I do not think we should pat ourselves on the back that we did well. I believe it was a shame and an absolute failure we conceded in the last minutes and could not see the game through. The manner we lost the game is unacceptable not the loss itself per se!

Bayern’s midfield, as well as their backs, were pushing forward as much as they could because they wanted the win. Man City was just not creative enough. Silva, Nasri… they hardly touched the ball.

Yaya is often criticised for his play. I don’t understand why because usually he’s the one with who breaks open an opponent’s defence and who has the intelligence to see what’s going on in the pitch really fast.

Roma will be equally hard to beat, I feel. Their performance yesterday, even if CSKA was not impressive, was good. They have fast players. I do think City will beat them, but… a tough match. Unfortunately, City will most probably finish 2nd in the group again. I don’t think it matters because in the knock-outs you have to beat everyone anyway. Doesn’t matter if it’s Barcelona or Real Madrid. If you can’t, then you’re just not good enough.

Well I agree that is what City WANTED to do, I think what you had was Toure making things happen in the first half to generate an attack on the counter. With the runs (as you mention) but also with his relatively underappreciated (IMO) skills as to ball control, retention, and passing.

To my inexpert eyes, in the second half we were playing much more conservatively, sitting back a bit further and Yaya did not really get into things at all. Not defending Yaya’s effort – which did seem to drop off – but maybe this was not the environment for him. In “Football Manager” world you sub him off early in the second half and then crowd the midfield. I’d have put Milner in and used him centrally at this point.

But my essential point is really that we did at no time “crowd the midfield” last night. We were getting passed around and bypassed quite often in the first half and at pretty much all times in the second.

I think the “City needs to play less with two strikers” is an utter canard and just gets trotted out every single time we play ANYONE away. Or even at home. Against LIVERPOOL two weeks ago. Liverpool without Suarez and set up defensively themselves and 80% of the City-o-sphere is cowering in fear at how big bad Liverpool was going to overrun us.

Yes, in a perfect world with Fernando + Fernandinho available for me it is those two plus Yaya in the midfield and one striker up top last night.

But everyone who wants one striker next time we play Burnley away really needs to check themselves and look at our offensive output. We had two shots on target last night I think. This is a team that often plays slowly, deliberately, and without a lot of tempo on the attack. When you have one striker all lonely in the box as Navas or Kolarov tries to cross in to him and the defense has had all day to set up there often isn’t much of an end product.

Just look at what we did all last year FFS. Pellers does not fancy a two striker setup because he does not know what he is doing. He does because the reality is quite the opposite.