Battle of Britain/ Celtic vs. City review
Wow. Just wow. A great advertisement for British football. The game was free flowing, end to end, unpredictable and tense. A great atmosphere too, from both fans. I want to say how well Celtic did, i thought they pressed superbly, attacked well and looked more organised than what I was expecting. Kolo Toure played well, Dembele played and chased the ball well and their wingers did well too, Forrest and Sinclair i think it was.
The match started at a million miles an hour, Dembele (looking offside) bellied a goal in from a set piece on the edge of the box, the ball was pulled back and Dembele taps in after just three minutes. City soon equalised, Kolorov drove a shot wide but was controlled by Fernandinho in front of the goal keeper and slots it to the bottom left corner. 1-1 after 12 minutes. After twenty minutes, Celtic were back ahead, Tierney breaks down the left, pulls a ball into the box with Zabaleta caught too central and Sterling tried his hardest to close down and gets there but blocks the cross into the right hand corner of the net. He needed to make the block and it's just one of them things. Unlucky in my opinion. Sterling soon makes up for it with, equalising 8 minutes later, controlling the ball well, turning the defender and slotting cooly into the left of the net, reminiscent of the goal from Fernandinho, in terms of the finish. 2-2 after 28 minutes, a lightning quick match.
We get to the second half and just two minutes in Kolorov, doesn't clear, Dembele controls and miskicks his overhead kick into the bottom right hand corner, a lovely finish but not a clean contact, which, in my opinion, helps fool Bravo in net. City were soon level, again, eight minutes later (for a third time) with Nolito finishing a fine move, the best we saw from City last night. City pressed for a winner for the last thirty minutes, to no avail, the closest being in the 90th minute, with Gundogan seeing a deflected shot straight at Craig Gordon to save. The match ended 3-3 and was a brilliant match, a memorable one which lived up to its expectations.
I'll give a little summary. I felt City were very slow to get into the game, they managed to level three times, get control then switch off with individual mistakes. The whole line for the freekick, Fernandinho not judging the play and straying right off line, Zabaleta caught to central and Sterling not tracking back quick enough and rushes to cover ground and not block properly and Kolorov's poor clearance for the third. All goals could have been prevented but we never got proper control and more disappointingly, we never put Celtic under pressure. We needed to make them think, get ahead and ask questions of them, that never happened. Celtic played their game brilliantly. If they play like that for the rest of the group stage, Monchengladbach and Barcelona could struggle at Parkhead against them. I've not seen Celtic away to judge them, but they obviously need something against Monchengladbach away and probably City away too, with home results too to go through. If they play like they did yesterday, it is possible.
City were well off their best yesterday, they struggled with the pitch, I don't know whether it was the size (they hit so many long ball over the head of the players, was the pitch a lot smaller than they expected?) of the pitch or they simply never applied proper pressure due to mistakes or the wetness of the pitch? Something wasn't right. I do think that due to Celtic's good form at Parkhead, City didn't know Celtic's weakness yesterday and what to do and turned up to play their normal game and not adapt. This allowed a lot of Space for high pressing and Celtic were very clinical and applied a lot of pressure. In the end, City showed a lot of spirit and came back. I predicted 1-1 before the game and I'm happy with 3-3, it means Celtic need to beat us at the Etihad if they finish level on points after six games, unless Celtic score 4 or more and the match ends up a draw. Unlikely, but after yesterdays game, anything is possible. We move onto Barcelona at the Nou Camp next, getting anything from that game would be a big bonus. We need ten points as soon as possible, that should be enough to qualify, eleven certainly is. That's two wins away and maybe another point.
