Manchester City v Burnley Match Preview

[oldcolner]

Tarkowski - cementing Southgates reasoning, he was bad today, really shown up as not top level, Stones looked a better player.

Hi FtD
Very true, if he’s keep on like that no one will want him in January.

[oldcolner]

Hi Sammy
Welcome.
I doubt any will blush they will just pocket the money and carry on.
It seemed we were second best in every position, I’m not sure what Sean’s tactics were, but why change a winning team? Three strikers was weird. Benson did well maybe Guds was not fully fit.
Bailey got off to a bad start and never recovered. Tarks was poor, Ben anonymous, Dwight forever backwards, Wood anonymous,
Sean still doesn’t know how to play City and our recent goal tally against them might be 3 theirs more like 30 over league and cup games.
Clearly Pep knows how to beat us!

Goal tally them 39 us 5 since last win,
P 12 D 1 L 11

[ClaretinBudapest]

You cannot buy goods at Poundstretcher and then expect those goods to be of the same quality as goods from Harrods.Our recruitment is the problem-it is not Sean or the players who are at fault.Add the pointless purchases who never get a look in but cost in some cases in the region of £10-15 million to the bad purchases who are either past it or not good enough and it all points to bad recruitment.
We have three to four players who are grossly overrated because they stand out alongside the mediocre players.Pope, Tarkowski and Mcneill are not £30-40m players.
On recent performances I think our players are at the most Championship/League One quality and therefore Championship/League One prices.The recruitment team have failed every year in the Premiership to fill our weak areas.Our Midfield is weak with no creativity.Our flanks are only good at going backwards and our forwards are therefore left to hoof and hope as a supply line which opponents have sussed.
The greatest example of just how bad our recruitment squad is was the latest addition Stephens.Enough said.
The best that can be said of our players is they are good workhorses and like yesterday they are give a lesson in how to play football.

[sinkov]

Maybe, but we can’t score so I think they are wrong. The others are so much better and threatening going forward, I doubt we will beat any of them and those are the crucial games.

I think they're wrong as well OC, but to be fair to them the difference in the prices is marginal, any one of the four could survive but I have this horrible feeling it won't be us.

The return of Ben Mee was going to sort out the defence, it hasn't, we needed to give the youngsters a chance, we played Benson, made no difference, we needed to try different tactics, be more attacking, made no difference. The pundits always say the one thing you can be certain of with Burnley is, they always turn up, they didn't turn up, we are always supposed to be well-organised, we were a shambles, all over the place, you could have driven a double-decker bus through our defence and not knocked anybody down. It's a recurring theme that we needed to try something different, we tried something different and it made things worse, as it always had the potential to do.

Our only hope imo, is to return to 4-4-2 and a tight well-organised defensive shape, cross your fingers and hope there are three teams worse than us, but I suspect the season has gone beyond recall, and the folly of previous transfer windows has finally caught up with us, as it always was going to do, it was only ever a matter of when, not if.

[Supersub6]

Goal tally them 39 us 5 since last win,
P 12 D 1 L 11

SInce the start of the 2016/7 season City have had a NET spend of £566.8 million ---how do Burnley compete with that?
Even Fulham have spent £141.18 million net in the last 3 seasons. Villa £214.41 million net in the last 3 seasons.
Bournemouth spent £176.94 million net in 5 seasons in the PL and had to offload just over £84 million worth of players this season.

This is how mad football has become when you consider that the takeover figure for the Club is bandied around at £200 million and you work out that Chelsea have spent £266.48 million net in the last 5 seasons and that they transferred Hazard for £103 million in order to balance the books for one season.
How do we compete with that? I don't know, however, we have done so for the last few seasons but nothing is for ever without real money!

[SAMMY BUBBLY]

You cannot buy goods at Poundstretcher and then expect those goods to be of the same quality as goods from Harrods.Our recruitment is the problem-it is not Sean or the players who are at fault.Add the pointless purchases who never get a look in but cost in some cases in the region of £10-15 million to the bad purchases who are either past it or not good enough and it all points to bad recruitment.
We have three to four players who are grossly overrated because they stand out alongside the mediocre players.Pope, Tarkowski and Mcneill are not £30-40m players.
On recent performances I think our players are at the most Championship/League One quality and therefore Championship/League One prices.The recruitment team have failed every year in the Premiership to fill our weak areas.Our Midfield is weak with no creativity.Our flanks are only good at going backwards and our forwards are therefore left to hoof and hope as a supply line which opponents have sussed.
The greatest example of just how bad our recruitment squad is was the latest addition Stephens.Enough said.
The best that can be said of our players is they are good workhorses and like yesterday they are give a lesson in how to play football.

Sadly I agree with everything you say!

[oldcolner]

SInce the start of the 2016/7 season City have had a NET spend of £566.8 million ---how do Burnley compete with that?
Even Fulham have spent £141.18 million net in the last 3 seasons. Villa £214.41 million net in the last 3 seasons.
Bournemouth spent £176.94 million net in 5 seasons in the PL and had to offload just over £84 million worth of players this season.

This is how mad football has become when you consider that the takeover figure for the Club is bandied around at £200 million and you work out that Chelsea have spent £266.48 million net in the last 5 seasons and that they transferred Hazard for £103 million in order to balance the books for one season.
How do we compete with that? I don't know, however, we have done so for the last few seasons but nothing is for ever without real money!

We can’t financially but we used to play as a tight knit team to get more than the individuals, but yesterday and recently we didn’t. We have been sussed - 2 or 3 on McNeill has made him ineffective so he makes mistakes and goes backwards. 4 goals from 9 games is dire. No one crosses no through balls no creativity no threat it’s not looking good.

[Balanbam00]

I look and say, S D's tactics are not so good (bad!). Man City love to stretch teams ,don't fall for it . When city's goalkeeper has the ball ,or we have taken a shot ,or its a goal kick. We should not try to get the ball from them ,if its played short to one of their players ,leave it. Our forwards should fall back into our defence. In that way we are more of a closed team. We can not get the ball when Woods and Barnes try to interfere.They are 2 defenders ,(perhaps 3 at times ,plus a goalkeeper.) Every time they pass our forwards and so have stretched our team.
Then that is a problem for our midfield, what are our midfielders going to do ? Move forward to help W and B ?Or edge back into defence?
Do they attack or defend they do not know what to do!! We have given City so much room that they can easily pass to their players they have opened us up!! They walked right through us,a stroll in the park ! Playing a team like City, our forwards should drop back towards defence ,let them do what they want .( its not our problem!) So that our team is more compact,distances would be between players and their players much shorter, not to give then 20 yds !!!! Let them come to you, then see if they can pass in a short distance were we will be more compact.

[malwayne]

Do you not think that SD has maybe considered what you are suggesting. ? Saying it is one thing, actually doing it on a football pitch against a team of superb footballers is another. You should be a football manager. Whatever job you have , or had in the past , has been a total waste with thinking like that. If you let a team continuously come on to you , the inevitable will happen. It’s just a matter of time before our goalie is picking the ball out of his own net. The stark reality is, that talented teams like City will find a way through, no matter what you do.

[Vintage Claret]

Having watched Burnley for over 60 years, including good times and bad times, but in all this time I think Sean Dyche is the most inflexible manager we have ever had.

It appears that the team is setup to play for a 0 – 0 score line and hope that we get a break, as we did against Crystal Palace, for every game. While we do create some goal scoring chances, of late we have not been able to take those chances.

After eight years most of the premier league managers have noted our tactics and figured out how to combat them, usually by playing to big central defenders, which is what Southampton did and even as it was evident things were not going well we made no attempt to change things during the game.

At the restart of last season, we had both Wood and Barnes out injured so Dyche had to play J-Rod and Vydra as our striking force. The quality of football improved we also gained several points. Once Wood regained fitness we went back to the same old style.

Since the start of this season our performances and results have been very poor, but we are still playing the same old style and the Wood / Barnes combination are not putting away the created chances on a regular basis.

While I do not have the insight that Dyche has in seeing the training or his managerial experience, I think it is time for him to consider that with the players we have there may be some room to change or mix our tactics as the current tactics are not working.

Over the summer he as continually whinged regarding the club’s transfer policy and now bemoans our injury list, which shows that the people running the club are not to bothered about our premier league status. They may be grateful for having to play behind close doors, so they are not subject to the supporter’s disappointment with the current situation.