OTF

@LondonBlue thanks for the honest post. If I was a Man City fan I'd probably have thought the ref "did ok" too. One thing he eventually got right you dont agree with Grealish is a dick but if what he said has in any way motivated Almiron (who had a strong pre-season and has started the season well) then I'm glad he said it. Haaland is going to cause a lot of teams nightmares; with your teams incisive passing and his head down sprint any similarly sized defender won't be able to keep up and any similarly fast player will be out-sized. Pope's quickness off his line in this instance is going to have to be the template for teams to follow. When I first watched the game I marvelled at the brilliance of De Bruyne's pass for the third Man City goal how he somehow threaded the needle through a wafer thin passage. Having re-watched the replays he just got incredibly lucky as it was more or less passed into Willock's feet. It was great movement from Silva though.

Bruno being here surely puts a bunch more Brazilian eyes on our games too, and having watched them you can't help but be impressed by Joelinton's energy and his link up play. The one thing he probably needs to work on is resisting that extra push when boxing a defender into a corner, that little bit of over enthusiasm too often results in a free kick to the defender who will happily go down softly when Joe comes in like a bull in a china shop.

It's not a red card simply because of the height of the challenge (which some have suggested). The main distinction is he was across De Bruyne and not into him (i.e. de bruyne was tripped and not kicked) it was studs first and it wasn't out of control. It he came into the side of De Bruyne then it's dangerous and ared. He was actually on a trajectory to get the ball which is clear from the high angle. It's a cynical yellow every day of the week because he knew even if he gets to the ball first that he has cut across De Bruyne's run. I can actually understand in this case why the ref gave it a red to begin with as he was seeing it from behind De Bruyne so just would have seen Trippier come across through the air and De Bruyne going down. It was perfect execution of the VAR system by both the VAR and the ref. Ref still otherwise had an absolute shocker though.

And why should he, the most ridiculous part was he answered the question once explaining how he hadn't really seen it clearly and then the next 'journalist' effectively asked the exact same thing phrased differently. After a game like that there's so much more to talk about than a call that the shite ref botched and eventually corrected. You can tell in their heads they've already written the article and just need the headline/quote to match their shite.

In all the fanfare for the others Willock missed out though he had a pretty strong game in closing down and contributed to a couple of good attacking movements.

Basically three assists for ASM, two actual and winning the free-kick that Trips put away. He's MOTM for me. A bit tough on Pope, but I'd rather acknowledge our attacking play.

For their second goal, to me, it looked like Stones (I think) was fractionally offside from the cross.

For the sake of accuracy I'd like to clear up a common misconception. The ref, Jarred Gillett, is not Australian he's a Queenslander.

Bruno

Whose shirt does Haaland have?

Incredible game that. If you told me prior to the game that there would have been 6 goals scored this is not what I would have envisioned.

Botman with the Robert on Bernard

It's a fucking joke, they get away with everything we get away with nothing.

They're apparently allowed to foul us off the ball with no repercussions.

Willock was fouled by the standard of what has been given the other way.

Pope has been immense.

Can you imagine if Sven buried that

The entertainers are back

Common sense prevails, and you know, the rules.

It's a yellow all day, but never a red.

Fuck off, that's not a red.

😄

He's smaller than Usain Bolt.

Fuck