Time for City to stand up

Wednesday, 01/02/2012

by Caroline Oatway, Shoot's Man City blogger

Another disappointing away defeat for Manchester City and the 1-0 defeat at Everton has put a real spanner in the works for their title challenge.

The Blues have lost their points advantage over Manchester United, having won just three of their eight games in January and crashing out of two cup competitions in the process.

And although we have been unlucky with certain refereeing decisions, I don’t believe that those factors are purely to blame for our slip-ups. The fact of the matter is: we’re just not scoring enough goals.

I never thought I’d say that when we were banging them in left, right and centre at the start of the season, but that is the current problem. Our impressive run of scoring at least three goals per game has disappeared. It’s long gone.

Some would blame the absence of Yaya Toure for this, but the big Ivorian isn’t our only attacking outlet. So why the drought? To be honest, I think that the main reason is that our opposing teams are now ‘parking the bus’ and playing 11 men behind the ball.

And for some reason, despite our expensive and extensive talent, we just can’t break down packed defences. We end up passing the ball around aimlessly before it returns to Joe Hart. It’s as if the players just don’t know what to do when they are in and around the area.

Samir Nasri’s long-range effort was our best chance against Everton because that’s what can happen when you shoot! Alright, it didn’t go in, but without shooting, how can you possibly score? I’m tired of screaming “hit it!” when one of our players is in acres of space right in front of goal.

I’ve said it for weeks now but we need to get rid of this ‘attractive goal’ mentality. You don’t get bonus points for fancy flicks and overhead kicks and inch-perfect through-balls. The goals that have been scored against us haven’t always been pretty – but they count, and they’ve lost us valuable points on numerous occasions.

We now face Fulham at home on Saturday evening – never an easy fixture. The Cottagers have been somewhat of a bogey team for us in recent years and they of course ended our 100% record earlier this season, when they came back from 2-0 down to pick up a point. With rivals United facing a tough test away at Chelsea, this is a good opportunity for us to re-establish our three-point advantage.

Our next five fixtures are all against teams that are currently in the bottom half, and three of those games are at home. If we can rekindle our fine scoring form from the start of the season, we could build up some momentum and possibly a strong lead at the top, which could well put us in pole position for the title before the season ends in May.

It’s time to step up and prove ourselves at Champions. So let’s start now.

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