Manchester City 3 - West Bromwich Albion 0

Date: Wednesday 31st January 2018 
Competition: Premier League
Man City:
8.2
WBA:
5.0
Foster 8.5, Dawson 6.5, McAuley 5.0, Hegazi 7.0, Nyom 5.5, Field 4.5 (Phillips, 55 5.5), Krychowiak 5.3 (Barry, 33 6.7), Yacob 4.8, McClean 5.0, Rondón 5.3 (Sturridge, 78 6.2), Rodriguez 5.3
Unused subs: Myhill, Brunt, Burke, Harper
Manager: Alan Pardew 4.8
Referee: Robert Madley (West Yorkshire) 4.4
Attendance: 53,241

Brendan Clegg:

I think we got away we 3-0 tonight as it could have been much worse.

I didn’t expect to get anything and Man City’s soulless existence as a club competing in football as if they have cheat-mode enabled on Championship Manager 2018 makes it difficult to even involve myself in writing a report.

This might seem harsh but despite the injuries and opponents I thought we were abject in everything. I’m going to put it down to the transfer window & the fine efforts of the club in Cyrille’s send off meaning there was no prep time available.

We looked like a team who hadn’t done any preparation for a game at this level.

The lineup and starting formation were poor. I’ve loved us having a go at teams but 4 in midfield against them allows De Bruyne to kill you so that was naive. Added to that, Yacob cannot play in a 4 as he hasn’t got the legs and it was dumb to play Field at right wing. I love the kid but he can’t play there - give Burke or even Leko a go there if you’re resting Phillips for Southampton. What’s there to lose? They need minutes.

Man City play the highest line ever when defending free kicks - everyone knows this so have an idea to try against it. Nothing.

As bad as we were, in early parts of the game the refereeing was so biased you can almost understand why the players felt like not bothering.

Big Greg got stamped on and nobody saw it. Every time we breathed on a player they got a free kick; a number of times blatant fouls on our players, Rondon especially, were not given.

This was evened up slightly in the last 20 when the game was beyond us, in that a number of our players got away with what many would call red card offences.

At least after a while Pardew changed our system and we managed to stay in the game for a long period somehow.

I thought the 2nd goal killed us - McClean took the cowards way out by going to ground to foul De Bruyne. Had he stayed on his feet he’d possibly have recovered to block the pullback.

We just need to put this terrible performance behind us and throw everything into Saturday’s must-win game. We can’t afford any slip-ups.

  • Foster - 9 No chance with the goals. Some great saves.
  • Dawson - 6 Really kept at it. Couldn’t get forward.
  • GMac - 5 Attitude and commitment were great and did his best but really struggled against their pace.
  • Hegazi - 7 Defended well and managed to look good on the ball too.
  • Nyom - 6 Kept at it defensively.
  • Field - 4 Lost out wide, was better when moved centrally but really tough night for him.
  • Yacob - 4 Kept going but was very slow and really poor on the ball. A couple of times we might have been in but he passed backwards or sideways.
  • Greg - 4 Didn’t really get going.
  • McClean - 4 Worked hard but quality was nowhere near good enough and the tackle before their 2nd was lazy, reckless and stupid.
  • JRod - 5 Worked hard but couldn’t get into it.
  • Rondon - 4 Crowded out, fouled a lot but was poor too.
  • Barry - 6 I thought he at least got amongst them and kept the ball better.
  • Phillips - 6 Did give us something and looked a threat. Vital he starts Saturday.
  • Sturridge- 6 I thought he was a positive to take. Rusty but nearly scored and his decision making/instincts looked good. Promising, maybe not quite ready to start but needs a good 30 mins on Saturday.