Man City review.

1st half was not pretty from us. Some awful wayward passing and miscommunication cost us a goal or 2. Only player to come out with any positives was the new lad.
2nd half much improved. Clifton the stand out player by far. Efete very effective going forward but so poor defending.
Once again though I'd like to see more players committed forward or playing alongside the striker.
Overall a good run out for mostly our reserve team. I guess it does make PH decisions that bit easier.
Well done to those who didn't attend

City just passed it around with ease, not once hoofing it up the field. A lot of their players will sell for millions. I have no clue (again) what our plan was. To go the whole half without a shot is very poor, despite the opposition. Twitter as per, blame the keeper, he's young give him a chance. I notice nobody blamed the outfield players for not having a shot again.

Our passing and last pass was atrocious, mostly over hitting the final ball. Some of our crosses never got a foot off the ground. They were probably a lot fitter than us and very comfortable in possession (first half).

2nd half we must have bought on a whole new team, either that or we stopped playing at a sedentary pace and it had an effect.

Almost non stop attack had City on the back foot and strangely their keeper kept hoofing it back to our keeper, we got our rewards of sorts through playing at pace, marginal offside cost us what would have been a sneaky win.

Penalties are a lottery so unlucky. Clifton was awesome in my opinion and made a huge difference. Onto the next match UTM

Clifton was exceptional, did more than Vernam in the first 60 seconds of that second half than the whole first 45. H's pressing made a huge difference to the games outcome.

Impressed again with Khouri think he should be getting more game time forsure. Efete was so frustrating, good at times but dreadful on others.

Overall a mixed back from the second string

I thought the first half we were poor and gifted them 2 goals. That said the defence did stand up reasonably well considering some of City's players might sell for a few million.

I am not a Vernam fan and he continued his poor form, being subbed for Clifton who made a world of difference. It looked to me that the 10 men of the City were quite content to defend their 2-0 advantage. They tended to show some quality strolling around where we huffed and puffed.

Given the pressure we put them under in the 2nd half 2-2 was a fair result and as for the penalty shoot-out, what a waste of time. I wonder why Hurst unleashes the attack in the second half of matches and not in the first half. Most of our games start this way and surely the best form of defence is attack.

Some super players in that Man City squad. And it's incredible to think that the majority of them were 17/18 years of age according to Paul Hurst.

Enjoyable to watch them in that first half. The quality was amazing. Their passing was just brilliant, and the way they played out whilst being comfortable with the ball in tight areas was fantastic.

Went to pieces understandably once they got the red card. But even still, they tried to keep playing the way they do when they had possession. Great stuff from them really.

Quoted from DB

I thought the first half we were poor and gifted them 2 goals. That said the defence did stand up reasonably well considering some of City's players might sell for a few million.

I am not a Vernam fan and he continued his poor form, being subbed for Clifton who made a world of difference. It looked to me that the 10 men of the City were quite content to defend their 2-0 advantage. They tended to show some quality strolling around where we huffed and puffed.

Given the pressure we put them under in the 2nd half 2-2 was a fair result and as for the penalty shoot-out, what a waste of time. I wonder why Hurst unleashes the attack in the second half of matches and not in the first half. Most of our games start this way and surely the best form of defence is attack.

Strike first, strike hard, no mercy

Took my 10 yr old grandson for his first ever game thinking it would be empty. Nope Main was fairly full. We looked like  donkeys just sent out in too a field first half...  They was faster great ball control  and confident.. Left us chaseing shaddows. And our players knew it.  Vernham has lost it by the way he looked. No speed and body language told a story.. Second half different game , we pressed higher up the park and held it there. clifton made a big differance when he came on  The new lad did ok and could be usefull . They still had a few chances to second half and over all made us look stupid at times . We move on back to the league where we will be back to defending out 18 yd line and i can see us getting a few tonkings in the next few weeks

It's amazing when you look at kids in football at that kind of elite level who have everything, speed, strength, skill, many will likely go on to have big careers in football and amazingly, some will not make the cut. I'd guess that the majority selected for this tournament are their best prospects though and it shows. The lad who got sent off will learn a lesson there as Pyke went down at the slightest bit of contact instead of staying on feet and trying the one on one lol. You can't slide in when you're the last man. The sending off seems to have rattled them and they struggled more after that when they'd been relatively in control.


We need to start games better as it's been an issue this season, we seem to absorb pressure in the first half and then attack when the other team are gassed, we need to try to put games to bed or we leave ourselves open. Some good performances second half, Harry clearly turned up to play unlike a couple of others who were happy to be passengers. The first goal was a horror show all round of wayward passes, after Hunt misplaced a pass Efete was better off not racing to do that awful backpass and letting it roll out for a throw lol. See people having a go at Cartwright for that when I don't know what else he was supposed to do with that, he raced to fix an awful backpass and got done by one of those pacey young players outside his box who was probably going to score either way in a one on one.

Frustrating to see some of the basic passes messed up by Town.  Last count of the times we gave up possession easily over a simple five-yard pass...

Thoughts Andrews looked tidy and efficient. He actually looked similar to their players in how he was comfortable in taking the ball in space and working his way out of it, hallmarks of the elite academy set-up I guess.  Be interesting to see how he does against a more robust and physical challenge.

Let's not beat about the bush, those City kids were unreal.  As sloppy as we were, most of the time we were chasing shadows.  If they hadn't gone down to 10 it would have been a rugby score by the end, they just didn't have the know how to see that game out.  It won't happen but if it emerges today that Hurst had Brian Barry-Murphy up in his office post game to sort out a loan or two from them, we would be bloody delighted.  

For all the talk over the last few days about Clifton, I think he showed why he's so important to us.  Isn't the first time he's come off the bench to completely change the tempo.  We've got to learn to dictate play in ways that doesn't revolve around a dependency on him to do it.

For 75 mins we looked like a team that had just met up for the first time an hour before kick off , lots of possession but no shots on target and then ‘ boom’ we suddenly transformed ourselves into a team that knew how to attack and the Man City boys didn’t know what hit them, ok they were down to 10 men and were tiring but the way town picked up the pace with Amos and Efete running down both wings we suddenly looked a completely different team and the 2 goals deserved. Confidence is a great thing in football and hopefully the way town finished last night the team must have taken so much confidence from that and can improve us going forward. UTM