Gerry Creaney's Free-Kick

The discrepancy in pace at which cards come out for time wasting for City vs against City is maddening

Who is more likely to finish as City’s second top goal scorer: Savinho, Doku or Maxime Estève?

Totally imperfect metric, but we lost 4 of these opening 5 fixtures last season. Plus Wolves was only a last minute set piece.

Phenomenal performance from City there. Tough with a 90+3 equaliser to not immediately look at the joke scheduling that had us playing Thursday and them with an additional 48hrs rest.

Projects everywhere. In goal, x2 at right-back, x4 (!!) on the wings. Also, as brilliant as he it, any chance of Haaland ever running a channel or offering an out ball when we need to redress the momentum of a game?

I'd absolutely keep him... but, how many project players with potential can we carry at one time when the manager is Pep and the standards are Pep's?

Send us some of that UCL money for Grealish

Unless the feeling is he’s staying put and we will compete again in 12 months time, this is deeply unserious

“How do I get a season ticket, Dad?”

A lineup that screams “we play Thursday cos we’re fucking shite” 🎶

Would love to know if they’re mentioned internally at City. As a fan on the outside looking in they’re the reference point for a successful rebuild. Everything they are now is everything they weren’t previously.

How do you square today’s approach with what pep has said in the past about how to beat a back 3/5? He’s on record about the importance of width in this context then plays us completely narrow with no physicality in the team to win the inevitable duels that occur when the game gets clogged up.

So much focus on City’s (admittedly woeful) OOP play, but are we that much better with the ball? Slow, ponderous, and weekly errors playing sideways or backwards. Astounding to see a Pep team that can’t pass.

Pray you’re only a goal down after 60 mins then get all the uncs off the field

Quality. Maybe too niche to make the cut but didn't Shaun Goater score the first goal on PPV in a 1-0 win at Colchester?

Savinho is where xG goes to die

He also broke this duck already at Ipswich!

So odd currently. The biggest games give you the flattest feeling, like a stranger in your own ground against Madrid, Liverpool…

The contrast with Salford, and hopefully Plymouth, is stark. Better pricing, less neutral interest, and suddenly you see young families of genuine Blues.

Lack of stability across the whole team makes it so hard to judge individuals. It doesn’t completely excuse Ederson, but what chance does any keeper have in an environment where you use 26 (TWENTY-SIX!) different back fours

Away wins since the opening day of the season:

West Ham
Slovan Bratislava
Wolves
Leicester
Ipswich
Leyton Orient

And now we need the odds on Sam as next City manager

City there with a competent 7/10 performance from the no.6 that felt like something from another world after the way this season has gone. Tears of joy at Nico bodying one of their breaking midfielders in the second half.

Other ST holders around me haven't been on the UCL scheme for yrs, but it's been really noticeable post-treble that it's too transient and non-partisan.

Obviously the money men don't care, but surely someone, somewhere must see the competitive advantage being lost and the damage to the product?

A real ‘Greatest Hits’ of the 24/25 season there. Got to appreciate Mbappé’s ode to Shaun Goater’s scuffed volley against Charlton though.

A greatest hits of the issues of the season. Individual errors, goals in clumps, legs gone after an hour, no goal threat other than Haaland and Gvardiol…

Maybe found a new one hiding in plain sight in Ortega’s shot-stopping.

Some catalogue of goals we’ve conceded this season. Appreciate if there were no errors there would never be goals, but so many absolute bozo individual and collective moments.

Uzbeckenbauer’s City career on the “Inverse Mangala” trajectory 🙏

Kovacic is nuts. So obviously a talented footballer but an extreme profile mismatch. Does he have a single trait suited to what we are asking him to do?!

@bluemoonpodcast.com Thanks for the free Heaven & Hell pod today.

Not sure today was the day I needed you to trigger repressed memories of Andy D’Urso’s phantom 10 minutes added time at St. Andrews!