Liked a lot this Wolfsburg victory. It can turn like Porto vs Bayern last season but things would be more interesting with Real out. Real/Barcelona's hegemony at CL is so tedious.
Last night was nothing short of shocking. For once we get an easy way in the semi-finals of this competition and we balls it up big time.
Man City are not a good side to play this season. I know they have Kompany, Touré and Sterling out but their performance were reminiscent of Chelsea's against us in that they had only one player able to make a difference in De Bruyne (and he only just came back from a knock). David Silva was a passenger for most of the game while Jesus Navas is poor. I think City need to sell him.
Us? The back four was alright aside from the comical equaliser conceded. Aurier had big disciplinary problems recently and did himself no favour in trying to win the fans back with a, erm, what did he actually do? How hard is it to clear a ball?
Other members of the back 4 were fine I thought. David Luiz did a tactical foul that earned him a booking in the first minute but he had the most drive of all our forward-thinking players. Motta is not good enough to play at this level, Rabiot not quite there yet while Matuidi - usually so good - lost the ball on countless occasions and was poor going forward (again, very unlike him).
Di Maria to me was the biggest shock. He did well at the beggining of the second half but how shit was he in the first? Absolutely anonymous. Cavani we are used to, he goes missing but then scores a vital goal. Last night was the type of game Di Maria was bought to shine in for.
Ibra just had one of those nights. (A few words on the penalty claims, I think the ref got everything spot on in the first half. Shoulder-to-shoulder for Mangala's challenge while Sagna's foul was a penalty.) Missing the penalty was more down to a superb stop by Hart. You see, Ibra scores those every weekend and the goalkeeper just doesn't bother with saving them. Hart did. Good on him. Then he blazes over an effort. I'm pretty sure he'll score the winner next week though.
The problem is that City will probably have their absentees back while Verratti and Pastore will still be injured and add to that David Luiz & Matuidi.
Not sure how we're going to line-up but reckon we'll still take this. We must. Otherwise it's another season wasted.
Defence is still going to be a bit patched up but hopefully it'll not be so bad as to need Demichelis involved. Rumours that Kompany might be available. But hopefully only on the bench! Last thing we need is him breaking down injured again.
Pellegrini has his gameplan spot on. Catenaccio is frustrating us in the middle of the pitch. I don't think 352 will help us progress. We must reverse to 433. Pastore and Lucas on at half-time please.
Motta going off injured a blessing in disguise I say. We've reverted to our more familiar 433 now. Give us 20 mins with that formation and we'll score.