SA’s Essay on Manchester City: no beating Hart, but let’s take heart

Big Sam as Fred Flintstone
Big Sam as Fred Flintstone

Sam Allardyce strikes a sensible balance in his post-match e-mail, accepting the disappointment of another defeat but praising his team, especially the new boys, for a heartily encouraging performance. With all the talent at their disposal, Manchester City were reduced to playacting and blatant timewasting to preserve their lead. Anyone betting on a City victory at cash out betting sites would have been sorely tempted to cash in their winnings rather than count on the cruelly early lead surviving a second half in which Sunderland were the only side looking capable of scoring in the second half …

Dear Colin,

It was an encouraging performance.

It’s obviously disappointing to come away with no points at the end of it after playing as well as we did.

It’s a hard one to take; on the chances created we should have not only drawn this game but won it, but that’s not the case tonight.

There was some excellent goalkeeping from England’s number one [Joe Hart] and he is probably the reason Manchester City won today. That and the finishing at the other end, one chance; one goal.

Jake: 'gutted - but that new boy can take a corner!  No disgrace lads, no disgrace'
Jake: ‘no disgrace lads, no disgrace’

There are positives to take; we need to maintain this level going into our next games. The new lads performed very well today and I’m hoping they recover enough in time for Saturday’s game.

The amount of physical activity at this level is not something they’ll have experienced before, so we’ll have to see what they’re like tomorrow.

[Jan] Kirchhoff is a class player on the ball, he’s very intelligent. He sees passes that not too many players see. [Lamine] Kone is a proper defender, he’s done the job tonight and the fans loved it when Yaya Toure bounced off him.

It’s difficult to come to a foreign country and go straight into the side, but those lads produced the performance we wanted from them tonight.

[Wahbi] Khazri was impressive with his delivery of set-pieces when he came on.

Tonight’s result is hard to take especially after our performance.

There are signs on encouragement there and we have to keep those levels of performance going.

Thanks for your support,

Sam Allardyce

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