And teams will keep doing it, so for me we need to then add dribbling and drive through the centre of the pitch. If they double up wide there is naturally a bit more space centrally. Who have we got who receives the square pass and just runs forward, head up to commit an opponent to pull them out of shape? We don’t have that central profile of player and I’d be looking for that left 8 in the summer. He may not be the answer but Eze at Palace is the kind of player I like

No doubt teams realise Saka is the danger man. We need more danger men.

Not sure why Ødegaard was playing so high today, it left him bereft of possession and unable to influence the game.

Martinelli switched off though. One moment of poor concentration and it costs you at this level.

The worry now is we look a bit cooked physically for the run in, and I really can’t see many options to freshen things up and keep the quality.

The seasons done Rich. We seemingly couldn't get Partey back to any kind of decent level in time to impact our season and unfortunately Timber was always a long shot.

We’re not the elite level in Europe yet, that’s clear. You could look at lots of areas in our team we should improve, but lots of very good sides could say that as well.
Striker is obvious and adding some explosive pace out wide, but I also feel in these kind of games there is an upgrade at full back that could benefit us. We don’t really know what Timber can do but he seems like one of those hybrid CB/FB who is comfortable on the ball. What I’d like is to have that kind of full back who you think must have been a winger in their youth. Currently we attack with a front 6 max really. Our full backs get forward but not really with much goal or assist threat and creativity.

Note Bayern’s goal today was a guy who usually plays left back floating a cross for the guy playing right back.

Let’s not give up yet. Of course the league is a long shot but we don’t play anyone anywhere near as good as Bayern (or Villa!) in the run in.

It just feels like we can’t go full tilt for 90 minutes right now. Get ahead in games and trust us to see the games out with a solid defence. We need to manage our legs within games

Players need game time. You can’t expect them to sit on the bench for weeks and then waltz into the team seamlessly. Partey is clearly good enough. Emile Smith Rowe is obviously not at Ødegaard’s level but he’s a good player. I look at Conor Bradley playing all those games for Liverpool. 20 year old kid who had to come in and cover for TAA. He is raw and made mistakes but overall was very good. Barca have a 17 year old at centre back at the moment and a 16 year old winger. That’s extreme but you need to give players a run and when you do, then rotation becomes much easier.

Critics will point to the money we’ve spent and that we’ve got nothing to show for it. That misses a number of points
1) compared to the real big spenders, yes, we haven’t been that far behind in transfer spend - but we’re giving away £75-100m in wages each yea that those clubs spend
2) we’ve built a very young team, none of whom are at their peak, grow this team together and gain the experience. First CL tied for 6 odd years, it took Pep 5 years to win it with City
3) we started from an incredibly low base. Spending £600m is a lot but when you’ve got to change up an entire squad of 22 players that £600m suddenly doesn’t go very far

.
I might be quite wrong but I'd question Raya's positioning ,
to cover the first cross that led to the goal he took up a postion directly out from his near post , a little more central he wouldn't have had to retreat at such a rapid rate of knots to try cut off the second cross .

By coming back so fast he was committed to saving a goal only if it was directed towards his left hand post .

Where it was headed he had no chance because his momentum was all going the other way .

Bernardo Silva with a terrible penalty in the shootout for City, just went to place it right in to the centre of the goal expecting the gk to dive and the gk just stood there and caught the ball in front of his face - the gk could have probably chested down that penalty.

City lose on penalties to Real Madrid

I think that’s overly harsh. Whenever a cross comes in beyond the centre of the goal every gk will be moving from the near post back towards the centre of the goal which is why strikers are always told you put your header back where it came because gk have to be on the move to cover the centre of the goal.
Raya would be a fair way down the blame list for that goal for me. I’d firstly point at statue-esque defenders who allowed an unchallenged header by a player on the run, you could also look at White allowing a very left footed player to move the ball on to his left to make the cross, white almost showed him the line on to his strong foot

It was hilarious. Feck off, Pep!

Would Conor Bradley have had much game time if Trent had been fit all season. I agree he’s done well but him playing was more because Klopp had to through necessity rather than chose to really integrate him as a genuine rotation option. Sometimes though you find out what players are made of by putting them in. The fear I have is we sort of already know what a lot of these players are made of.
I think we have to realise we’ve went from 8th to 5th to title challengers in 3 seasons and have cemented ourselves as title challengers again this season. There will be players in the squad that finished 8th and 5th where that was their limit so we need continual churn of players to bring in ones that not only sustain us as title challengers but effectively raise the floor of the squad so when we’re rotating or bringing on subs we’re bringing in title challenging players rather than players good enough for a 5th placed team.

It’s definitely harsh because the header was a bullet, but he was weak enough on Sane’s cross. He frequently goes to ground early to the extent that he looks small in the goal. I know he’s good with his feet, but I honestly don’t think he’s that great a keeper.

Final thought tonight and it’s been said before but in these tight games, as much as we’re a very well coached team, we lack that individual quality to grab a game and win it.
I’d go as far as to say can anyone recall any game this season where we’ve not necessarily played well, or it’s been a tight game and an individual has stepped up and scored something from nothing - not a tap in or a high percentage chance - just a top quality individual goal? I can’t think of one, we’re a team that relies on ‘team’ goals.

Part of that is we couldn’t buy those star attacking players who do that, we weren’t at that level to do that. We also had 2 very useful pieces in the squad (Saka and Martinelli) which allowed Arteta to focus signings in the back 6 positions rather than attackers.

Musiela is a very good player. I think he is as good as Salah, if not better. He will definitely develop into a much better player soon.

I don't you two young hill billies are getting what I'm saying . A bullet header has nothing to do with it because if he'd have been in the right spot it would have a been a regulation save .
When first cross went over his head why did he take up such an extreme position ? The bloke fielded the ball near the touchline so there is no chance of him getting beaten at the near post .

If he had been more central he would have just had to turn to try and anticipate where Kimmich's header was going ;
but because he had to reverse so rapidly to get central he left himself wide open to what Rich points out is to put the header in the direction the goalie was coming from .

I agree with you I don't think he is a great goalkeeper ; when he was standing opposite Martinez in the tunnel the other day I thought Martinez may be a bit of a cockhead at times but I'd be gloriously happy if we still had him .

Martinez reminds me of Peter Shilton ; much more presence .

The worry is how long will this malaise last? Will end here or will we be the same at Wolves? I'll tell you what? I'm not as confident of even the home game against Chelsea much less the NLD away. Not saying we'll lose per se but right now a draw is same as a loss.

I do take your point. But when you are a goal down with 20 to go and the opposition is completely on top, winning all the second balls, etc. you need to gamble with fresh legs. Changing the front line only and moving the tiring Havertz back into MF (not to mention throwing on Eddie in the 86 minutes--a move that is surely more suited to time-wasting when you are a goal up) was not going to change the flow of the game either.

Can I just raise one issue about your second point. How long do you think we have to win something substantial, before some of the young players want a move or are tapped up big time. For instance Saliba is being told at international level that he needs to be at a club where he is under pressure for his spot. Martenelli could be a target from Spain and Saka will probably remain loyal but if we keep overplaying him he might see sense in a move.

The other big challenge is Partey and Jorghino. Jorghino wants a move and wont probably resign with the club(from some media reports) and Partey probably has to go. Ødegaard needs help (I think he injured at the moment), so basically we need not only a midfield but decent back-up for the midfield. We have had a couple of years without major injuries to the critical players like CB's (Saliba for a little time last year) and Saka and Martenelli: but your luck doesn't hold forever when you play them without rest.

While people were overjoyed for City to be eliminated from Europe, its probably exactly what we didn't want. We needed City to have other issues and be distracted from the EPL. Still anything is possible.

This is our first foray into the CL for a while. Quarter final is a decent level back in. As good as the '90s Man Utd and '00s Chelsea and '10s City teams were, how long did it take to even get to the Semis? And Chelsea had a manager who won it before. PSG has spent massively and aren't close to winning it.

It takes not only a few years for your players to get adjusted, it also takes a big enough squad. The step up from Europa league to CL is massive. You can get away with playing a few bench players in some of the Europa league games. CL level, maybe in a group stage if you have the group sewed up. In the knockout stage? No, unless you put the tie to bed and you're playing home. Even a 2-0 first leg win isn't safe as we all know.

Finally, I don't think Arteta has quite figured out how to manage CL and league games yet. That takes some experience. He's still learning I think.

That's a worry for me too. We've seen it before of course.

I recall maki g the same tactical observation on here but at the time in the PL we were scoring from all over the place so it wasn’t quite so stark. In the match it became very obvious that Saka is the one that is the most dangerous in a game like this. Martinelli is not fit, Ødegaard barely so. I didn’t expect much but at this level it’s above the PL. sad but indifferent about losing because I don’t think there is enough legs in this current team to have gone further.

Need more squad.

...and Ødegaard. But we can't really afford to rest him now. Saka can be temporarily replaced (Jesus, even Trossard) but not Ødegaard.

Agreed it’s a concern. The next milestone would be summer 2025, at the end of next season Saka, Saliba and Martinelli will all have 2 years left on their deal, not drastic but it’s the time you’d start talking about a new deal. We also must ensure that if those kind of players do want to leave and there is nothing we can do to persuade them to stay that we sell at the top price at the right time, it will absolutely hurt but getting a huge fee and reinvesting with a careful thought through plan means the club can absolutely stay at the top.

Saka I’d hope has a greater sense of loyalty to the club that he could be persuaded to stay for a long time, but Saliba for example - it would almost be good for us in a way if he is the likes of Madrid or PSG making bids for him as it’s shows he’ll be playing at his top level for us. If we lose them hopefully it’s only because they’ve won stuff with us and want a new challenge.

Depends the effect the penalty shot out has on City and Liverpools result tonight.

When Klopp leaves Liverpool at the end of the season he’ll be rightly lauded for what he’s bought to the league. His high tempo attacking football was devastating at its best. Him and his back room had a period where they barely missed in the transfer market as well and he bought Liverpool from a bit of a mess to the best team in England and Europe……BUT….despite all that brilliance he still only won the two biggest trophies once each in 9 years, that’s not to disparage those wins it’s more to show the levels you have to reach to beat City, Madrid etc currently. Could Klopp have done much more with what he had? Possibly not, and it still only yielded 2 major trophies

Next season there has to be more players in the team to share the creative burden from Ødegaard. I would love to see a map of the positions Saka first touches the ball before he scores or assists, my betting would be virtually none of them would be from the touchline but that must be where he receives the ball the most. This is part of the reason I’d like to see a dynamic attacking right back in our side, the full backs pushes on and holds the width and Saka positions himself as more of an inside forward. See where Salah generally plays because he has a full back who stays wide.

Martinez gets a second yellow card during the penalty shoot out but is not sent off…..due to a rule I didn’t know that yellow cards reset themselves before the penalty shootout, so that second yellow isn’t a sending off.

Frankly it’s a stupid rule because it basically allows every gk a free hit at a bit of nonsense in the shootout. The psychological aspect is so important why wouldn’t a go just act like a pillock just once to one player, take his yellow with zero consequences

Well done Unai and AVilla. Not a great team at all but a bit like George at Arsenal, Unai is getting maximum from his players on these nights. It’s not just the players who need experience, the manager needs a couple of game plans and know the moment to change tactics.

I don’t know any Arsenal fans who bear any ill will towards Emery, despite what the media try to stoke up. I think he’s a tremendous manager but probably one that really excels in that slight underdog position and obviously his time at Arsenal didn’t work out but it was a completely sensible appointment at the time. There was too much nonsense off the pitch for him, he seemingly had no say in transfers and the Kronke team certainly weren’t as active as they are now. Could Emery have got us where we are now if he’d had the same back room and owner engagement as Arteta? Maybe, but there is still something for me that Emery doesn’t play aggressive dominant attacking football enough to be consistently at the top. At Villa his good results will get magnified and the poor ones quickly forgotten - like the hammerings by Newcastle and Spurs, losing to Forest, losing twice to Man U etc. which is the opposite of what you get at a really big club

Jeez… I hope the players have got bigger balls than some of our so called “supporters”.

Yes, he likes the underdog. He did get us to a Ruropean final which have been few and far between in our history.

Funny story but isn't he also confirming that referees cheat?

https://www.facebook.com/reel/962587768577981

I've always wondered why more keepers don't just hold their ground as I've seen more than a few PKs go right down the middle or just off the middle.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1130405094752263

RM had City PKs all sussed out.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C55iJDnM ... 9ubg%3D%3D

I always say if you have two opposing views of
a) refs are completely unbiased
b) refs are human and will always have some form of unconscious bias

then I think b) is a far more reasonable approach. Imagine having someone like Craig Bellamy chipping away at you all game then you have to make a 50/50 call involving him and another player? Or you have to make that 50/50 call involving the england captain? Or you have to make a 50/50 call with a player who the media have decided and continually tell everyone is ill disciplined and a walking red card?

I can't believe there is anything in Rudiger guessing the right way. The GK would not have been looking to half way to see what Rudiger is telling him to do, and no doubt there are countless examples of players on half way pointing one way and the player going the other. Videos like this feel like the guy who always shows you and brags about his gambling wins but never his losses

I think in a shoot out with players who don't take penalties usually it is a valid tactic, but I'd want to see the stats of how often the kicks are placed there.

One of the interesting factors in penalties is the time the penalty taker takes between the ref blowing his whistle and him kicking the ball. Lots of players shoot very quickly after the whistle, and are shown to be 'ready' and glancing at the ref waiting for him to blow the whistle - all shown as avoidance of the situation tactics.

Someone did analysis of our community shield penalties v City and every single one of our players was waiting up to 5 seconds after the whistle was blown - so they take control of the situation and remain clam, whereas all of City's players were taking less than 2 seconds.