And and I'm torn between wanting rid of Mancini and wanting to get those players together and give them a massive bollocking myself. Is sacking ANOTHER manager the way forward though?
Adebayor was excellent up to his ludicrous unnecessary red card, which you cannot blame mancini for. Essentially that's what has lost us the game.
I dont think we were that bad last night but Ireland should never have been substituted. Without him as a link player our midfield is too ploddy and one dimensional. Barry offers little or nothing in an attacking sense and whilst Ireland didnt do much it was clearly obvious that he can at least pick a pass. Mancini clearly does not rate Ireland or SWP and we cannot cope without them being in form, so who's to blame, players or the manager?
Another gripe...The cornerstone of our recent defensive improvement has been with Kompany playing at centre back. I watched that game for 120 minutes last night and I still can't tell you what position he was in, although I suspect it was a defensive midfield role, something I've said before he isn't suited to due to his limited passing range. 5 3 2 would have been better with the players selected and at least everyone would have been in their correct positions. Why change Kompany from CB? Seems ludicrous to me. Would Vidic play centre midfield for United, Terry up front for Chelsea? Surely Mancini has seen our previous matches and made a mental note to always play Kompany at centre back?!! Surely to God he would have??
I could cut Mancini some slack if we were learning from our mistakes - but we're not, we're essentially falling into the same traps over and over again. I know we wont come up against Delaps throws very often but for me this exposes the larger problem of defensive ability from balls into the box. With Kompany in there we look like we can handle it, without him we don't. Simple. Richards did well last night and Lescott wasn't too bad either - Individually we did ok last night but collectively we are all over the place. Im scratching my head to explain why this might be.
I dont have any hard and fast answers, but I'll end this with a statement which you may or may not deem to be bollocks...
There's only one man for me who can provide us with success and the kind of football we all crave, and that's Arsene Wenger.