If the win against Sunderland highlighted anything, it is that when City are in the mood they can make it all look very easy.
Winning resoundingly against an admittedly poor Sunderland team proved that City can accommodate the right mix of defensive solidarity and attacking flair in the team. And this all came after several jaded looking performances, particularly against Chelsea.
Mancini attributes City going off the boil in recent weeks to having to play every three days for a lengthy period of time, yet if City are ever to prosper they will have to learn to deal with high pressure games coming thick and fast. And I don’t have many criticisms about our manager but one minor peeve is his refusal this season to use youth players more. With the exception of Boyata the rest of the youth prospects don’t really get a look in. I appreciate that it is difficult to bed in youngsters when City desperately need to finish in a Champions League spot, but I believe they could have alleviated some of the pressure off some first team players by being used when the fixtures started to pile up.
Regardless of this, after the 5-0 win against Sunderland, City are exactly where I had hoped they would be at this time in the season, which is in a Champions League spot and still in a major competition. And for a team that plays boring football they’ve still scored more goals than most in the division, and interestingly they have scored more than a Tottenham team which is heralded as an easy to watch attacking force. At times Mancini might favour a defensive approach to certain matches, but he does this for the betterment of the team.
City don’t have many easy fixtures left in the league, so it is important to just take things on a game by game basis, hopefully the performance against Sunderland will instil confidence back into the team as we will need grit and determination to get what we need from the upcoming fixtures. But personally I don’t care if we get into the Champions League in style or if it is the ‘boring’ City that gets us to the promised land this season.
