On attacking set pieces, Scholes is a huge threat and often the man who the cross is aimed towards. I’m sure everybody knows the score here, Scholes sits on the outside of the box and tries to get a hit in wherever possible. In our defensive setup, Silva is left as the free man who can break quickly, and it is his job to cover the territory just outside of the box so he’ll need to keep his concentration levels up. Just as a quick point though, a centre midfield of Scholes and Carrick are poor in getting back to stop the counter and as they leave their full backs up often, this is another potential flashpoint for City.

All in all, the game will probably go as many expect. City will use their superior movement to try and create space whilst United will use direct balls over to the wings as their main style. We have potential overload opportunities as do they but the deck is not slanted in either favour as much as we’d like to believe. This isn’t just a fight for the title. This is a fight for the crown of Manchester, a fight for art against efficiency, for intelligence and expression over discipline and organisation. City are organised and have their system but we rely on the beauty of our play to create much of our chances. We invite people to join us, and to flower. United invite people to go to them and have all forms of free thinking eradicated for the good of the system. It’s individualism against fascism. United move like a tank, City move like a ninja. Two completely contrasting clubs with completely contrasting styles and completely contrasting players.

As I mentioned, I’m shit at prediction so I won’t bother. What I will say, is that if we’re at our best; at our most fluid, our most expressive, our most artistic, our most beautiful and magnificent, if we are at our most free, we will always triumph. We are not United and we should not try to be. We are different and we must walk on to that pitch not as the soldiers that United will bring, but as the eleven visionaries that we are. We must show them a steel nerve, a hard fight but also display the joyfulness of the game that they sold their footballing souls for.

Bring on Monday.

After a hard fought but ultimately satisfying victory at Norwich, a trip to the league’s bottom club ensued. With the news filtering through that United had dropped two points at home to Everton, City needed to beat, and relegate Wolves to stand any chance of the title.

We setup in our familiar 4-2-3-1 shape with a few key differences. Clichy started on his usual left back role, Komps and Lescott formed the defensive triangle with Hart in net, and Zab started at right back. Barry and Yaya were preferred over the Barry/De Jong pairing of the last three games, and Silva played on the left with Nasri on the right instead of the opposite as we saw against West Brom and Norwich. Our own duo of lethal Argentinians were up front, with Aguero as the top man and Tevez behind him, dropping into midfield to form a triangle with Yaya/Barry.

The Nasri/Silva side switch made sense. As I noted in the Norwich article, we struggled down our right side last match with Zab automatically pressing the man and Silva not covering the runs of the full back, and Nasri is actually a bit more disciplined defensively than our Dave is.

It’s interesting to note our pressing zones here, as it does have a bearing on the team selection. I wish that I could come up with a graphic to suit this, but alas my image skills rank right up there with Horseback Archery in the List Of Things I’m Crap At, so you’ll have to bear with me.

Our wing pressing is split into three zones pretty much separated as a third of the pitch each. In the final third on the wings, we rely on Tevez on the right and Aguero on the left to link up with whomever out of Silva/Nasri is on that side and press the man. In the central third of the wing, Silva/Nasri doubles with Barry/Yaya to press whilst in our defensive third, Zab/Clichy link up with Barry/Yaya to double on their man, whilst Silva/Nasri is expected to watch for any overlaps or oncoming midfielders. Of course, the whole teams slides over as one so we leave no gaps. Theoretically. I’ll talk about this more in the United Preview that I’ve got half done in my head but this does leave us completely out of options for cross field balls, and with Valencia basically hugging the touchline all day, I worry. But as always I digress.

For organisation fans, Aguero/Tevez cover the ball centrally in their third, the middle third is covered almost exclusively by Barry who does his own impression of having a ‘bulldog like approach’ (watch him in the zones, he’s a madman when out of possession) and our defensive third is covered by Barry/Yaya. The rest of the guys tend to stay in their shape. Apart from Tevez, obviously, he generally presses where he wants in the central zones, all the way back into the defensive third if his fancy takes him.

With the above in mind, I can better explain what my problem was with Zab in the last game and what it was again for long periods of time in this game. Unlike Richards, Zab will not only press his man in the defensive third of the wing, but will also press his man in the middle third of the wing. This is something which I’m sure is an admirable trait but it completely knackers our shape at times and it leaves a big pile of space to run into on the overlap. I cannot work out whether he has been told to do this or not because Kompany does move over to TRY and cover his wing but whether this is Kompany being excellent or doing his job, I cannot determine. I can say for sure that Clichy, Kolarov and Richards do not press in this zone.

The Silva/Nasri swap could also be reflected in the fact that when Zab does invade another zone, Silva tends to stay as the second man pressing whereas Nasri tends to let Zab do that and watch for the overlap. With Silva on the other side this doesn’t seem like a problem as much.

Anyway, the game started in a bother for the first few minutes. I still was a little annoyed that we weren’t as fluid as we were at home but the initial excitement at that shape used against West Brom had subsided and I was left with the sobering reality of the Norwich game Part Two.

Despite being quite rigid positionally in the opening stages, Wolves had some fire in their bellies and wanted to out organise City whilst we tried to out move Wolves. It wasn’t unlike the Chelsea-Barca game the other night but a more toned down version of such. Most teams try this tactic against us since the Sunderland and Stoke games and most fail with it. Wolves had some early joy though. They seemed to pinpoint out left flank as a possibly weak zone and set about attacking down there. Attacking is a bit strong, probing us is probably a better description. The two man pressing of Barry and Clichy easily covered their wing play and when they lost possession, Wolves weren’t working hard enough.

One of the things about the intelligent movement of our players and the double man zonal pressing approach is that teams need to be highly drilled to get themselves back into shape as quickly as possible or be potentially exploited. To City’s credit, we have always been very good at this but early against Wolves our transitions were a little on the slow side. Happily, Wolves’ scouts must have been asleep for half a season and we were able to pass it back to Kompany or Lescott who would hold on to the ball whilst those in front of them got their heads into the game again.

The two of Barry and Yaya was a special interest to me as I wanted to see how differently their interactions and combination play was with Tevez dropping into the top of a midfield triangle instead of Aguero and this was the first opportunity to do so in a long time. It was expected that Barry would take over the De Jong role of the stopper and Yaya would resume his role as the midfield general but it seems that Mancini opted to keep Barry in the mopper upper role he played so well against West Brom and Norwich, and put Yaya in a more defensively minded role. When we were breaking out of midfield, it was Barry who was getting forward in the early stages.

I don’t think Yaya particularly fits a defensive midfield role and I’ve read comments from Mancini expressing the same sentiment. To be honest, I don’t actually see any role for him in a team with the Fluid Four and think Barry/De Jong is the better pairing for this new shape that we seem to be working on since the reintroduction of Tevez. As the game against Norwich and this match against Wolves shown, we are far better with Barry/De Jong at the back and Yaya in front of them. This however means a choice between Our Dave and Nasri, which is picking between a hugely in form player or a hugely talented player. If only we were allowed 12 on the pitch….

To their credit, Wolves were doing excellently in organising their shape and deciding when to break, when to slow the play down and when to try and exploit us. Their defensive positioning was a good match against us, and we had to work very, very hard on our off the ball movement to try and find little gaps here and there but we seemed to manage it well. It was actually a very interesting game in that regards and despite the result, Wolves players had nothing to be ashamed of. If only they’d played as hard against the other 18 teams, they probably wouldn’t be in the position that they are now. They were particular adept at closing down any wide movements from Zab or Clichy by excellent tracking and grouping 3 or 4 together on the wing to stop the formation of those lovely passing triangles that we try to create.

When Wolves were in possession in that “Hardcore Barry” zone, Barry and Tevez were both working their sock, pants, underwear, gloves, hats and snoods off to regain the ball. There was a concerted effort here to regain the ball high in the centre of midfield and play an early ball. Unfortunately, we were still in the first ten minutes of the game or so which means that we were getting back into shape slower than Rik Waller and we left gaps in our midfield, happily unexploited by a nervy Wolves team.

Speaking of gaps, I was concerned in the last two games regarding the spaces that we left between the line of midfield and defence in these situations due to the defensive line not pushing up enough but those were eradicated here so well done us.

Again though, we play a 4-2-3-1 in possession which becomes a 4-4-1-1 out of possession so the need to constantly transform shape whilst pressing in your zone, looking to make off the ball runs, moving into space for a counter, tracking any oncoming defenders, etc can all become a little bit on the “tied up in knots” side, especially when Wolves are making as many unforced errors as they were.

Just like in our other away games since Tevez came back, our main attacking play was for Barry (or sometimes Kompany) to regain possession and make a quick, direct through ball to an attacking player to run on to. It’s all a bit desperate at times and it must knacker Aguero but it’s effective. Unfortunately for us, Aguero was starting from the left channel and awful lot in an attempt to bend his run around the organised Wolves defence so there were numerous times where he *just* missed recieving the ball. Other times when he did break through successfully, his finishing wasn’t at its highest level and he failed to find the net, a fact that Mancini was absolutely not happy about on the touchline. When you buy a £38m striker, and create three one on one chances for him and he misses them all in an absolutely crucial fixture, anybody would start playing baseball with their Fruit Pastelles.

After the first 15 minutes or so, Wolves became a bit more obvious in targeting our left back position but again to little effect. They did however show another big weakness in City’s defensive plan which I’m sure scouts from ‘them lot’ noticed. As we use a double man to press any wingers who are running, it creates a large space every time they decide to go to the byline and cut it back to the edge the box. The space that would usually be covered there is left completely open and this is the fourth or fifth game where I’ve seen this one move leave that gap which was happily unexploited by the Norwichs, the West Broms and the Wolves of this world. It’s a real danger of ours though and we need to watch it.

We’d started to blossom into the game a little more now and the wing combination play between Clichy, Barry and Aguero was nice to see. Nasri and Silva were told to swap wings a bit more often, possibly due to Wolves attacking down the opposite flank but they were getting involved a lot too. Nasri had a lovely piece of link up play where Zab found some room on the right, gave it to the oncoming Barry, who threaded a lovely defence splitting pass through to Nasri, eventually scuffing his shot a little wide of the post. The signs were promising though and Wolves were struggling to deal with Nasri and Zab down that right wing. This was then succeeded by Zab forgetting he’s actually a defender for a little while and getting beat by invading the second zone. Following this, he forgot he was an attacker and didn’t break with the rest of the team, leaving his right wing spot completely open. So y’know, rough with the smooth and all that. Our shape was certainly better when we were out of possession here, despite Zab.

The breakthrough eventually came from Clichy in a nice passage of play. He picked up the ball in his left back position, beat a man and then played a Barryesque quick, direct through ball to the charging Aguero, who found his shooting boots and buried it to put City ahead. Perhaps Aguero was helped by the deliverer of the ball as they both started on the left, but either way it was a bloody good ball from Clichy, who had yet another excellent game and is having a wonderful end to the season.

To their credit, Wolves awoke after their goal and threatened a little, mainly exploiting through Zabs poor pressing and Yaya’s somewhat strange passing but their chances were limited by a strong backline performance from Lescott and Kompany.

Barry was also his usual excellent self and I begin to love him more and more as every passing week goes by. He’s nearly an ever present in our team and it isn’t hard to see why. Barry is one of those players that you keep finding new things that you like about him, and this week it was his heading. On long goal kicks into the defensive midfield area, he seems to constantly win the header or sweep up the second ball. Ever goal kick may as well be renamed a “pass to Barry” as he usually ends up in possession within 5 seconds of it. In addition to all of his other traits which I have previously written about (and a piece on his ability to tactically foul which I want to slip in somewhere or other), it’s another piece of the Gareth Barry jigsaw. A riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma. I could watch this man play for another ten years and learn something new every day. Study him folks, he’s utterly brilliant and if you don’t see why, you aren’t looking hard enough. Gareth Barry is a masturbatory footballer. You start off not really seeing what all of the fuss is about, might find it a bit overrated and rubbish to begin with but then in one moment everything becomes clear and you think “bloody hell, I get it now, that’s bloody great!”. Then you can’t get enough of it and obsess over doing it forever and ever in every spare moment of every spare day. Then get slapped with a restraining order and a divorce. I really need to make these analogies less personal.

Anyway, the first half came to a close with the score 1-0 to City. I thought we had an ok first half. We were wasteful up front and had problems controlling our wings mainly because we didn’t know which side to put Silva. Yaya wasn’t having a shining game and Tevez was a little anonymous at times but nothing fatal that made me think we’d lose the game.

As the second half began, Tevez started a little bit deeper than he had been doing in an attempt to get himself more involved in the game and it worked. The objective seemed to be to get Tevez on the ball and facing the defence with players moving in front of him and 48 minutes in, he seemed to find this scenario. This was also the point at which this writer called the De Jong on change for reasons I’ll explain in a minute.

Wolves main tactic was still to try long, cross field balls whenever given the opportunity but our defensive shape was pretty good and they failed to make any meaningful impact on the game. If I was a completely picky writer, and I’m totally a completely picky writer, you could probably say that Zab was too central when the ball was on the opposite wing but only by a couple of yards. Enough space to invite a Wolves player onto him, but not enough space to actually punish him. When Zab had his next 5 minutes as an attacker, he again linked up very well with Nasri to create some good expansive play. Clichy seemed pretty bombed down on the left wing, and Silva was struggling to stamp himself onto the game at this point so much of the play was focusing between Yaya, Zab, Nasri and Tevez on that right flank.

Yaya tended to drift off a bit performance wise as the half went on. He stopped dropping into the centre back position when Kompany went to cover the right back position when Zab was on the charge, his passing was too one dimensional and in the 56th minute, he lost concentration to allow a free header which forced a great save from Hart. At 1-0 up and us needing that second goal, we need to shake things up a bit.

An hour in to the game, De Jong came on for Silva and I had to restrain myself from punching the nearest object. The commentators, fans, the whole world seemed to think that this was “a defensive substitution” and “an Italian reverting to type”. If only “Mancini would go for it” like a good manager should. Rage.

This was not a defensive substitution. Let me repeat that in big letters, THIS WAS NOT A DEFENSIVE SUBSTITUTION. This substitution was almost nothing to do with Silva and was all about Yaya Toure.

As mentioned earlier, Tevez was finding that the defence were leaving him with gaps to run into in midfield. The purpose of the substitution was to put those gaps in front of Yaya Toure so that Tevez could be in front of him instead of being the one who was 20 yards deeper. Yaya wasn’t playing well at defensive mid and he was struggling to read Zabs game, whilst Wolves were exploiting it more and more. To move Yaya forward required somebody to take his spot. If you left Barry there on his own, he’d have to do the double man zone pressing on both the left and the right wing while nobody was in the centre or covering the opposite path. At 1-0, that’s stupid. Mancini had to pick between Tevez, Aguero, Silva and Nasri to take off. Nasri was doing excellent both in defence and attack. The whole point of the substitution was to get Yaya into the space with Tevez and Aguero in front of him to finish, so taking one of them off would have been pretty stupid. This left it down to Silva, who wasn’t playing a particularly good game and was struggling to defend.
De Jong came and sat with Barry (Barry actually went to Zab’s side as he’s a bit better at covering the wing play which is where Wolves were attacking), Aguero went over to the right and Nasri went over to the left (well, these rotated wings at certain points just like Silva and Nasri did but this was their starting positions). De Jong would fill in the centre back role where Yaya wasn’t which allowed Zab more freedom to do what he’s very good at and run after starting high up, and Kompany would cover the right when he was up there and they were breaking.

This is the exact same substitution (albeit Silva instead of Nasri and Yaya instead of De Jong) that was made against Norwich, and we scored four goals in that period. Yaya in a three with Barry/De Jong, Tevez up front, Aguero starting out wide with Nasri.

Following the change there was a certain shift in our playing style. Previously we had to be very direct in the balls played up field and it often cost us possession. This is the difference between having a man start high and come back into midfield and having a guy in midfield and go up into the forward positions. It gave us more of a grounding in that central zone just in front of the centre circle where we were desperately trying to win the ball earlier in the game. It also put the ball at the feet of Yaya after Mancini noticed that they had stopped pressing as much, losing energy levels later in the game. Aguero had much more luck out on the right and he and Zab used their pace to create a whirlwind of annoyance for the left back. Nasri was ignored on the left at first to Wolves’ failure and he started creating chances over there.

It wasn’t all fun and games just yet although we really started to dominate those ten minutes. There was one incident where Wolves tried their cross field ball to the left back spot, found their man and Clichy pressed him. When a full back breaks shape, you expect the defensive mid to either double up on the man (which there wasn’t time for) or cover the left back spot so there’s no gaps to run into. De Jong completely fell asleep at one point and left a huge gap open which we were lucky to get away with unscathed. He sort of realised after that and got his head together. Maybe he was just getting into the speed of the game as he’d just come on?

73 minutes in and we had another break through. There was some excellent quick thinking by Tevez in taking a quick free kick which resulted in a wonderful ball into the box and both Nasri and Toure were queuing up to finish it. Nasri got the goal and I’m glad of it. He had a very good game yet again and topping it off with a goal is a nice bonus.

As always when we’ve struck the deathblow, Tevez immediately came off for Johnson. Pretty simple shape wise, Yaya stayed in the hole, Nasri went back onto the right flank, Johnson came on the left and Aguero went back up top where he’d started the game. There was no tactical reason for this substitution other than getting Tevez off and giving Johnson some game time. It did change our shape a little as Johnson provided more width on the left but Wolves were chasing the game at this point. Barry continued to be very direct in his passing, which suited Johnson more than it did Nasri on that flank.
Yaya was pressing very high up still and winning the ball back on the right flank a lot. We opened the game up more and Johnson had a decent effort saved but we couldn’t find any other goals. To be honest, there was only Johnson on the pitch who looked like he really wanted another goal, the others willing to play a pretty conservative shape to see the game out at 2-0.

Corner wise during the game was actually interesting in a geeky type of way. Our defensive shape consists of two rows of three, and Clichy watching the near corner. Silva pretty much goes level to Clichy but drifts around waiting for the break to happen. He is supposed to run from the spareman slot to a more central position to catch the ball to break/guard any people outside the box but he’s pretty lax in his attitude to doing this and I could see us losing a goal from a straight cross to the outside of the box at some time in the future. Aguero and Tevez stay almost completely up front as you might imagine. This is pretty standard for us when we want to be more open but defend against a team good in the air. Against Norwich, we had a different setup that you can read about at the bottom here.

The attacking corner setup was the real fun part. We have our normal setup of Nasri taking the corner, then a line of three 3-4 yards back from the penalty spot, diagonally facing the goal. Kompany sits in the middle and makes a run. This is a bit different to others. We usually have our line of three all charge to the front post, taking runners with them and leaving the header of the ball in space (where Kompany is), in the middle of the goal. This is often Lescott.

However, we used the variation here with a three of Lescott, Barry and Silva. Barry made a run to the outside of the box, Lescott made a run to the back post, Kompany was in the usual heading position but made a run to the front post and Silva ran into the space vacated by Kompany. Much more importantly though, we actually had somebody challenging the keeper! Aguero didn’t really fare very well against him, but it was worth a try. Clichy and Zab were outside diagonal from the 18 yard box. And Yaya was our man to break down any counters. Carlos Tevez went front post for those keeping score.

I see the method in the madness here and Kompany’s early run to the front post and Lescott to the back post is different. The standard of the balls from Nasri weren’t really pin point enough to gauge the exact aim but I can imagine that we are continuing with the idea that the best corners attacking wise come when somebody at the front gets a knock on header to take it away from their keeper. Perhaps it was supposed to be Kompany heads it, Lescott finishes it? I think Villa is the only time I’ve seen Lescott finish it, though my mind has gone blank.

Overall, it wasn’t a vintage City performance and yet again we struggled to defend our width due to some sloppy defensive positioning. We were very direct all through the game, with Barry especially trying to release Aguero first time lots. Tevez seems to be back to his human self but still created a moment of magic that put the game out of reach. Clichy had another excellent game but questions remain over where Yaya fits in a system that includes Tevez dropping backwards. I want our Derby team to be this but with De Jong for Yaya and Richards for Zab but it may even be that Mancini drops Tevez and puts Yaya in straight from the off, setting up a written script for a sub goal?

Either way, Monday will be our toughest test yet. Our biggest weakness (defending width) is United’s biggest strength (attacking down wings). Their biggest weakness (unintelligent defenders) is our biggest strength (off the ball movement and fluidity). My record with predictions is as good as Michael Fish so I won’t bother. I will say that if we played the same system as we did against West Brom instead of the one we did against Norwich and Wolves, I’m confident in getting a result. This is another gutcheck for Mancini.

One of the issues which has buzzed around the forum in recent weeks has been refereeing standards and consistency. Sometimes this is raised as part of the ‘agenda’ argument in the context of the rags appearing to get a lot more favourable decisions than us. Other times simply in the context of refereeing standards generally being poor this season. With this in mind, I did some research on City games this season featuring Sunday’s referee Lee Mason. The results are, frankly, worrying.

First, the results we have achieved with this referee in charge this season are not encouraging. He has refereed City matches three times – Swansea (a) West Brom (a) and Liverpool (h) (CC semi 1st leg). Despite averaging 2.5 goals per game away from home this season and 3 goals per game at home, we have not scored a single goal when he has been in charge. We lost to a late goal away at Swansea, drew 0-0 away at West Brom, and lost to an early penalty in the 1st leg of the Carling Cup.

The fact that we have not scored a single goal in 270 minutes of football officiated over by Mr Mason is remarkable compared to how we have fared with other referees in charge. Mike Jones has refereed us three times this season (Blackburn home, Liverpool home, Bolton away) and we have scored a total of 9 goals with him in charge. Martin Atkinson has refereed us 4 times (Wigan away, Liverpool away, QPR away, Wigan home) and we have scored a total of 8 goals with him in charge. Under Howard Webb it is 11 goals in 4 games (Stoke away, Spurs home, Norwich home, Everton home), with Phil Dowd in charge it is 15 in 6 games (Arsenal away, Sunderland home, Arsenal home, Blackburn away, Tottenham away and Liverpool away CC semi final 2nd leg). Even with Foy and Clattenberg we keep up the average – under Foy we have scored 11 in 3 games (Norwich away, Newcastle home and – of course – rags at home in FAC 3rd round) and under Clattenberg 11 in 4 games (Bolton home, Chelsea away, United away, Fulham away).

So if you exclude referees who have only refereed us once like Stuart Attwell or Anthony Taylor (as I would have thought one game is not enough to be statistically significant) this season we have scored on average between 2 and 3 goals a game no matter who the referee is. Except, that is, when Mr Mason is in charge, who is yet to award a single Manchester City goal.

Then there is the way he appears to referee the games we play in as evidenced by the red and yellow cards shown. (A lot of stats are in here which don’t make easy reading, but stick with it.)

Mr Mason’s wikipedia entry contains figures for the cards he issued in each season up to the present one. Last season, he refereed 33 games issuing 135 yellow cards and 5 reds in the process. By that standard, he neither appears to be exceptionally lenient nor particularly harsh: in the same season Martin Atkinson issued 143 yellows and 13 reds in 41 games, Mike Dean 147 yellows and 7 reds in 43 games and Mark Clattenberg 123 yellows and 7 reds in 40 games. So far as this season is concerned, Sport UK did a piece featured on Microsoft news not long ago based on stats from Opta, in which they said “Lee Mason has been the most lenient referee, showing a card only for every 8.3 fouls and, in 13 matches, is yet to send a player off.” That of course was written before he had refereed the United/QPR game.

So, against the background of him not being a particularly trigger-happy referee in terms of issuing cards, I was not surprised to see that in the 3 City fixtures he has refereed this season he had only issued 1 yellow card against City’s opponents. That yellow card was given against Carragher during the home leg of the Carling Cup semi final. But as many reading this will remember, that ’tackle’ was a clear two-footed lunge, which even Alan Hansen recognised was rather worse than the one for which Vincent Kompany had been dismissed by Chris Foy against the rags just a few days earlier. That willingness to show a yellow for a red card incident is troubling on its own.

The match stats for the three City fixtures Mr Mason has refereed are available via the BBC website. They show that in those games Mr Mason showed 4 yellow cards to City players in total – 2 at Swansea, one at West Brom, one against Liverpool. Now, 4 cards in 3 games doesn’t seem particularly excessive. And when you remember the Opta stat indicating that on average Mr Mason issues a card for every 8.3 fouls, those four cards – given that we committed in total 33 fouls in those 4 games – seems to be about par for the course.

But then you look at how our opponents were treated in those three games. Swansea committed 9 fouls against City without any yellow cards being issued (City were given 2 yellows in the same game having committed 14 fouls). West Brom committed 8 fouls without earning any yellow cards, whereas in the same game City committed 9 fouls earning one yellow card. Against Liverpool we got one card having committed 10 fouls, they got one yellow (which should have been a straight red) having committed 11 fouls. So taking the three games Mr Mason has refereed together, whilst the cards he issues against City are almost exactly in line with his season average he has issued only one card against City’s opponents despite 27 fouls being committed. The stats indicate that he is a lot more tolerant of fouls committed against City than in relation to any other team.

With this in mind, I looked at the stats from games in which Mr Mason refereed the other teams around us – say last year’s top 4 teams. How do the stats compare?

Depressingly.

He has refereed two rag league games this season, both of which the rags won. There was the 2-0 win against QPR when Ashley Young “won” a very early penalty which Derry was wrongly sent off for. QPR committed 10 fouls but did not get any further cards. United committed 13 fouls during that game receiving 1 yellow card. Then there was a 1-0 win against Sunderland, when Sunderland got two yellow cards having committed 14 fouls, and the rags having committed 6 fouls did not receive any cards. As for arsenal, Mason has refereed them twice in the league this season: a 1-0 win away at Everton, and a 3-1 home win over Stoke. In those two games, the total of 20 fouls committed by Arsenal produced one yellow card, the 24 fouls committed against Arsenal produced 4 yellow cards. He has refereed Chelsea three times in the league: a 4-2 win at home to Villa, a 3-0 win at home to Wolves, and a 2-1 win at home to West Brom. In those three games, Chelsea were issued with 3 yellow cards having committed 30 fouls in total, their opponents were issued with 7 yellow cards having committed 32 fouls in total. (I did say it was dry.)

So – here is the important bit – Mr Mason’s “fouls to cards” ratio when fouls are committed by City players is about 8 to 1, but the ratio is 19 to 1 when fouls are committed by United players, 20 to 1 when committed by Arsenal players and 10 to 1 when committed by Chelsea players. But when fouls are committed against City players, only 1 foul from 27 has attracted a caution (and that should have been a red) but when fouls are committed against United players the ratio is 3 cards in 24 (including Derry’s red card), when committed against Arsenal players it is 4 in 24 and when fouls are committed against Chelsea players it is 7 in 32.

Having mentioned the Ashley Young/Shaun Derry incident, what about penalties in City games featuring Mr Mason? Again, the stats are revealing and worrying. We have earned 7 penalties this season, none of which were awarded by Mr Mason. 7 penalties in 37 games equates to a penalty every 475 minutes – one every five games or so. Against that background, Mr Mason’s failure to award City a penalty in the three games he has refereed is not especially troubling.

But what about penalties awarded against City? This season, unless I’ve missed some out, penalties have been awarded against us in domestic competition this season on five occasions – Liverpool away (CC), Liverpool home (CC), Swansea away, Wolves home and Chelsea away. So far as Wolves home and Chelsea away are concerned, I don’t think most blues would complain – the Lescott penalty at Chelsea seemed harsh in the match situation, for instance, but no more harsh than the penalty given against Bosingwa at our place for a very similar offence, and the penalty given against Micah Richards at Anfield was just plain wrong.

That leaves the penalties given at Swansea and in the first leg of the CC semi – both of which were given by Mr Mason.

This produces a remarkable series of statistics. We have played 40 domestic games this season so far (not including Community Shield). Three penalties have been awarded against us in the 37 games which did not involve Mr Mason as referee; but two penalties have been awarded against us in the three games Mr Mason did handle. To put the same point slightly differently, Mr Mason has refereed only 7.5% of our games this season but has given 40% of the penalties against us. Three penalties in 37 games without Mr Mason in charge equates to 1 penalty awarded against us every 1,110 minutes. With Mr Mason in charge, 1 penalty is awarded against us every 135 minutes – so we are almost 10 times as likely to concede a penalty with Mr Mason in charge than we are when anybody else is refereeing. Whilst he has awarded 2 penalties against us in 3 games, for instance, Howard Webb has not awarded any against us in 4 matches he has taken charge of, Martin Atkinson has not awarded any against us in the 4 matches he has taken charge of, and Phil Dowd – who has awarded more penalties (according to Opta) this year in the league than any other referee – has awarded only one despite refereeing us on 6 occasions.

Of course, you can do a lot with statistics, and the stats don’t tell you that we happened to play poorly in each of the three games Mr Mason refereed. Statistics don’t tell you whether someone was actually tripped in the penalty area or not. There is no automatic correlation between the number of fouls in a game and the number of cards shown – some fouls are far worse than others.

But statistics can and do portray trends and the trends are frankly worrying. Mr Mason has refereed something like 30 matches this season (including cup games) so there is enough raw material for the average of 8.3 fouls for each card shown to be meaningful, and there is enough of a discrepancy between that average and the number of cards shown to teams playing City for that to be statistically significant. There is enough of a discrepancy between the penalties he awards against City and the number of penalties other referees award to be statistically significant. The fact that he is 10 times more likely to award a penalty against City raises questions even if that just happens to be a statistical quirk. Then there is the fact that three of last year’s top 4 sides have won every game this season which Mr Mason has refereed, scoring 16 goals between them whilst conceding only 4, whereas City have yet to score with him in charge.

Thjere are, of course, ‘lies, damn lies and statistics.’ But in relation to the all these issues, the scale of the discrepancies between how City perform when Mr Mason is in charge, and
(i) how they do when he isn’t in charge, and
(ii) how the teams around us do when he is in charge
indicates that the results may well be more than just statistical quirks produced by us playing badly on those occasions when he happened to be in charge.

By the same yardstick, some thought it was no surprise that away at Everton with Peter Walton in charge we played badly, didn’t get a lot of decisions and ended up losing 1-0. We have too much history with Mr Walton, especially when he is refereeing Everton/City games.

We have looked really good in the last couple of games, but despite the thrashings we have handed out to WBA and Norwich, I have a bad feeling about Sunday, and Mr Mason is the reason for it.

After the elation of the West Brom result, a trip to a tough Norwich side with a dodgy record and the pressure of a title race looked like a potential banana skin. On the road, we have been more than average and there were question marks over the cautiousness of the management and a confusion over why we could be so dominant at home whilst been so passive away.

As mentioned in the West Brom review, City played with the Fluid Four up top, with each of them dropping in to create a midfield triangle depending on where the ball was on the pitch. Barry was Chief Mopper Upper, constantly winning second balls and positioning himself for the easy pass, and Richards/Clichy kept the apparent width in the 4-2-4 hybrid formation.

Upon the announcement of the teamsheet, I was very pleased. The only change was Zabaleta for the Richards, who quite obviously tired in the West Brom game. Requiring him to play three days later was certainly overkill. This is an important point and a stick that is used to beat the manager often; the rotation of the fullbacks. In our present system, the full backs, or more accurately wing backs, travel the whole length of the field almost constantly whilst still maintaining the high pressing game that is required of the rest of the team. Just as importantly as distance is the explosive speed that they are expected to produce at times, allowing us not only to break away quickly but also to support any overloads coming from the four up front.

It is an incredibly physically demanding role and in the system as it is, I can’t see this rotation ever changing no matter who we have to bring on. As it turned out, Richards was the one who started skipping a beat late on against West Brom whereas Clichy kept his energy levels quite high, and Zab was brought on to help him defend late in the game. To be fair, against West Brom Richards was ridiculous in how often he got up the pitch and transitioned back into his defensive role. He worked incredibly hard and Norwich away was a step too far, especially due to their strength and pace on the wings. More on that later.

With that said, we started off the game looking like a team who had played a high tempo game a few days earlier. Norwich flew out of the blocks in the first 5 minutes, made buoyant by that first rush of crowd noise and the speed in which we transitioned between formations in and out of possession was slower than you’d expect.

Formation wise, I was extremely disappointed. I wanted to see a repeat of the Fluid Four that I raved so much about in the West Brom review. I felt that we’re a better team than Norwich but understand that another high tempo game such as this, especially without the absolute key of Richards may have been expecting too much this late into a season.

The fluidity I’d admired so much in that midfield triangle was left behind, with a pretty standard 4-2-3-1 shape replacing it. Nasri and Silva covered the left and right wings respectively with Aguero pushing up against the last man and Tevez sat behind him, dropping back into midfield when needed. Barry and De Jong were the midfield two, and the back line of Clichy, Komps, Lescott and Zab was expected.

Not only was the fluidity gone out of our midfield diamond but we struggled early on again with the depth of our defensive line and the lack of communication/awareness between the full backs. To create the overloads and number domination that Mancini’s teams enjoy when attacking, both of the full backs need to push up at the same time. Having a single one of them go and the other faithfully jog up is simply not good enough. The point is not only to provide a wide outlet for a pass but also to drag a full back towards them, creating space for an attacker to run into between them and the centre back.

Good examples of this would be the first Aguero and Tevez goals versus West Brom. The problem when only one goes forward, is that it allows a defensive unit to essentially “slide across”. Nobody has to worry about the opposite wing space. If they ignore it when we have Richards stood there, he finds himself in 15 yards of space and can punish. Many teams have tried to combat this by allowing the fullbacks to go wide and slotting midfielders into the spaces but how quickly they can do this has often given one of our attackers the time they need to make the run, panic a defender into tracking them and creating more space. Aguero is the master of timing these runs so that the centre back and the guy dropping into the space don’t have time to work out who is covering what.

Also, as the fullbacks weren’t getting forward in the same manner, those lovely passing triangles that I described midweek between the fullback, midfielder and striker just didn’t develop. To be honest, it didn’t fit the system either way.

Even without the two full backs flying forward, we were much more rigid positionally all over the pitch. Aguero pretty much hung on the last defender, and Tevez became the third midfielder whilst Nasri and Silva were in that annoying “not-quite-wide, not-quite-central” space on the left and right mainly tracking runs from a very quick duo of fullbacks Norwich possessed. The name of the game very early on was rigid and direct.

Speaking of direct, Barry did get very direct in his passing in the first ten minutes, much more than we usually see from him. Barry is a world class Mopper Upper but because of the aforementioned depth of the defensive line it just didn’t happen for him pretty much the whole game. With a higher defensive line, your centre backs (Lescott usually) can take a few steps forward to win a high central ball, whilst somebody like Barry can “mop up” the ball then use his intelligence to either pass it short to keep possession or try to release an attacking player. As we were deep, it was Barry or De Jong winning those headers and when the ball dropped in front of them, it went straight into Norwich possession or to a City defender with nowhere to go.

In situations where we don’t win that drop of a ball but quickly regain possession (for example when Tevez came deep and used his body strength to piss the midfielder off enough that we nicked it), a quick pass to Silva/Nasri/Aguero is probably a good idea, so maybe I’m been harsh calling him too direct early on. And his backheel flick through to Aguero was remarkably clever and skillful from a player not usually associated with this deftness of touch.

As the game moved on, our energy levels seemed to heighten. Our pressing in the final third became very, very good and I thought that maybe our West Brom system was coming back. The workrate of Tevez and Silva in closing down defenders in possession was particularly pleasing but even Nasri did his bit. We do seem to have a mission of never allowing an opposition defence a second on the ball.

With his new found energy levels, Tevez picked up the ball and charged into the Norwich box with a penetrating run, got kicked then to the disbelief of everybody somehow managed to get booked for diving. I’ve looked at this a few times and the only thing that I can think of, is that the ref saw that Tevez was in somewhat of a blind alley so presumed he went down. This referee has never seen Carlos Tevez play; he scores in blind alleys more than Wayne Rooney armed with a bottle of gin and a free bus pass. Either way, it was a ridiculous decision that was particularly annoying when you look at Ashley Young getting penalties for practising skydiving in the last two weeks.

Either way, we soon found ourselves 1-0 up somewhat against the run of play, when good pressing from Silva allowed Tevez to carry the ball a few yards and smack it out of nowhere into the top corner. No matter what your thoughts on our golf fancying chum, he is one of those players on this planet who can produce a moment of astonishing brilliance that grabs you a goal and this was one of them. Norwich gave him 5 yards of space, he punished them with a shot that swerved so much that Hawking fell out of his chair in shock. Remember when your mate told you that he’d just got a brand new footy and you went round expecting a Mitre or whatever only to be greeted by one of those plastic things that cost a quid? It’s like Tevez smashed one of them, on a windy day. It bent in about four directions and the keeper looked like Mr Tickle as it sailed past him.

The goal unsettled Norwich a bit further and in the immediate aftermath they became very defensive, which suited City down to the ground. Their defensive midfielders started to become more like centre backs filling in to the defensive line. Again though, this was frustrating because Zab and Clichy weren’t timing their forward runs in unison and we ran out of options in possession.

As Norwich overpressed up top, during a counter attack they allowed Nasri to pick up the ball deep and carry it a good ten yards forward and give to Aguero. Like Tevez’s, there’s not much you can pin this goal on. This goal wasn’t particularly scored because our excellent shape released Nasri into space, or because our defenders did a great job or even because Norwich did a bad job. This goal was scored because Sergio Aguero is a very, very good player who created his own space then performed a pinpoint shot; sometimes it really is that simple.

In between the second goal and halftime began the period of most annoying football that I’ve seen from City for a long time. I don’t think it’s too dramatic to say that we pretty much fell apart for ten minutes; our shape just seemed to disappear in front of our eyes. I watched this period two or three times to make sure that I wasn’t assigning blame unfairly here but the evidence seemed to point to it.

For the second game in a row, Nasri completely fell asleep for ten minutes just before half time. I half heartedly joked about this in my last review, about whether he was dreaming about being a cowboy or something, as it didn’t really affect our game THAT much. However, in this game it forced us to create a very sticky 4-4-2 shape that pretty much missed a left midfielder. Now, I’m obviously aware that City play a 4-2-3-1 in possession which automatically lends itself to a 4-4-2 when out of possession but this was something entirely different. Nasri just didn’t seem to know where he was supposed to be; numerous times he drifted into the centre because Barry was busting a gut to track an oncoming right back, which left him as our furthest player back.When Samir Nasri is your deepest outfield player and it isn’t a counter attack, you know your shape has gone wrong.

At first I thought that we’d switched to a defensive 4-4-2 shape and that Barry had just gone to the left to try and deal with a particular danger that Norwich created, but during set pieces and even on goal kicks and the like, Barry was still a central player and Nasri was on the left. Essentially, Barry was playing two roles whilst Nasri sort of skipped around thinking of ponies or whatever.

Another consequence of this is that during counters, Barry became almost a box to box midfielder, not unlike what you’d expect of a James Milner, constantly pressing forward. At one stage, he had to get up to support Aguero and Clichy on the left, then charge all the way back to support De Jong, passing Nasri twice. Our shape and domination disappeared because of one person.

Nasri is an immense player who is supremely talented and his contributions were vital to this game and other games. However, seemingly for no reason, he goes missing for ten minutes a game and leaves others to clean up his mess as well as do their own job. I have no idea why but I hope he bought Barry a drink or two afterwards.

So, we finished the first half with a bit of a damp squib and I don’t think it’s too harsh to say that despite being 2-0 up, we weren’t dominating the game as we were against the Baggies. Even good ol’ Buzzer could see that maybe the scoreline was a bit flattering to us and our goals were moments of magic rather than well worked pieces of play. We weren’t playing badly really, but we couldn’t get the game by the scruff of the neck in the same manner.

The second half started pretty well. We were back into our normal shape, Nasri seemed to be back on planet Earth and was back on his left side. Norwich yet again seemed to get out of the blocks a bit more than we did but we weren’t as crazy-go-nuts all over the place as we were leading up to the break. However, with both teams pushing and Norwich winning most possessional battles, we did start to move under the kosh as the half started to get up to full speed.

The Norwich goal was really a problem that had occurred all game, but something that I want to mention later on. The result of which, was that Kompany and De Jong both went towards the same guy, and when De Jong realised that the other man had been passed to him, it was already too late and the ball was in the back of the net. Yes, Hart could have done better with his punch and yes, he could have got back into “starting position” much quicker but these seems to be symptoms rather than the cause. As I say, I’ll get to that later on.

Our midfield was suffering after the Norwich goal and in my view, changes needed to be made instantly. They had their tails up, they had possession and were exploiting a severe weakness of ours. In those situations, they were simply going to score another goal unless we did something about it.

Barry was never moving to create that safe pass when we were in possession, Silva and Nasri were losing battles with their full backs and the time it took Tevez to travel back into midfield was leaving them with both time and space in the centre of the park, whilst facing our goal and having guys moving in front of them. A dangerous combination indeed.

The eventual change was Yaya for Nasri. Sometimes Mancini makes baffling substitutions; ones that seemingly have no rhyme or reason to them. He is criticised for not changing a game or whatever. Here, he completely changed the game. Yaya Toure had a major hand in every single goal we scored after this and completely bossed the midfield. The fact that we were playing the shape in which he flourishes the most probably had something to do with it. I wonder where he would start in the Fluid Four formation used at home, if he even would? He doesn’t possess Barry’s capability to mop up but could play the De Jong role of covering the fullback space and generally terrorising attacking midfielders. He couldn’t play further forward in, say, the Nasri spot unless he somehow became much smarter in his off the ball movement.

Either way, with Yaya on for the ineffective though not quite as lost Nasri, Aguero moved over to the left, Tevez moved up top and Yaya sat in behind him though much deeper than Tevez was playing. Where Tevez started high and charged into midfield, Yaya was the opposite. Barry still covered that left wing spot with Clichy but was much more comfortable to see Yaya dropping in to his place and keeping the shape. Aguero is actually a pretty hard worker when it comes to tracking full backs runs and it also gave him a chance to get on the ball earlier on the left and run at the defence with his head up, which he obviously enjoys.

Our third goal came from Yaya solving one of our earlier problems. Our defensive mids were winning the ball in the air leaving nobody really fighting for the second ball. Moving Yaya into a midfield role allowed a bit more height into there but also gave a spare man to actually take possession after we won a header on a high central ball. He won the header, and we moved the ball forward eventually ending up with Yaya taking a shot that Ruddy will be disappointed in his handling of, letting Tevez somehow outjump a guy eight feet taller than him and restore the advantage.

Our fourth goal was almost immediate and again Yaya had a big role. Zab won a header in the right back position which Yaya mopped up and drove forward with. He gave the ball to Aguero who banged it in the net leaving both him and Tevez fighting for the hattrick. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trying to outdo Tevez performance wise which is as exciting as an invitation to a naked True Blood cast reunion, with complimentary whipped cream and cherries.

At 4-1 and the game seemingly over, Mancini brought on Johnson for Silva. Silva was fighting a losing battle defensively on the right wing and was becoming less effective going forward so it made sense. He’s recently had a knock then played two games back to back and we have some tough games coming up. Can’t hurt for AJ to stick himself in the limelight, or shop window depending on your views of his future career.

At this point, Norwich were already mentally gone. We had the run of the game, we were dominant in possession and chance creation, we were much more fluid and much more likely to add to our tally. The fifth goal, and his hattrick came from a long ball hit forward and Tevez chasing on to it, then rounding the keeper. As I say, Norwich heads had dropped and they knew that a drubbing was coming despite their earlier promise. If you watch the replay of this, you can actually see the moment when one Norwich defender gives up entirely; Tevez just rounded the keeper by slotting it to the side and the defender stopped jogging, making no effort at all to get to the line. At 1-1, he would have charged to that line like his life depended on it.

With his hattrick sealed, Tevez came off for Richards and high fives all around. Sub made perfect sense which I’ll talk about in a moment, with Richards slotting into the right back position and Zab moving forward to the right mid role, then AJ moving to the left and Aguero up front. A 4-5-1 like shape.

The sixth goal came from Yaya again picking up the ball in midfield then finding a pass over to Aguero, who put in a nice cross and a remarkable piece of control from Clichy allowed Johnson to slot it home and complete the walkover.

This game report wouldn’t have been complete however without speaking about Zab. I try to write these reports chronologically and talk about positives or negatives as the game develops over 90 minutes. However, I had to save Zab until the very end otherwise I’d be writing about him in almost every paragraph.

Zab had a poor game. I’m not sure if he was asked to do this or not, but he almost constantly charged towards a winger in possession and dove into a tackle, often costing himself. I’m not sure that him and Silva were effectively working together on the wing as Zab came very central at times as he charged people down and Silva looked sort of confused about whether he should be tucking in or not. To describe it another way, he seemed to be charging into Silva’s man instead of worrying about his own, which was especially important against Norwich as their winger and especially their left back, Drury who I thought was excellent, were doubling up down our wings. I actually lost count of the amount of times he got done with a simple overlap because he picked the wrong man, or went much too tight on his man.

Attacking wise, he’s definitely no Richards and I still have this lingering doubt about whether he really “fits” that position. Richards runs from very deep in explosive speed, then turns round and charges back. Zab seemed to start from a higher position in the wing and rely on a shorter burst of pace which I don’t think fits as if he has to cancel his run he is way out of position, leaving Kompany to drop into right back and De Jong to cover the centre. One of the great things about Richards is the surprise element of him arriving late and his ability to carry the ball 10 yards with him, neither of which Zab did against Norwich. He was far too eager to dive in and absolutely did not want to show the winger down the line or make a block. My problem with this was that when he charged out, he often charged 15 yards and broke the shape then left a massive hole behind him. If you watch the tape, Kompany went mad at him two or three times in the game. I know Richards had to be saved but I honestly thought that the amount of joy Norwich were getting down our right channel between the befuzzlement of Silva and the complete tongue out, dribbling madness of Zabaleta that he’d have to make the change. He did make it, though much later than I expected.

I don’t know, maybe Mancini told Zab to attack Wilbraham like the Scots charging the English in Braveheart but I see no rhyme or reason to it. As much as I was frustrated at Nasri, I was actually laughing at Zab. He left huge spaces, he can’t pick his runs and he isn’t mobile enough to play his position but this man is literally insane. He shouldn’t be a footballer, he should be a Viking or at least Glaswegian. In my mind, I imagine him looking at the left winger and shouting “see you Jimmy!” then charging at him. He reminds me of old City a bit in as much as he was shit but in a funny way. Whether or not you find it palatable now, I’ll leave to you.

Zab aside, I thought Hart’s distribution was disappointing. Often he can play a short pass but instead plays a long ball that loses possession. I know why, better to be safe than sorry and all that but it’s a personal bug bear.

For the geeks amongst you, I thought our corners were pretty standard. Attacking wise was a mixture of everybody charging to the front post leaving the header (Lescott) in the centre free and a small attacker (Aguero) behind him in case it drops back. Norwich just put a man on the back post and we didn’t really get a good flick on from the guys charging towards the front post so it didn’t really work. We changed to our other standard routine where we line up in two banks and the outside lot move front/back/centre leaving the header on his own in front of goal, but we never put anybody challenging to goalkeeper with this so it never works, Villa aside.

Defensively, we did the same “full back next to defensive mid with other mid a bit more inside” that we tend to do a lot. On a left corner, we get our front man (sometimes a Balotelli) to go extreme front, Clichy goes front, Barry a bit out from him, Nasri a bit out from him. Right corner is Zab front, De Jong next, Silva next. Big guys in the centre winning the header, guy on the edge of the box waiting for break, striker up a bit. Nobody on the posts which I always umm and ahh a bit, and the style makes Hart come for it a lot but there we are. Nothing revolutionary.

It’s a hard game to sum up really as we weren’t totally dominant in our play until Yaya came on to give us a bit more strength in midfield and the wing play that passed Zab/Silva by was a real worry at times. We seemed to lack a lot of off the ball movement, in particularly when we had possession people weren’t moving towards the ball holder to receive, rather were moving away from them into space which made us quite direct at times. The two Argentines up front were wonderful and their 2 goals before half time saved our nerves and awful lot. The third at right back had one of his “off his head” games where he thought he was playing centre mid and I struggle to see why he was kept on when Norwich were getting so much joy from that position, and indeed their goal came from Zab/Silva not really getting their man correctly. I imagine fitness levels, and Richards only came on late because he’d had enough of Zab there, hoping that two defensive right backs might neutralise their threat despite been 4 up at the time. Nasri was equally frustrating yet brilliant and his alien abduction episodes hurt us more away than at home.

My first reaction to the game was that we played badly but after watching the game again and really getting down into it, I don’t think we did. I thought we actually played very well as a team but had a few points that stuck out as worrying. Whilst the 6-1 scoreline may suggest it, this wasn’t a demolition and with 20 minutes to go, the wing play from Norwich was starting to worry me in spades. However, the Yaya change gave us a new vitality and Norwich collapsed as the game went on.

Nice win for us both in terms of the table and for breaking that mental block of “away form”. With Wolves away up next, it is possible that we could see another drubbing. If only Mancini would play his Fluid Four away instead of the rigid unsuited system that we played early on, we could have been even more dominant. With the Tevez/Aguero/Nasri/Silva and Barry/De Jong he’s trying to have his cake and eat it. He wants the creativity of the four like at home, yet puts them in a system that doesn’t work with that creativity. He either has to start Yaya in this rigid system to allow the service from midfield to the forwards to come, or he has to play the game that allows the formation of the wide passing triangles and the guys rotating to drop back into the third midfield slot. Wolves will be interesting for this alone. Without Yaya in the team, our creative players were either getting on the ball too deep or pretty much out of the game. In a game of stick or twist, we stwucksted but figured it out with enough time to go out and change the game, eventually sticking 6 past them.

If he goes one way or the other, we could see a cricket score at Wolves. If he still tries to mix n match, we could be in for a frustrating afternoon.