City Palace post game

[ithuriel]

no urgency, no real hunger it seemed tonight and yakubu one bloke behind me burst into a nice line of expletives emphasising his contribution tonight .

fact is we are not good enough to break into the play off places.

[Parafox]

Let's hope the Thai's really are in this for the long haul and not just using us as a money laundering exercise... (allegedly) (by me)

[The Doctor]

When the team is on form, loan signings can be carried on the crest of a wave. But once the team really has to dig deep, when things get tough and we have to battle for something, loan signings just have not got that same commitment for the cause - understandably, they are not playing for next season.

Watching the City has been so frustrating at times because whilst Sven has managed to bring talented players to the Club, some of the performances just reflect the fact that playing for the club is not the same as belonging to the club.

Don't get me wrong, Sven has saved our season from a relegation battle, so we could be facing other frustrations right now. But we have had so many teams gift us results of late. Sven has had the chance to get the team into the play-offs this time of asking - and the owners will be aware of that.

Sven (if he is still here) has to make his connections and reputation count in the pre-season by making quality players belong to our Club. Otherwise, the Sven band wagon will be remembered in times to come as nothing more than a foot note in his Rock and Roll side show.

As I said, without Sven, we would be at the other end - but anyone watching City over the past three months knows that a top 6 finish was ours and we have gifted it away with complacency and expensive has beens (Yaks and Portuguese glove wearers).

One more point, if Bruma has got it in his contract that he has to play if he is fit (or not banned) then the Club has allowed agents to dictate footballing issues that should remain solely the reserve of the manager. A disgrace! And I wonder why the others feel they have to earn their place with that going on. Imagine that happening in Sales contracts. I knock on your door or ring your phone and you have to buy - no questions asked. Not even ****ing Vodaphone are that scandalous.

Up the City!

can we please stop with this complete bullshit - if he did have that clause he'd've played tonight (which he didn't).

First of all, why is it weale is pretty much immune from critism for a goal that even david blunkett could have stopped, yet if it were ricardo making that mistake he'd've been torn to shreds (and rightly so)?

Poor and unispiring first half, better second but still not good enough to be even contemplating the play-offs.

And finally DB11 - care to explain why, despite yakubu outpacing garvan and getting to the ball first before being pulled down, the ref made the right decision to not give the stonewall penalty and instead award a free kick to palace?

[Parafox]

...and fat Yakubu dropped. Whatever we are paying for him, its too much

He seems to be carrying his wages in a money belt on his person. Who exactly doesn't he trust??

[Guest Bilo]

Just seen the replay of Palace's goal, no joke to say I could have made a better stab at saving it. Diabolical.

I might not make myself popular for saying this but I would argue that we need to say goodbye to Logan and Ricardo in the summer and bring in a genuine quality alternative to Weale.

Westwood, de Vries or even Given on loan should be the standard we're looking at because a quality keeper can be the difference between success and failure, tonight's result being a perfect demonstration of that. As good as Weale was last season he's only shown that form in patches this season and it's clear that Sven is unsure of him given that he's brought in Kirkland and Ricardo as back-up. A shame but sentiment counts for nowt in football.

[AlphaMaleFox]

This says something about the game when our best player is Oakley...

[Leicester_Loyal]

Where are all the Ricardo and Oakley haters now? Back under their rocks I imagine.

I for one think Ricardo is a good keeper, Weale has cost us 2 points tonight. And Oakley has rescued one for us, but Sven must be wrong to offer him a contract obviously...

[Guest Col city fan]

Just seen the replay of Palace's goal, no joke to say I could have made a better stab at saving it. Diabolical.

I might not make myself popular for saying this but I would argue that we need to say goodbye to Logan and Ricardo in the summer and bring in a genuine quality alternative to Weale.

Westwood, de Vries or even Given on loan should be the standard we're looking at because a quality keeper can be the difference between success and failure, tonight's result being a perfect demonstration of that. As good as Weale was last season he's only shown that form in patches this season and it's clear that Sven is unsure of him given that he's brought in Kirkland and Ricardo as back-up. A shame but sentiment counts for nowt in football.

because a quality keeper can be the difference between success and failure,

You're spot on...maybe an obvious point but an important one to make. If we had had a better keeper all season i'd suggest we'd be in the play-offs by now. Both Ricardo and Weale have dropped some fookin clangers this season

[Matt]

We live to fight another day then, thanks to other teams fucking up aswell.

I'm annoyed but despite being one of the first to give up and say it was over (Away v QPR) since then and people have been writing us off become more optomistic, and for some reason am still trying to fool myself thinking we can do it, Im actually getting abit bored of it all now, I want us to take the most of our chances and actually get into those playoffs (i.e - When others fuck up, make the most of it, win ourselves and get closer/in there) or just being able to write the season off.

I thought we played quite well tonight, deserved it, made our chances but the same old story couldn't finish.

P.s - Yakubu has gone back to being lazy after a couple of games of playing ok.

[Guest Col city fan]

Where are all the Ricardo and Oakley haters now? Back under their rocks I imagine.

I for one think Ricardo is a good keeper, Weale has cost us 2 points tonight. And Oakley has rescued one for us, but Sven must be wrong to offer him a contract obviously...

oh for ****'s sake, look at the bigger picture and not just one game... Yes, Oakley was Citys MOTM tonight, but he has been consistently poor for the past two seasons. I was surprised Sven offered him a further season, and still am

[21st Century Fox]

It's obvious it was Ricardo's fault, his foreignness from the bench put Weale off which lead to the goal.

[Guest bennytwohats]

What can you say! Firstly i thought credit should go to Palace tbh, they were a ****ing dull team to watch and pretty shit but seemed to cope with pretty much everything we threw at them, obviously came happy for a point and got it.

I don't think we played that badly, just seemed to run out of ideas again, our movement seemed to slow right down in the second half.

Got to say i thought Oakley was phenomenal today, standout MoM by a long way, Mee was also very good - hopefully we can sign him up! Don't get the hating on the Yak, he was lively today, chased down everything and put in a few crunching tackles!

That goal though, woeful! So much time and such a weak shot - tbf i need to see it again but it looked like it just went right through Weales hands?! I know it's already been mentioned obviously but this kind of moment was inevitable after the whole ricardo saga, i was hoping it might make some people realise what dicks they had been but unfortunately not, the Weale love in carried on. I personally prefer having Weale in goal, i'm just a little embarrassed about the treatment of Ricardo on the whole, would be nice to put the whole thing to bed now but you can tell he's too far gone to get any love round here i think - such an irrational, over the top reaction that i can't see how it is just down to the fact people think Weale is a better keeper. Truthfully i think we need a new keeper either way - neither are good enough imo.

[Bugg]

WE-ULL! WE-ULL! WE-ULL!

He gave a new meaning to 'shit outside the box' tonight.

[ithuriel]

weale messed up but he also made quite a few saves since our midfield kept gifting the ball to the palace forwards, like king losing out on the edge of our penalty area.

i dare say ricardo would have conceded from one of the crosses put in

fact is we need a new keeper and ricardo was not it and by a large margin too

[Guest Col city fan]

What can you say! Firstly i thought credit should go to Palace tbh, they were a ****ing dull team to watch and pretty shit but seemed to cope with pretty much everything we threw at them, obviously came happy for a point and got it.

I don't think we played that badly, just seemed to run out of ideas again, our movement seemed to slow right down in the second half.

Got to say i thought Oakley was phenomenal today, standout MoM by a long way, Mee was also very good - hopefully we can sign him up! Don't get the hating on the Yak, he was lively today, chased down everything and put in a few crunching tackles!

That goal though, woeful! So much time and such a weak shot - tbf i need to see it again but it looked like it just went right through Weales hands?! I know it's already been mentioned obviously but this kind of moment was inevitable after the whole ricardo saga, i was hoping it might make some people realise what dicks they had been but unfortunately not, the Weale love in carried on. I personally prefer having Weale in goal, i'm just a little embarrassed about the treatment of Ricardo on the whole, would be nice to put the whole thing to bed now but you can tell he's too far gone to get any love round here i think - such an irrational, over the top reaction that i can't see how it is just down to the fact people think Weale is a better keeper. Truthfully i think we need a new keeper either way - neither are good enough imo.

Don't get the hating on the Yak, he was lively today, chased down everything and put in a few crunching tackles!

Agree with everything you have said, apart from this.... The Yak was utterly shite tonite - there are soooo many other strikers I'd rather see at City than him - OR play Vassell down the middle Sven for fooks sake

[Guest Col city fan]

It's obvious it was Ricardo's fault, his foreignness from the bench put Weale off which lead to the goal.

What point are you trying to make here?

[Matt]

It's obvious it was Ricardo's fault, his foreignness from the bench put Weale off which lead to the goal.

Grow up.

[MattyFromLE]

All these people on Weale//Ricardo's back - i get it, yeah Weale should probably have done better with their goal. BUT how many times did Kamara not pass to PVA who had acres of space? How many times did King give the ball away? How many times did we pass ourselves into a wall? How many short corners did we pass straight back to them?

Team effort. 4 points off of Leeds, still doable but highly unlikely.

[Babylon]

What point are you trying to make here?

I would have thought that was obvious. The fact Ricardo got blamed for things that had nothing to do with him, but Weale gets away with things that have everything to do with him.

New keeper please (not Kirkland).

[Bluefoxtim]

What point are you trying to make here?

A funny one - but failing?

[Guest Col city fan]

All these people on Weale//Ricardo's back - i get it, yeah Weale should probably have done better with their goal. BUT how many times did Kamara not pass to PVA who had acres of space? How many times did King give the ball away? How many times did we pass ourselves into a wall? How many short corners did we pass straight back to them?

Team effort. 4 points off of Leeds, still doable but highly unlikely.

The margin between success and failure is always a narrow one. I'm afraid that Weale's error cost us the three points tonight - and it WAS a major howler. We certainly need a stronger, more consistent keeper week in, week out. This isnt getting on Weale's back, its just an unfortunate truth that needs to be resolved.

[Guest Col city fan]

I would have thought that was obvious. The fact Ricardo got blamed for things that had nothing to do with him, but Weale gets away with things that have everything to do with him.

New keeper please (not Kirkland).

its not obvious - yes Ricardo being blamed for all isnt fair, but why the 'foreigness' comment? Isnt Bamba foreign? or Yakubu? or PVA?

[cc_star]

I thought we were out the race a couple of weeks ago, & removing my emotions from the equation we probably are

Having to gain 5 points on a team, when we're not still to play them is almost impossible, & even if we did gain those 5pts that would mean one of the other 2 teams above us are likely to replace them & not us.

We've done well to still be in with a shout after our absolutely abysmal run (pre-Burnley) but the situation is still disappointing thanks to the position we got ourselves in before that poor run started where even 2nd looked like it could happen.

tonight's plan b didn't work, we weren't quite fully at the races which is odd considering we could have been 2pts from the playoffs had we won - I don't know where the desire, impetus & motivation from the weekend has gone, it seems we need to play well from the start and go a couple of goals up because if we don't we lose heart and can't breakthrough or fight for a result. Its obvious we need a leader & a fighter on the pitch and along with a defensive coach should be the priority in the summer (along with Mee & Naughton of course)

[Little Foxy Lainey]

Grow up.

I think he was having a joke!

[ScouseFox]

Oh and Jesus, when you're not winning and there's 10 minutes left, Howard's on the pitch, let's not knock it around Bamba, Mee and Weale waiting for an oppurtunity to play Howard in behind hey, let's just get the ball up there, urgency was lacking badly today.